Introduction:
Let me tell you an age-old parable. There once was an upper-middle-aged woman, and she was very, very thirsty for some tap water. She needed it, real bad. She was dehydrated, and at any moment her thirst for tap water would become severe. In her vulnerable state, she was tasked with crossing a massive, totally packed asphalt parking lot in ninety degree heat. It was the only way to get herself some of that delicious, nay, succulent tap water. Finally, she entered a restaurant. Her task was simple but urgent: receive a glass of tap water.
What does this thirsty woman (let’s call her Martha) have to do with you? Well, her story is a perfect case study in the ancient art of confrontation. Confrontation is a powerful tool that we all must familiarize ourselves with at some point. To avoid confrontation is to limit your ability to communicate openly, set boundaries, and ensure your needs are met. But when confrontational behavior goes unchecked, you will rarely get what you’re looking for. Improper execution of confrontation is bound to cause needless frustration both to you and to those around you. You must learn to strike a balance. Be cautious, yet comfortable, while expressing your position in the face of conflict. Do it right, and you will be way closer to getting what you want and need from others.
Back to Martha and her thirst for tap water. Clearly, the stakes for Martha in this situation are quite high. If she doesn’t hydrate, and soon, she could diedrate. She has, at this point, already spoken with an employee twice to confirm that her server knew she was seated. She knew the implications of bothering the employee again, but saw no other choice. Any more of this neglect and she would be forced to drink from the faucet of the bathroom sink like a dog at a sprinkler head. This time, she got up and walked to the hostess stand. “Are you sure my server knows I’m here?” The employee gave a quick, dismissive “Yes, she does.” Clearly Martha’s experience in the restaurant was not a priority to this insolent young service worker. Martha very much needed this girl to understand her position, so, keeping it brief, she explained the circumstances. “Good, because I would really like a glass of water >:( !” She hated that it had come to that. But she had already been thirsty when she entered the establishment and she didn’t have another five minutes to waste. “I’m sure you would,” the disrespectful brat clapped back. This response from the service worker was disappointing, to say the least. Evidently, fetching Martha’s water herself had not even occured to the employee.
So, what is a thirsty Martha to do? If she avoids conflict with a restaurant employee out of fear, she may very well die of thirst at this table for one. She must become confrontational in the name of her physical health and wellness. She must protect her honor. Here’s where I tell you that Martha’s story is inspired by true events. She is an excellent case study in confrontation gone wrong, as we will soon come to find through analysis of her choices and behavior. Of course, it is important to note that certain aspects of her story have been fictionalized in order to enhance our study of confrontational strategy. That being said, Martha’s adventures in confronting service workers represent merely one iteration of a timeless tale. In what follows, I will take you through Martha’s next steps, and show you exactly where she went wrong. We will uncover the risks of getting confrontational, and study important strategies developed by me, a person who has been studying the art since birth. Let us begin with a quick look at Martha’s approach to confronting this unmannerly food service employee.
The Martha Response:
So Martha has been cleverly roasted by a young woman who is being paid to serve her. She is thirsty. She is offended. And now she must not only receive a glass of tap water, but also defend her honor against this foolery. She sits, unreactive, for a few seconds before abruptly storming out of the establishment, declaring that she’s never had to wait this long for service before. She catches her breath outside, emotionally injured by the aggressions of this evil new hire. But then, BINGO, she remembers: the customer is always right. She gathers herself and re-enters the establishment. She asks for a manager. She screams about disrespect and mistreatment, unfurling her version of events with a bold entitlement to the immediate firing of the “little bitch” at the front desk. She turns to the bitch, expressing her dissent one last time, before leaving the restaurant, never to return. She feels good about the closure she has just afforded herself.
But just as her blood pressure began to drop to a healthy level, Martha realized that she was officially the thirstiest she had ever been. She lusted for water the way a dragonfly lusts for a mate in summer. And unfortunately, she had just given up her table inside the restaurant and passionately declared that she would never come back. Tragically, Martha would have no choice but to diedrate.
As is clear by now, Martha mishandled this situation. How do we know for sure? Because she pulled out all the stops and still, she never got her glass of tap water. Plus, the little bitch that she had just accosted was still employed, and had just found Martha’s small business on Yelp. She was awarding Martha’s nail salon a one star review with the following remark: “This woman came into the restaurant where I work and called me a little bitch.” That was sure to be bad for Martha’s business. Pretty much none of Martha’s preferred outcomes had been obtained, and she was left to relive her public tantrum over again in her head, for eternity.
What Went Wrong:
So, where did Martha go wrong? Surely she shouldn’t have fled the scene of the disrespect. Surely confrontation was indeed in order. I am not here to argue with Martha’s decision to get feisty: in fact, I encourage all of you to get defensive and aggressive should the need to do so arise from your point of view. But if you’re going to fight someone, you should at least implement some basic strategy. So let’s walk through some of Martha’s biggest mistakes, and their consequences.
Mistake #1: Being a Karen before things even got ugly. Before Martha made the choice to involve the rest of the restaurant’s employees and customers in her conflict, she displayed a laundry list of classic karenisms. She expressed disapproval of the restaurant’s service before its employees had an actual chance to fail her. She announced that the restaurant had lost her business before she sought reparation from the establishment. Only after exposing herself as a Karen did she utter that most predictable, cliche one liner: “I would like to speak with a manager.” The problem that underlies all of these missteps is that Martha was hasty with her aggressions. She exercised no restraint, and appeared eager for a brawl from the moment she walked in the door. This eagerness to fight restaurant employees exposed Martha as a Karen, and she thus had already lost all credibility with the restaurant manager by the time she sought his allyship. If Martha had wanted her complaints to be taken seriously, she should have been less outward with her escalation of the situation. Instead, she naturally appeared responsible for the drama in full.
Mistake #2: Failing to consider the perspective of her audience. Martha demonstrated a severe lack of ability to place herself in the shoes of another. She chose to escalate the conflict by involving a host of witnesses, from employees, to managers, to customers. Unfortunately, this worked against her, since the witnesses she drew into her scene had already formed quite negative opinions of her, and would thus not serve as the sympathetic third party that she would need to bring down the little bitch. If she had exercised any awareness of the classic perspectival divide between customer and employee, she would have realized that even the hiring manager is more on the hostess’ team than the customer’s. And if she had been more situationally aware, she would have realized that the wait staff and manager had noticed her karenistic tendencies immediately, and had already formed a negative opinion of her by the time she blew up with rage. The point is, Martha failed to appropriately gauge the perspectives of her audience, and her confrontation was thus ill-adapted to her circumstances.
Mistake #3: Using profanity in her recount of events. Martha’s use of the term “little bitch” was a pretty big mistake. Whatever credibility she still had with the recipient of her complaints was lost entirely upon her utterance of such naughty words. Her decision to use name-calling to express her anger made her appear reactive, impulsive, and irrational. Calling a stranger a bitch is rarely ever called for, and in this case, it made her claims of being needlessly disrespected seem a bit unlikely. Essentially, her inability to control her temper made her seem like the problematic one in the situation. If she wanted to get the hostess in trouble, she should have implemented a more shocked and confused response, not an angry one.
Mistake #4: Losing sight of her ultimate goal. In her fit of rage, Martha forgot that what she really wanted was a glass of tap water. If she had just reminded herself of her ultimate goal, she could have been given her tap water within seconds following her final complaint to the hostess. Unfortunately, her feelings of anger toward the service workers at the establishment threw her into a blinding rage, and she lost sight of what was really important. The consequence: no water.
Mistake #5: Assuming that her behavior would not have consequences. Most importantly of all, Martha’s eagerness to fight made her feel powerful, invincible. But no one is invincible. And if you make someone angry enough, they just might retaliate. Now, I am not one to condone retaliation, but I will say that everyone has boundaries, and if their boundaries are crossed, for example by a customer who thinks it is permissible to treat them like shit, they will eventually stop being tolerant. Martha felt secure in her role as a customer, but as it turns out, the customer is wrong when they verbally assault the restaurant’s cutest employee. As such, Martha’s nail salon earned itself a one star review, which brought her average rating down to three stars. Better luck next time Martha.
How It’s Done: The Right Way to Get Feisty
So Martha lost that battle, obviously. But who won? Well, the little bitch did, believe it or not. And though she only had three speaking lines, and almost no opportunity to defend her version of events, she was left unscathed at the end of the day. Why? Because she is a strategist. Let’s have a look at what she did right.
Strategy #1: Exercise restraint. The employee did not want to fight Martha. In fact, she just wanted Martha to eat, pay, and leave. She had no intention of engaging in a conflict that day, and so when Martha became a difficult customer, she was patient and non-reactive. That is, until she reached her limit. But even then, she kept her clapback short and sweet. If she had truly behaved like a little bitch, things may have ended differently for her. If not because someone witnessed her outburst, then perhaps because her outburst was consistent with previous demonstrations of impulsivity and reactivity. But the bitch was in fact, not a bitch, and never had been, at least since starting work at the restaurant. Her coworkers knew her to be a poised, normal individual without a temper problem. So when she was brought into conflict with a customer, it was easy enough to assume that the customer was being unreasonable.
Strategy #2: Do not incriminate yourself. Along the same lines, it is crucially important not to incriminate yourself during the conflict. Do not use strong or offensive language, and respond only in a way that you would be willing to describe to a third party, in detail, at a later time. Now, this does not necessarily mean that you can’t roast the aggressor who has disrupted your peaceful day. In fact, it is important not to let someone be rude to you without some kind of rebuttal. But be aware that anything you say can and will be used against you in the later stages of the conflict. So, whatever you say, keep it brief, and make sure any alleged disrespect is plausibly deniable. “I’m sure you would,” is a great example of a rebuttal that is both minorly passive aggressive, as well as versatile and context-dependent. The phrase can easily be reframed to express a sentiment other than rage. For example, it may just as well be used to express sympathy.
Strategy #3: Clearly express productive motives. If it seems like you want to fight, then your aggressive behavior will be taken as just that. But if you are genuinely attempting to de-escalate or resolve a situation, then you will likely be able to do just that. Even if your opponent is unwilling to engage in de-escalation, your refusal to actively participate in a battle will preserve your image and your inner peace. It is important to remember that, even when faced with the most audacious of individuals, our motive should alway be to achieve our incentives in a peaceful manner, with as little harm done as possible. The more you embrace conflict, the more problems you create for your future self. Though a little bit of passive aggression or outright communication may be necessary, it should not be allowed to escalate into a childlike display of anger. Keep your cool and handle yourself like a grown-up.
Strategy #4: Allow any witnesses to observe your peaceful demeanor. If the dynamics between you and your opponent are unbalanced, and you are keeping your cool as discussed, it will be difficult for your opponent to bring in witnesses as a third party. Involving a third party is a common tactic used by karens and other conflict-thirsty individuals, so it is important to make sure you maintain alliance with those around you. If the karen is forced to remain independent in the conflict, they are likely to get stuck in a web of their own destructive behavior. Bonus points if they are barely even able to upset you due to your stable sense of self and ability to regulate your emotions.
Strategy #5: Hold your ground. Although you never want to allow another person to make you spiral out of control, it is important to protect yourself against aggressive, harmful discourse. You cannot control how other people treat you, but you can choose not to tolerate disrespect. In order to set boundaries for yourself and command respect, it is crucial that you engage in light, passive aggressive confrontation in the face of demeaning behavior from others. Even if you are an employee fighting with a customer, a child fighting with an adult, a student fighting with a teacher, or involved in some similar imbalance of power, you must never let another human being treat you like shit. Of course, we must pick our battles in life so as not to exhaust ourselves with pointless conflict. But establish your personal boundaries in advance, and when they are crossed, don’t hesitate to protect yourself. Also if you hold your ground, your opponent will be more likely to gaslight themself into submission.
Conclusion:
Don’t be a karen, be a little bitch. Don’t let anyone walk all over you. And most importantly of all, don’t incriminate yourself. Be strategic. Fight your battle with a calm voice, even breath, and subtle yet impactful word choice. Be a good person and the rare instance of conflict will not be your downfall. But act like a karen and you’ll lose pretty much every fight you take on. I hope this article inspires you to practice subtle passive aggression, when defensiveness is required of you. And I hope you find that consistent, good behavior will help you build the credibility that matters most when you are forced to duke it out in a battle of wit. bye