My First "Do You Work Here" Story!

[Greenday]

After being on CS for six years now, I finally got mistaken for a worker outside of work. So excited.

My mom's car was due for inspection back in July. I noticed this when I came back from school the second week of August. I swapped cars with her one day and had it inspected while she was at work. It failed.

She finally got it repaired recently and I suggested that after I get out of work today, I could drive over to her job, swap cars, and get hers re-inspected. Got there around 4:30, just beating the rush since Tuesdays are the open late days. Gave the worker all the stuff she needed, walked to the end and waited. As the woman was giving me a new sticker for passing, this guy pulls up and the following conversation ensues:

Guy "Is this where I'm supposed to park?"
Me "Uh, is this your first time getting a car inspected?"
Guy "Yea!"
Me "Then no. You're supposed to go through the gate, get a ticket, then wait in line."

Then he just stands there staring at me. I start to get in my car, kinda creeped out that he's just staring, and he says, "Oh I thought you worked here."

Really? All the DMV workers have a specific uniform. I was wearing black dress pants and a dark purple polo. What part of my outfit reads "DMV employee"?

[ralerin]

Your polo shirt, I bet. I get the feeling if you're wearing a polo in a store, no matter what the color is and no matter what the color of the employee's uniforms are, you will automatically be qualified as "working there".

[Greenday]

Wasn't even in a store though. I was at the DMV. In my state, the DMV does the car inspections. Giant lanes where they test your car at various stages. Employees are dressed like they work in a garage.

[IT Grunt]

Probably. Though sometimes you have to wonder. Back when I worked for the bank, I was in Petland on my lunch break. Petland employees wore khaki shirts and pants or shorts (think Steve Irwin) with the Petland logo on them. I was wearing black Dockers, a red plaid button up shirt, but I'd forgotten to take my bank nametag off. It was still clipped to my pocket. Simply because I had on a nametag, this lady immediately assumed I worked there and started badgering me with questions. When I told her I had no clue, she leans in reaaaaaaal close, reads my nametag (which had the bank logo on it), then huffs and walks off.

[PepperElf]

they're ordering new workshirts where i work.

this is why i'm not sure i want to wear them after work.

someone might think i work at the grocery store or ... anywhere else i might go to after work

[Whiskey]

I got one of these the other day, it was uneventful so I didnt post it.

I was wearing.. a black (fairly dressy, but not overly) shirt, jeans, and had my messenger back strapped across me. I'm bouncing through the store, some guy makes eye contact and retail-instinct kicks in and i smile at him.

Him: do you work here?
Me: No *bounces off to the jewelery section*


you see why i didnt post it

[Jay 2K Winger]

I once had the reverse happen to me one day, about ten years back.

Before dropping me off at school, my mom swings by the local "Huge" grocery store so I can buy some milk for her. It was before 6am, and I was wearing a red t-shirt, fairly close to the color of the store's uniforms.

The door was unlocked, so I walked in, went to the dairy cooler, got a gallon of milk, and went up to the front line to find no registers open. I asked the nearest employee if they could ring me up, and they blinked, stared, and the conversation went somewhat like this:

SE - Store Employee
J2K - Me

SE: "Do you work here?"
J2K: "...no? I'm a customer."
SE: "How'd you get in?"
J2K: "The door was open."
SE: "No one stopped you 'cuz they thought you must've worked here. We don't open for another <x> minutes. We don't have any tills ready to put on a register."
J2K: "Sorry. I'll go put this back for you--"
SE: "No, we can do that, but you need to leave."
J2K: "Sure, no problem."

So I left, explained to Mom they weren't open and couldn't ring me out yet, and we went about our day.

[Anakah]

Why wouldn't the SE know if you worked there or not? Are there so many employees that they can't keep who is who straight??? That's weird. Was SE rude to you when they asked you to leave?

And to the OP maybe the guy thought you did cuz you were able to answer his question? I dunno I've mistaken people for workers and felt pretty dumb about it haha.

[draftermatt]

Why wouldn't the SE know if you worked there or not? Are there so many employees that they can't keep who is who straight???

5:30 AM on a Sunday, store doesn't open for another 2 1/2 hours and I'm attempting to enter my place of part time employment to start my shift.

I got questioned by a manager of another department and the Operations Manager to see if I worked there or not.

The reason? I was a seasonal employee, got scheduled early for training and even though both had seen and talked to me before, I apparently was that unremarkable to remember.

[roothorick]

I frequently make the mistake of walking into Wal-Mart wearing khaki-colored pants and a blue polo. I find it amusing sometimes.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Why wouldn't the SE know if you worked there or not? Are there so many employees that they can't keep who is who straight??? That's weird. Was SE rude to you when they asked you to leave?

I got the impression from my own brief tenure as a "Huge" grocery store cashier (which happened that summer at a different store) that the company had a fairly high turnover rate with their employees. (Or at least, they did at the time.) So, yeah, it's possible that the opening employees didn't know everybody else, just saw the red shirt and khakis (shorts instead of pants, however) and just mentally labeled me as "fellow wage slave" and didn't pay more attention.

SE wasn't rude; firm and stern, but not rude, and I was embarrassed to have been somewhere I wasn't supposed to be, so it all balanced out, imo.