An anti-mask Karen who went out of her way to get her Lyft driver fired after being asked to wear a mask has found her own job on the chopping block instead.
The driver, who goes by @everything_gealove on TikTok, recorded and uploaded the video of their interaction as a way to protect herself, realizing that her passenger was going to escalate the situation with Lyft.
The footage picks up after Gea has already asked the passenger to either mask or put her shirt over her face and is trying to explain to her that the app tells you that masks are required once you request a ride.
“I didn’t request a ride,” the woman fires back, in the process of calling the person who requested it for her. “So how come the driver yesterday didn’t force me to wear a mask?”
“That’s not my problem. I enforce the rules,” Gea very calmly explains.
Karen then tries to turn things around on Gea, insisting that if she’s “that scared of a fake virus,” she should have masks on hand to provide to passengers. The entitlement is just oozing off this woman, even though it’s pretty apparent she wouldn’t be putting on a mask even if one was given to her.
At that point, she finally gets a hold of the person who called the Lyft for her, and claims that Gea is “forcing” her out of the car.
“I just want to make sure you get the survey for Uber so we can report how rude she is,” she tells him.
A subsequent video shows the woman trying to claim that Gea is dropping her randomly on the side of the road somewhere as Gea points out that they’re still across the street from where she was picked up. Eventually, the woman does get out of the car, still insisting to the person on the other end of the phone that they need to report the driver.
Gea followed up explaining that not only does she have serious health issues herself, but she also has a young child, and often transports sick patients to dialysis and chemo appointments. Wanting someone to wear a mask in her car while we are still in a pandemic is hardly an unreasonable request.
And yet, Lyft suspended her account after the passenger reported her, apparently for recording the woman without her permission.
“Now, as a single mother with a chronic illness, who doesn’t want to be working but has to in order to provide for her child, I can’t work,” Gea said. “Thanks, Lyft.”
Fortunately, the internet had Gea’s back.
The videos went viral across social media, with the first one pulling in over three million views on TikTok alone. Lyft was tagged to hear Gea’s side of the story again and again, and they eventually reinstated her account — which she showed had a 93% driver score, a 5.0 rating, and hundreds of rides under her belt. In other words, she shouldn’t have been deactivated in the first place.
To top it all off, internet sleuths figured out the woman’s name and where she works, and an update from her employer’s Facebook declared that she behaved “in a manner that does not reflect the company’s values” and was let go from the company.
Gea isn’t quite willing to celebrate someone losing their job over the incident — even if the Karen in question was more than willing to do the same to Gea — but she is relieved to have her Lyft account reinstated.
