My name is not Karen, nor am I a truck driver. However I am a white, middle-aged female living in a leafy-green inner city suburb of Melbourne, and I did have a pretty ugly altercation with a truck driver the other day, in the presence of my teenage son. My son later told me that in this altercation, I had been “doing a Karen”.
Not having heard this term before, I did a little research. According to The Guardian: “Karen is a middle-aged white woman with an asymmetrical bob asking to speak to the manager, who happens to be as entitled as she is ignorant”. Ouch
Dictionary.com’s definition: Karen is a pejorative slang term for an obnoxious, angry, entitled, and often racist middle-aged white woman who uses her privilege to get her way… “. Double ouch and for the most part, I hope, not true with regard to me.
Context is often everything, so allow me to set the scene:
It’s 7:30am on a Wednesday morning in June 2020. I have agreed to drive my 14 year old son to the tram stop for school. I don’t have to be “at work” until 10am so I have time to do the drop off, go for a run and get ready for the day. The day involves the final of a 3 day senior leaders’ forum with 40 leaders across 3 countries, 3 different time zones in a never before attempt at an highly interactive, strategic alignment event - all on Zoom. I am calm and focussed on the day ahead. I am in my running gear that some might call “active wear”. I am wearing my trademark bright lipstick but only because of a family joke. (My tribe shrieks in mock horror if I leave the house without it on - which in these days of “iso speak” also includes moving from the kitchen to my home office). We are not running late but every minute counts at this time of the work/school day. We leap into the car and I start to back out of the driveway, only to discover a huge, 30 meter low loader truck blocking my driveway (and several others). I see a guy in high-vis gear on the opposite side of the truck with his back to me. Here’s the exchange:
Me: Excuse me…. (in a bright cheery voice)
Him: (no response)
Me: Excuse me… (a little louder, a little less cheery)
Him: (no response)
Me: Excuse me, is this your truck? (a bit more forcefully)
Him: (Turning around) Nup (do I detect a slight smirk?)
Me: Um, do you know whose truck it is? (somewhat bewildered and increasingly incredulous)
Him: Yup (definitely a smirk this time)
Me: Well can you tell me whose truck it is - it’s blocking my driveway!! (in a tone that demands an acceptable answer)
Him – points to my side of the street to the empty building block next door
There I see another guy in high-vis uncoupling a large piece of earth moving equipment that the low loader had been carrying. As I walk towards the real truck driver I see the look of exasperation on my son’s face. Any further delay and he’ll miss the tram.
Me: (Matching and doubling my son’s exasperation) Excuse me, can you please move your truck! It’s blocking my driveway!
Truck driver: Yeah, I’ll just be a coupla minutes. (in a tone that I interpret as teenage ambivalence, further fuelling the flames of exasperation to a good sized roaring rage)
Me: But it’s blocking my driveway. You can’t park there. It’s illegal!
Truck Driver: Listen luv, I can park wherever I like for up to an hour
Me: No you cannot, what’s your name? (in my best school mistress voice)
Truck Driver: I don’t need to tell you that
Me: Who do you work for?
Truck Driver: That’s on the truck
Me: Right, your boss will be getting a call from me!
Truck Driver: You can tell him whatever you like, I’m not moving my truck til I’m done here.
By now I am furious. I get back into the car. I phone my husband (he deals with building site regulations) who is inside and ask him to come out and deal with the jerk of a truck driver. He talks in a conciliatory tome with the truck driver who I perceive is still being belligerent. After another minute or two, I wind down the window and my venom spits out: “JUST MOVE YOUR F**KING TRUCK!!!” To which he replies to my husband, not me, “Listen mate, the more she talks to me like that, the slower I’m gunna go”.
With my driveway eventually clear, and on the way to the tram stop, I do some deep breathing and calm down. With a bit of help from Siri, I find the name of the low loader company and speaki with Pat, the owner/manager. Pat is really, really good. He listens without interrupting, without getting defensive and I calm down further. We end up having a great chat that centres around one of my all-time favourite consulting/leadership models – the Intent-behaviour-Impact Model (IBI) from The Service Spirit.
From this, Pat and I agree that there was nothing wrong at all with John’s (the truck driver’s) intent. He is a solid, conscientious worker, doing a tough job with a very difficult-to-manoeuvre, huge truck. He has to deal with disgruntled at best, angry at worst, members of the public all the time. However, Pat has had to counsel John on previous occasions regarding his behaviour – what is said or done, or not said/not done. The impact of this behaviour is what trips us up, not the intent, which for the most part in human beings is good, worthy and sometimes noble - just like John’s.
Pat goes on to say that John has been diagnosed with ADHD, and has had a tough life. He uses his large physical bulk to intimidate people. I say to Pat that many of us have “issues” and “isms” and I have a few of my own and that none of this is an excuse for poor behaviour. As I am saying this, the absent, until now, penny of self-awareness drops and I start to reflect on my own behaviour which was pretty ordinary - indeed, bloody awful. My intent: get my son to school on time and me to work in a calm state. My behaviour: through mostly my tone and body language, peppered with the final few expletives, was aggressive and demanding. Impact: Poor John didn’t have a hope in hell of a good start to a conversation - with me on the warpath from the previous guy. We judge people on the impact of their behaviour, not their unseen intent and the behaviour itself is often misaligned with our intent, and it’s this that gets us into trouble. I wonder what kind of morning the first guy had had that led to his unhelpfulness at the scene?
I finished the conversation with Pat (a great leader in my estimation), advising that if John was still on site when I returned that I would apologise for my behaviour, and that if he wasn’t, would Pat please apologise on my behalf. Pat agreed and also committed to having a sit down chat with John about the impact of his behaviour. In this, I hope I have redeemed myself from my Karen-like behaviour. You be the judge.