it finally happened....

[Sarlon]

So I'm in my local walmart picking up school supplies, wearing....get this...a black tshirt, and denim capri shorts, wearing earphones to listen to a book while I shop (helps cut down my fear of crowded places if I focus on something else).

I have the book turned loud (no one could of heard it I don't think), and spacing out while picking things up and placing them, in my shopping cart, which includes several other items, including my purse, and shopping list....

I hear someone talking behind me and ignore it since several people are around me with questions like "mommy can I get this?" "mommy I want this" not loudly or obnoxiously.

then I feel a light tap on my shoulder...from adult height not child height.

"excuse me, I've asked you several times....where is the glitter glue?"

................................"I'm sorry sir I don't know...I don't work here...."

"oh sorry you looked like you did."

how in the name of all that is holy....does a person in a black shirt and ratty shoes and JEANS look like they work here?! I mean hell I was ignoring you since I was listening to my ipod....so help me gods if he had tried to pull it out of my ears....I don't deal well with crowds to begin with....I might of just snapped and lost it.

I've been out of retail for 4 years now....do I still carry the aura?

[Eevie]

The earphones must have been a dead giveaway.

[Pixilated]

If they were earbuds, it's just barely possible he didn't see them ...but that sure doesn't explain the rest of it.

[Food Lady]

You were the only person without a kid hanging on her? Otherwise, I got nothin'.

[hinakiba777]

That makes ZERO sense. Wal-Mart employees have a very distinctive uniform with their blue vests/smocks. At other stores where the employees don't have a uniform, I would understand a little more (but not by much), but unless you were wearing something BRIGHT blue. how could he think you looked like an employee?!

[Gizmo]

I went out last night and was wearing a *very* low cut shirt, a leather miniskirt and did not look respectable at all... I still got treated like a bouncer and got asked where something was in the pub we'd just entered. The bar staff were all wearing a nice black uniform...

[Argabarga]

I think it's the creeping laziness of people, it's too much trouble to WALK SOMEWHERE and FIND an employee, so it's better to pester the closest person. The "Well, you looked like you worked here" is just a backpedal to try and save face when it doesn't work.

That's my theory.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I once got asked if I worked at Target by the same guy in two different aisles within 5 minutes. I was wearing jeans and a wool coat and no, it was not red.

[JustaCashier]

Having had this happen to me for many years, and my years of reading of these incidents here on CS, I've given this a lot of thought.

I think there just must be some way we carry ourselves; maybe, without even realizing it, while we are in other stores perusing a shelf for an item, our body language is different than the typical shopper.

Maybe the body language, including facial expressions, or gaze, is a more determined one, rather than the totally lost look of the typical shopper.

Think of when at work, we have to locate a product real quick, especially for a price check, with several customers waiting at the registers. A cashier or other employee doing a price/stock check, will likely have at least a general idea of where a product should be, and in their rush, will be scanning the shelves for it in a quick, determined manner.

Maybe some of that just instinctively carries over to our own shopping, even if were are unfamiliar with the particular store.

Mike

[Kanalah]

I have been pushing a cart with my two kidlets in it and still asked this question. It has to be an aura of competence or something.

[sms001]

I think there just must be some way we carry ourselves; maybe, without even realizing it, while we are in other stores

It has to be an aura of competence or something.

And it has rather succinctly been called that in these threads before, as it nails it.

I think most of us are pretty determined to NOT be SCs. As a result, we have some regard for our surroundings; reading signs, being at least vaguely aware of the people and things around us, knowing what we ourselves are doing. In a do-you-work-here's mind, the only people who would exhibit that kind of caring social conscience are people being paid to do so, therefore....

It works the other way about too. While shopping on Thursday last, I helped three people find something. One, a young mother with little boy in hand, was happy to know the mac and cheese was in the next aisle, all the way down on the right () but let a momentary look of apprehension cross her face when I initially asked her what she was looking for. She knew she was lost, but just didn't realize that she looked befuddled to someone paying attention.

[mathnerd]

I once had somebody insist I worked at Walmart and was just being lazy when I refused to show a customer where a particular item was. This in itself is not so unusual, as the stories here attest to. What made it bad was the fact that I was wearing shorts, flip flops, a nursing shirt, with a 17 month old in the seat of the cart, a 3 year old hanging onto my leg, and a 6 month old (who was closer in size to a newborn, due to having been born weighing only 504g) in a sling, actively nursing at the time.

[hinakiba777]

I have to actually make it a mission to NOT shop where I work, because I come from a small town. So people KNOW you work their, and will bug you about it. Even if you are on your day off. Because they KNOW you work there.

[Aethian]

I once got asked if I worked at menards while I was wearing my postal uniform.

[Argabarga]

The most egregeous one I ever got was being asked if I worked... at a gas station..... a self-serve, while pumping gas into my own van wearing khakis, white shirt and necktie.......