After nearly two years of a pandemic and an uptick in videos of altercations between essential workers and unnecessarily difficult customers, one recent incident is showing that Canadians just do things differently.
TikToker @dani_koro said she had been waiting in line at the pharmacy for a full five minutes, listening to a man argue with the pharmacist over the price of something he was picking up when she finally started recording.
Compared to a lot of the videos “Karens” and their male counterparts, particularly in the U.S., the man’s interaction seems fairly tame, although he was still holding up the line and seemingly going in circles with the pharmacist over something out of her control.
“I wasn’t planning on saying anything, I just wanted to show my husband this rude customer,” @dani_koro wrote.
But after some more repetition, and the customer starting to raise his voice, the TikToker opted to step in.
“It’s not up to her!” she called out from her position in the line. “Why are you berating her? It’s not her fault.”
After a short back-and-forth, the man gave the TikToker a thumbs up, a sarcastic “thank you,” and finally walked away from the counter.
“You know what? You’re not a nice person,” he said as he left.
@dani_koro points out in her caption that essential workers have “been through enough in the last 18 months,” and suggests customers shouldn’t “bully” them for just doing their jobs, and viewers agreed.
“How long is it gonna take before people realize that when u work in a position like that ur not in charge of changing prices etc,” asked @jarl.rakhell.
Meanwhile, @lesleypatricia drew attention to his the customer’s own hypocrisy: “‘YOURE not a nice person’ as he finishes up berating a pharmacist.”
Another user added that the “co-sign nod from the woman in front of you tells me everything I need to know.”
But quite a few also commented on how “Canadian” the whole exchange was—ultimately still pretty polite, certainly when compared to the screaming matches and physical violence in similar videos from further south on the continent.
“This has Canadian vibes when he said ‘You know what, you’re not a nice person,’” @themizzk said.
“Tell me you live in Canada without telling me you live in Canada,” another viewer agreed.
One of the top comments from @fatterinperson commended @dani_koro for telling him to “Wrap it up.”
“As a fellow Canadian, I know you SHOOK that man to his core,” she wrote. “He will be thinking about this for years.”