Have you ever wanted to shop in peace but felt like workers wouldn’t simply leave you alone? Perhaps you’ve been to your favorite store once or twice and it felt like a worker was watching you closely. A man in Illinois now thinks that he was racially profiled by an annoying Karen worker at a Dr. Martens store. What started as a routine hunt for boots escalated into a dramatic confrontation due to the worker’s handling of the situation.
Malcolm Simmons (@malcolmsimmons737) posted a video on TikTok showing his recent experience at a Dr. Martens in Illinois’ Woodfield Mall. In the video, you can see a white female employee speaking to a manager on a phone. She tells Malcolm that he isn’t allowed to record her. When he asks why he’s being kicked out of the store, she just tells him that it’s “against our policy” for him to record. When he asks her a second time, she starts to say that she was simply “asking him questions”. He tells her that he said he was “fine” and wanted to be left to do his shopping in peace.
The Karen worker tells him that part of their job is to ask the customers if they need help. That may be true, but Malcolm reiterates that he said he was doing fine shopping on his own. He says that he owns several Dr. Martens already and was trying to see if they had anything new. A second employee then asks him, “If you have them all, then why are you here?” Malcolm responds, “Because I can come in here.”
In the caption for the video, Malcolm explains that the confrontation started when the Karen worker asked him if he needed help. When he said no, he kept browsing. She came up to him a second time and said, “You know you are looking at a woman’s shoe.” He said that he knew this, and then she asked him to leave because he was being “rude.” Malcolm believes that the worker was racially profiling him and wanted him out of the store because of his race.
Due to the interaction, commenters agreed that the worker didn’t handle this the best way. One person said, “I’m convinced they don’t teach customer service skills anymore.” Another commenter believes that upper management is to blame for the interaction. She said, “I need to show my manager this video. CAUSE NOT EVERYONE WANTS YOU TO BE ON TOP OF THEM WHILE SHOPPING! I wouldn’t have gotten mad I woulda left him alone!” The disrespectful and somewhat entitled way they handled this is not new. Sometimes, customer service itself is the Karen and not the actual customer.
