What is an experience you had with a "Karen" you'll never forget?

Apologies, but here’s another banking story. I was the branch manager of Hammersmith and its sub-branch in Shepherds Bush. Hammersmith was an “angry” branch, always very busy and with an amazing cross-section of customers. BBC stars, Wimbledon tennis players, to illegal immigrants trying to open an account. A real cross-section of British society.

My staff were brilliant. Most had worked there for several years and, like our customers, were a varied bunch. My assistant manager, Jack, was a proud Irishman, then there we had several whose parents were from Africa, Asia, an eastern European nation (my memory isn't as good as it once was) and two from the Middle-East. A propper United Nations.

To set the scene, I’d been a bank manager for over two decades and this was the sixth branch in my managerial career. After a time, you normally get a sixth sense about customers, telling you which ones are going to be fun, rude or downright dangerous. It was yet another busy afternoon in Hammersmith when a commotion began in the banking hall. One of the ladies out front warned me it was kicking off, so I went outside to see if my help was needed.

Picture it; my male, thirty-year-old Pakistani-descended clerk (let’s call him Vinu) was being shouted at by a very tall (and large) lady in the full Muslim get-up. Black, sack-like garb, head covered (but not, unfortunately, her face or mouth) and a real attitude, so let’s call her Karen. Five or six other, but much smaller, Muslim women surrounded her, all keeping quiet.

I just knew she was going to be trouble. Karen was obviously a Muslim convert, and from the mouth on her, was from good English East End stock…just like me. In my experience, converts are the worst: intolerant and normally full of righteous zeal. Shudder.

I asked what the problem was, only to be shouted at myself. From what I could gather, Vinu had disrespected her and Islam, She demanded he be sacked and made an example of, blah blah. Now, poor Vinu, despite his Hindu name, was actually a devout Muslim and had only recently come back from his pilgrimage to Mecca. I’d allowed him to take his full annual leave in one go so he could take his ageing parents with him. Really good bloke, wouldn’t say boo to a goose.

I invited her into my office and while she was struggling to clear the door sides with her troop, I motioned over one of my ladies. From my previous dealings with Saudi and other female Arab customers, I always asked if they would prefer to have a female present, so I called over another female Asian member of staff to be my witness and, in this instance, MY chaperone. Experience taught me never to be alone in a room with a strange female customer that held a grudge or wanted to bitch: always have a chaperone. I have two other examples of this on Quora; one where I was offered sex for an increased overdraft and the other where a female customer tried to ravish me across my desk!

But I digress.

Karen went into one, complaining that as a Hindu he had insulted Islam and she was going to tell everyone about it and that both he and I were racist, sexist, Islamaphobes. She didn’t like my staff either, especially when my chaperone piped up and told her to stop being so aggressive! I then asked if she had ever made the Haj? No, but she was planning to at some point. I then took great pleasure in pointing out that Vinu had literally just come back and was a very devout soul. Was she sure he had disrespected Islam? Why would a devout Muslim want to insult his own faith?

The look on her fat face was priceless and it got better when I barred her from my branch. Horrid cow. We never did get a complaint from her in any form.