Everyone who works, or has worked, with the public has undoubtedly dealt with the very definition of a “Karen.” Maybe even more than once. I briefly worked at a pet shop, and, more often than not, the older cat ladies who came in were 100% Karens.
I even had one customer yell at me because we didn’t have her senior cat’s special wet food pouches in stock. Of course, no matter how many times we explained why, she just wouldn’t listen. That’s often how these entitled people behave — well, much like the woman in today’s story, a religious fanatic who believed pregnant women shouldn’t even breathe the same air as alcohol
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Working while pregnant is a risk many women take, but a necessity that you can’t normally avoid
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A pregnant woman was working at an Irish pub as a waitress when a family of 4 walked in, and the parents immediately started asking questions
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They questioned whether she had been drinking and kept insisting she shouldn’t be there altogether due to the “alcohol vapor”
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The couple was convinced that by working near alcoholic beverages, the woman was endangering her unborn child
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They ended up demanding to talk to the manager, and once the owner came up, they decided they wanted the waitress fired
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After refusing to fire her and offering to have someone else take their order, the couple then started preaching about God
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At that point, the owner had already asked them to leave, which meant they were trespassing
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But as they refused and even called the cops to arrest the waitress, authorities realized they were trespassing and fined them instead
Today’s Original Poster is a mom-to-be who is seven months pregnant. As she explains, she works as a cocktail waitress at an Irish pub, and she makes it clear that she does not drink while pregnant or on the job — ever. However, not everyone seems to understand the concept that someone can work at a place that serves alcohol without indulging in the sinful syrup (you’ll understand this gaffe in a second).
The story begins when a couple, accompanied by their children, walks into the pub. Immediately after the OP seats them and hands them their menus, they start asking a barrage of questions, mainly about her pregnancy and whether it’s legal for her to work there. They also criticized her decision to have her unborn child surrounded by alcohol — even though their own children were present.
After calling for the manager, the couple ended up ranting to the owner about having a pregnant woman working at a bar, claiming that the “alcohol vapor is absorbed” into her body through the air, and then “goes to the fetus and harms it.” At that point, the staff realizes the woman is just problematic and tells the couple they can leave or get a different server. Instead, the woman goes into a religious rant.
Her husband eventually calls the police after they are asked to leave and accused of trespassing. When the officers arrive, the couple tries to claim that the OP has been drinking while pregnant. Although the police do speak with the expectant mother, they quickly realize the couple is the one trespassing. So instead of getting away with their Karen-esque behavior, they are escorted out of the bar and fined.
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Now, the couple appeared to vehemently believe that being pregnant and drinking is a crime, and the police told them it isn’t, and they were absolutely correct. According to legal experts, there are no laws that criminalize drinking while pregnant. In fact, only roughly 20 states have civil laws that define substance use (including alcohol) as child neglect, but only after the baby is born.
As for the woman’s claim that alcohol vapor can be absorbed through inhalation, she was, to put it mildly, exaggerating. While experts say it is scientifically true that the human lungs can absorb alcohol vapor, studies show this only happens under extremely concentrated conditions, which an Irish pub would hardly meet. It would essentially require alcohol to be vaporized at high temperatures in a sealed room.
Granted, one could argue that, at some point during the confrontation, the Karen was trying to look out for the mother as well. In reality, though, there was no mistreatment. Legal experts point out that U.S. federal law requires employers to provide “reasonable accommodations” for pregnant employees. Unless the OP’s job posed a direct risk to her pregnancy, the owner had no legal obligation to fire her.
After reading the story, many netizens were baffled by the woman’s double standards. Her own children were at the pub, surrounded by alcohol, yet she seemed to believe it was only a concern for a fetus that wasn’t even hers. The irony didn’t go unnoticed, and they were quick to call her out. So, do you agree with the Karen that the OP shouldn’t have been working in that environment, or was it all just bogus?
Netizens were flabbergasted at the woman’s entitlement, realizing the irony that her children were in the same environment as they were
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