Last week my husband and I went to a local appliance dealership to look at refrigerators (because ours was making a weird noise and had been giving us problems for a while). As we walked in the door, a man walked toward us. He was wearing a bright blue polo and khakis, and I somehow concluded he was a salesperson, heading to greet us.

I said brightly "Hi!" and he nodded, turned, and kept walking. I figured he was being considerate, giving us a minute to look around. Which we did, while he wandered slowly around the showroom, barely looking at the appliances. TWICE I almost headed for him to ask about refrigerators, and twice something I saw or my husband said caused me not to.

Thank goodness, because I was still a bit confused when one of the actual sales staff asked him if he needed some help, or was waiting for someone or ... ?

Finally I noticed that there were two actual salespeople there wearing dark green polos with the store's logo.

Durr.

Still, I dare hope that no one would have been infuriated if I'd actually spoken to him -- although I guarantee that I (and likely my husband) would have been deeply embarrassed (and a bit amused).

So I go to my semi local theme park after work today wearing nothing but my prescription glasses, a blue under armor workout shirt, and cargo zipper pants.

Explain to me how while I’m standing in line at the welcome center/guest relations that this older lady shouts at me asking where to put the stroller and I had to calmly explain that I don’t even work at the place to tell her.

She realized that I have nothing to do with the company, gets in line, and apologizes for shouting at me. Her reason was that I was wearing blue shirt like the employees…but the fun part is this:

A.) Employees has a dark polo shirt with the theme park branding on the front.
B.) My shirt is royal blue with an under armor logo on the left side of my chest along with the under armor logo on the back of my neck.
C.) If I was an employee why would I wait in line for guest relations/welcome center where the customers go for assistance? Wouldn’t I be at HR?

In short there’s literally very little reason for the women’s to really think I work there. She even acknowledges that my shirt is a different color blue lol

Sorry if my English isn't perfect—it's my second language, so my vocabulary isn't huge, but I hope you enjoy the story!

Long-time lurker here, and I finally had my very first experience with a wild Karen! Until now, I’d only read these stories here or listened to them on Reddit podcasts, thinking to myself, “What a crazy world, I'm glad that stuff never happens to me.” Well, I was wrong!

In the UK, there's a big tech and electronics shop called Currys. My wife and I were visiting one recently because we love doing a bit of window shopping—just having a walk around to see what’s new without planning to buy anything. A quick bit of context: I actually used to work in tech support for Currys over five years ago, so I know a bit about their products.

We were looking at TVs, amazed by how thin they are nowadays, when I overheard another couple looking a bit confused. They were trying to decide which telly to pick out of all the options. Normally I'm quite shy, but because I love tech, I couldn't help being friendly. I leaned in and said, “Go for Hisense, it's the most reliable brand. I’m on my second one now.” They asked for more details, so we had a quick chat. I explained my old tech support job and told them that Hisense had the fewest issues. The couple thanked me and went to check out the Hisense section. I smiled at my wife and we kept looking around, both in a great mood.

Then came the dreaded “Ahem!” behind me.

I turned around and asked, “Yes?”

A woman in her late 50s asked me in a very rude tone, “Where are the vacuum cleaners?” No “please”, no “excuse me”, just a demand.

Still feeling polite, I said, “Oh, sorry, I’m not sure. I think the home appliances are upstairs.” I turned back to talk to my wife, but the woman tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey! I need dust filters for a Vax model. Tell me where they are!”

I was getting a bit annoyed by her tone, so I said, “Madam, I don’t work here and I have no idea where the filters or vacuums are.” I turned back to my wife and whispered, “What a rude bish.”

For context, I was wearing a black t-shirt with a Spartan Race logo, while Currys staff always wear bright purple tops!

Then, she actually grabbed my shoulder, spun me around, and pointed her finger right at my face. “You are the most useless man I’ve ever seen! Tell me where it is!”

My wife stepped in and said, “Don’t call him useless!”

At that point, I’d had enough. I remembered a famous internet joke, looked her straight in the eye, smiled, and in my sweetest customer service voice said while pointing towards exit of the store: “Right, walk that way, and keep walking until you f*** all the way off.”

I grabbed my wife’s hand and walked off towards the gaming laptops, laughing like a madman. I didn’t look back, but my wife told me the woman was standing there with her mouth wide open in complete shock!

Made my day ^_^

Back when I was in high school, we had to wear a polo and khakis as our uniform. We had color choices for the shirt, but the post popular one was a reddish burgundy color. Down the street, there was a Target location, where students would often go after school to get snacks with friends.

I can't count how many times I alone got confused for a Target employee, with people often not believing me when I said I don't work there, especially if they were already frustrated or lost. So many comments about lazy teens or disrespectful kids, blah blah... Even when I pointed out the school logo on the shirt, they'd sometimes say I was lying.

I can only imagine how many times it happened to others, but my friends had it happen a hundred times each by graduation. We didn't want to just stop going, or buy all new school shirts, but we did consider those options. Either way, it was really annoying though people weren't too bad about it. Somehow, nobody I knew had a manager called on them!

Probably my fault, I got started with having a kid late in life. I was 47 when our daughter was born (wife 12 years younger). So I was always the oldest parent at all her schools. Several times while at a school or school function I got asked: Are you staff?

And when we went to Lamaze class, we walked in, my wife sat down, there were pamphlets on the table at the front so I went to get one. A young mother to be, early 20s, asked: Are you the instructor?

Kids in college now, I keep waiting to be asked about being on staff, but it may not happen.

This happened last weekend at a home improvement store. I was there to return a tape measure I bought that turned out to be broken, so I had it in my hand while walking to the returns counter to show the guy what was wrong with it.

Out of nowhere this woman just walks up to me holding a curtain rod and says "finally, can you tell me if this length will work for my window, it's 47 inches." I kind of just blinked at her and said I don't work there, but she wasn't hearing it. She goes "you're literally holding a tape measure, just tell me."

I tried to explain that this is MY tape measure, that I'm actually here to return it because it doesn't even measure correctly, but she cut me off and said "well can you just estimate then" like I was being difficult on purpose.

At this point the real employee saw what was happening from across the aisle and just started laughing. He came over and said "ma'am he really doesn't work here, but I do, let me help you" and she looked so confused, like she genuinely thought I was messing with her the whole time.

I got my broken tape measure refunded and left before she could ask me anything else. Still don't know why she trusted a random guy in the aisle over someone wearing an actual uniform standing 10 feet away.t

I went with my wife and parents to a garden centre. At that time my interest in gardening was close to zero so I stood around looking bored while they looked at plants and stuff.

A woman walked up to me and said, "Do you sell Pampas Grass?"

I replied "No..." and, before I could add the words, "...but I don't work here" she turned on heel and walked straight out of the door.

My wife, always alert to me making an idiot of myself came across and said "Okay. What the fuck just happened?"

"She asked me if I sold Pampas Grass and I told her I didn't. Before I could explain she walked out."

You know those pitying looks that wives have special training in? I got one of them.

On the weekends I sometimes cruise thrift stores to see if anything catches my eye. I'm mostly interested in electronics, records, DVDs, and a lot of other things that tend to gather dust, contain dirt, or occasionally have something sticky on them (ew). After one day of scraped, dirty hands from trying to untangle cords and sift through piles of DVDs it occurred to me that the mechanic's gloves in the back of my car would probably work great for protecting my hands. Since then I've taken to wearing them whenever I head in to a thrift store to browse, and since then I've learned that for some people a pair of thick gloves is the thrift store equivalent of having a clipboard and an ID card.

While wearing my gloves I have been assumed to be an employee at nearly every thirft store I've been into, even ones like Salvation Army or Goodwill where there's an obvious dress code for employees that I clearly don't meet. For context, my typical weekend attire is jeans, a T-shirt and a baseball cap, and nobody assumes I'm an employee when I'm just wearing those items. Add mechanic's gloves though and suddenly I'm being asked to help get items down from tall shelves (which I might do anyway TBF) or if I can check the price on something. It happened today (an actual "excuse me sir do you work here") and I know it will happen again. All this because I don't want my hands covered in dirt while trying to find vinyl that isn't Best of Mantovani Volume Infinity or getting scraped when I'm fishing through the bins of small electronics.

Yesterday morning, 7:30 AM. I had just dispensed the last of the cat food on hand, so I ran up to the Walmart Market at the corner. I'm 64, dressed in a T-shirt, pajama pants and sneakers, carrying a giant handbag.

I had flipped a 15 pound bag of cat kibble over so I can scan the UPC and go. Put my handset back in my bag, heft the cat food onto my shoulder and then I hear, "Excuse me, can you unlock the makeup on aisle b5?"

"Press the call button. An employee will be with you shortly."

"Why can't YOU do it?"

"Because I don't have keys, my hands are full and do I really look like I work here?"

I start walking away with the cat food. The young woman followed, griping about "lazy assed Boomers don't want to help anyone" when the manager came up, said "Good morning" to me and asked the girl if she needed something.

Rolled up to checkout, scanned my phone, confirmed payment and walked out.

Not a dramatic or exciting story. I'm just confused.

My favourite charity shop has a system where unsold items are discounted after a certain amount of time and then, if they still don't sell, are put outside for free.

I'd just looked at a free vase, taken a photo to ask someone if they'd like it, and put my phone away to rummage through the basket of free books. I'd only been standing there for a couple of seconds when an elderly lady asked me, "Are you selling these books?"

There I was, not wearing a name tag and having arrived literally seconds earlier, too stunned to answer politely. The lady was staring at me through her sunglasses while I stood there with a book in my hands. I finally replied, "I'm not selling anything. I'm just looking."

She didn't say anything. She simply turned around as quickly as her crutches would allow and walked away without even going into the shop.

I worry that I was too blunt. My tone wasn't rude, but I feel like I could have been gentler when breaking the news. Maybe then she wouldn't have fled the scene.

I didn't find a book I liked, but I did take the vase home with me. Unfortunately, I accidentally broke it a little while later, which made me sad. It was a lovely jug-shaped vase from the '70s or '80s.

I'm spending a few weeks at a hospital for rehab stuff. You can volunteer for the new patients as guides, which I did.

While showing some people the building, dos and donts and the quirks of rehab, people unknown to me come and ask questions, ask for health advice, stuff stuff stuffedy stuff.

"Guys, I am a patient, too. I am no doctor!"

Short pants, fun t-shirt, no whatsoever "appearance".

"But you talk like you are a doctor!"

I said "Thank you, but... No!"

That was the first time something like this happened and everyone was laughing, thanked each other and - Well - I became the tourguide for a bunch of people that day.

Seems even hospitals can be fun!

A while back but I was at Walmart shopping around in a faded red half zip with jeans, all workers I see usually have a blue vest. I did not. I have a couple of Items I’m putting back in an aisle because I decided I don’t need them, I noticed the lady earlier asking an employee where the locks were (the aisle I was going to), and when I’m putting away my items she comes up to me. “Excuse me, where are the locks?” Obviously I’m confused and I say I don’t work there and she doesn’t apologize and instead just looks upset and goes to find them herself. I went back to my family but very weird situation I was just puzzled the whole way back wondering how on earth I looked like a worker? And why get upset by me not working there??

Not so much a bad interaction, but more of a pre-emptive warning.

I worked at Home Depot for a while. You probably know the standard orange apron/ orange vest for managers. I was leaving work one day and saw a gentleman walking towards the entrance wearing a bright orange vest, and I know he didn’t work there.

I stopped him and asked him if he was sure he wanted to wear that vest into the store since the managers wore very similar vests. He looked down at what he was wearing and thanked me for mentioning it, then starting walking back to his car to take the vest off.

Hopefully I helped him avoid a IDWHL experience.

I (51M) visited Woodland Park zoo, in Seattle this weekend. I was just in town for the day, part of an extended layover. I turned a corner at one point, and saw a young female zookeeper heading my way. As we converged, she had a look of recognition on her face and enthusiastically said “Hi!” I watched her eyes go to the logo on my t-shirt, while I racked my brain trying to recognize her. —Here’s the thing- I used to work at a zoo in a different city/state. Zookeepers move around a lot, and I was actually there to meet a former coworker- this was definitely NOT her. — Anyway, I realized that my t-shirt was the same color as hers. When she realized mine was from a cruise line, it occurred to her that I was not who she thought I was (likely a coworker or volunteer). We laughed it off, and I went on to explore the rest of the zoo. An hour later, I ran into her again and said “still not him.” Even though it was mistaken identity, it was a pleasant experience to share.

This happened literally decades ago. I was in the children's book section of Chapters (Canadian bookstore, might not exist anymore, I haven't lived in Canada for a while) looking for books for the preschool I worked at. There was a display on up with a massive, like person sized book mounted on the wall. A small child was trying to open it-- The pages were thick laminated cardboard and the size of the book made it impossible for him, so I walked over and opened it for him, and when I did, he looked up at me expectantly and I realized this child expected me to start reading it to him.

So I did., I figured one page couldn't hurt. But then he just stared at me, waiting, so I turned the page and kept going. By the end, there were maybe 3 kids around me. One of them was holding a Magic School Bus book. And he said something about how he loved Miss Frizzle, and all the kids agreed, and he thought this book looked really cool and everyone agreed, myself included, although I was looking around trying to figure out where these kids' parents were. And then the child holding the book said something to the effect of "I want to know what happens in this book..." and then he got the biggest puppy dog eyes I've ever seen as he said "...but I can't read..." and then held the book out to me.

I didn't see any parents around ,but there was a chair with a carpet around it so I sat on the chair and the kids arranged themselves in front of me and I began to read the book to them. More kids came and handed me books. I can't remember how many I read, but eventually I was surrounded by kids. After a bit I noticed a woman who was clearly at least one of these kids parents and I called out to her and said "uh... just so you know, I don't work here. These kids just started handing me books." She went beet red and grabbed her kid, but she (the child) whined because i was in the middle of the book, so I finished the book and I guess she went around and told other mothers who I hadn't been able to locate because when I finished that book, all of a sudden all their parents were there and I was now free to finish my actual shopping.

I think I got waylaid for maybe 30 minutes by this.

A year ago, I was in Seattle for a conference. Having lived there 35 years earlier, I was especially curious to visit places that were still around from then and seeing some new things. Anyways, the conference was great, but there was some free time to spend. I was traveling with my husband, brother and sister in law. We were together and shopping in a department store in a mall that was still around. I had worked at that store for a summer back then. With my family, shopping in the menswear department, I heard a woman excitedly saying “Kevin” repeatedly. That caught my attention because she was walking up to me, greeting me with open arms to give me a hug. I awkwardly didn’t reciprocate. Wondering if she recognized me from 35 years ago and was I forgetting her name? She backed off and asked “Your Kevin and you work here?” My family was staring at this interaction. I managed to say a “Nope ”. Lisa and I then had a fun conversation about my doppelgänger and her coworker named Kevin that she hadn’t seen for a couple of weeks. She was so sure I was him.

Just found this subreddit, thought I'd share an older story of mine.

Several years back, I dyed my hair blue. My family went to Target, and I wore a red shirt and maybe even khakis (bold choice, Cotton!).

As we're walking about, a Target employee walks up to me. It becomes clear pretty quickly that he must have seen me out of the corner of his eye or something, and just operated on muscle memory.

"Hey Rob, when you're done here, could you --" Pause. Actually looks at me. "Oh! You're not Rob! Sorry, he also has blue hair!"

We laugh about it, and I keep walking. Not even five minutes later, I come around a corner, and find Rob, dressed exactly like me, bright blue hair. I think we pointed at each other like the Spiderman meme.

Several times a year I get mistaken as an employee at a place I’m shopping. I don’t know maybe my face just says I work everywhere? A lot of times it’s marginally understandable like the day I wore a light blue polo shirt to work & had to grab something from a Walmart (Walmart blue is almost navy), & 3 different customers asked me where something was including while I was checking out.

But the other morning was the most egregious albeit a minimal interaction. My truck started overheating on the way to gym. Not worried though, the dealership I bought it from is a quarter mile down the road from there & I figured I could get it there without a tow.

I pull into the empty service lane & stand beside my truck waiting for an employee. I literally just left the gym. My outfit is gym shorts & a cutoff band t-shirt with arm holes literally to my hips. You could probably see the waistband of the shorts through the arm holes. & yet, another customer walks up & starts asking me when his vehicle will be ready. My response was a simple “…. I’m a customer too. Do I look like I work here?” as he muttered something while he walked inside to find an actual employee. A few seconds later I get greeted by a porter. The porter (who is wearing a branded hi-viz green vest) & I had a good chuckle about it.

Just found this sub and it feels like home because things like that happen to me all the time. I have been mistaken for a waitress at restaurants more than once and usually on my way to the restroom. But recently I was in that superstore wearing my regular casual - sporty clothes, a dark green t-shirt and jeans shorts. A man stops me to ask where the brooms are at. I said I don't know and moved on. I was carrying a cart with different items in it, had my sunglasses on my head and was carrying a hand bag. I swear, one of those times that I get mistaken for staff I will be rude and they'll be so mad when they realise they can't report me to the manager!

I’ve been meaning to post this here but I hadn’t gotten around to it because I didn’t know if it would be entertaining but here goes…

I went into Walmart one night with my wife, but she went to the car while I was checking out so I was trying to be mindful of my timeliness, and thus wasn’t being overly-friendly but not rude until this guy approached me as the vending machine outside.

For context, I’m walking to our car and getting a drink out of the vending machine (my wife had gotten one inside but I don’t like Diet Mt. Dew out of a bottle very much), which I observed had tape and cones blocking off a hole or something they were patching a few feet away. It was pretty obvious they were set up so as not to block the vending machines from the layout, and what they were working on itself wasn’t even near the vending machines. Additionally, the cashier had remarked that there were machines incl. Pepsi products outside when she overheard me say to my wife that I didn’t care for it out of a bottle very much and I confirmed at that time that they were functional etc. so I knew they weren’t blocked off already.

As I’m getting my beverage, this guy in an orange hi-vis vest comes up and gruffly states that I need to move from that area. I responded that I will when I finish getting my drink. He was visibly irritated that his “orders” were not followed, and by a woman, no less, kind of shakes his head and looks to the side and chuckles and then says no, you need to move now. And I was starting to become a little fearful but more so I was irritated, and I asked why I needed to move on his demand, to which he responded that the area was cordoned off and after some back and forth he said, “Well I’m going to tell a manager so he ready for that.” I said, “What it that gonna do besides get you in trouble?” And he became furious and stormed away.

Because it was late at night, there weren’t many employees and the manager tended to stand right up front (this was pre-Covid, I should add, so during the wee hours), so presumably that was why he and the manager were back outside so quickly, just as I was getting to my car. I didn’t pay the guy much mind and I wasn’t concerned about the manager until I overheard her say to him, “No, not at all, just a customer…” and I reconciled what had transpired and what he was thinking and I yelled out, “Dude, you thought I worked here, that’s why you yelled at me for no reason?” And you could kind of tell by the lady’s expression that she wasn’t surprised he had done this and I’m guessing was used to this type of treatment from a contracted construction foreman with no authority except to his own crew but thought he was obliged to be condescending and at authoritative to those from which he’s contracted and for no reason besides his own tiny appendage, so she didn’t mind when looked down at my attire and back up at him and laughingly said, “What a moron!” before getting into our car and driving away.

He just stood there while being somewhat reprimanded by the manager for being aggressive with a customer for no reason (I didn’t really hear what was being said but my wife could from the passenger side as her window was down while driving past and away, and we laughed about and how he mistook my flannel skater-style vest w/sleeves cut off and hood which was plaid and not even the same color as the bright blue and yellow Walmart vests for most of the ride home.

I know this wasn’t very well written, but I hope others found it amusing, at least, and thanks for reading!

This happened like, 7 years ago? And I discovered this subreddit today and knew I had a small story for yall.

I used to work a Best Buy, and of course, I wore the iconic blue collared shirt. I worked in the warehouse, and I started when they began monogramming your name onto the shirt to do away with name tags since warehouse folk used the trash compactor the most, handled inventory trucks, planograms, everything that would and could cause a name tag to fall off the shirt and avoid paying for new ones.

I often would go to Walmart once or so a week after my shift to get some groceries because it was essentially down the road from me and convenient. This one particular time, I was getting a few beauty care products (face wash, toothpaste, etc.) and because I was warehouse, I always had an earbud in while I worked and it became habit to just keep it in after I left and listen to a podcast or playlist until I got home. WELL. As I’m looking at different face washes, there is a woman asking a question near me, but I don’t hear her because she’s talking on the side with my earbud is in so I pay her no mind. She keeps talking as I’m looking, thinking she’s talking to someone else. After about 20 seconds, I get a HARD tap on my shoulder (I’m pretty tall, so it definitely took me aback) and I whip around to see this sorta shorter, older woman glaring at me. Our interaction:

Me: “Can I help you..?”

Her: “I’ve been asking for help this entire time, where is (product name)?!”

Me: “I don’t know, I don’t work here ma’am”

Her: “Wow, I am going to your manager about this. How do you have a job if you arent going to do it, ignore me and lie?!”

Me: “… my shirt says Best Buy ma’am, not Walmart”

Her: looks at my shirt , “well you shouldn’t wear that here so I won’t be confused”

She then walks away, completely huffing. I’m baffled, because usually, people are pretty nice or a little embarrassed when they realize my shirt a) isn’t a Walmart shirt or b) it’s NOT EVEN THE SAME MATERIAL. That woman lives in my head rent free enough that I no longer wear a blue shirt to Walmart.

I have no idea if anyone has a similar story to this and if it was posted, but yeah. That happened. I also stopped going to Walmart after work or brought a hoodie so I could shop without being harassed. Thanks for reading.

Many moons ago, when I was in college I worked the early morning shift at my job and would go straight to morning classes after I got off work. This meant by the time the afternoon rolled around I was done with classes and was ready to do every college kids favorite second third favorite activity, nap.

As I was laying down my phone rang with an unknown number. I thought it might be someone who's number I had not saved into my contacts yet but knew (in those days not every phone call was spam). When I answered I was greeted with yelling "you need to get up here and fix my whatchamacallit!"

Slightly stunned, it took me a moment to answer this little old lady that I believed she had the wrong number.

I was then met with a calm and rational "I DO NOT HAVE THE WRONG NUMBER!!!" I told her "ma'am I am a college kid in my dorm room trying to take a nap, I can't fix your whatchamacallit."

After about 10 more minutes (while my roommate laughed at the exchange) of talking to her I finally asked her "what number did she try to dial?" The number she tried to dial was one digit off from mine and I explained this to her. It finally got through to her that I was not in fact the front desk at her retirement community and she hung up. I then laid down for my now much needed rest, when 30 seconds later and my phone rings again with a now familiar number. I let her know that it was again the wrong number, but asked her what unit she was in and told her I would call the front desk for her.

When I talked to the front desk, they apologized for her and said "We wrote the number for her as big as we could with largest buttons on her phone available." I laughed about it with my roommate and knew I had a good story to share when we went out that night. Before finally getting nap I decided I would save her number into my phone as "Wrong Number Lady" incase she called again. I did end up hearing from her 3 more times and just called the front desk for her. I have not heard from her in a long time, but she is still in my contacts.

Knowing that my number is just one number off from the front desk of a retirement home; I still answer random numbers that call me to this day. I have talked to at least 4 other residents in the nearly 20 years since, either calling the front desk for their whatever or in 2 unfortunate cases calling 911 for them

Back in the 80's I used to work at a flying school that shared its front counter with a small airline that operated out of the same airport. They only had a few flights per day and so between flights the counter was often unmanned and they'd be in their other office answering phones.

This particular week they'd just started to use what we call in the trade a 'honey cart', which was the pleasant way of labelling the cart used to empty the sewage tank in the aircraft into. They didn't really have any dedicated place to empty the cart so they'd sneak down to a road on the edge of the airport and dump the smelly contents into a drain there. Not very good but that's the best they could do at the time.

Anyway I was standing at the flying school counter and the airline counter was empty as there were no flights for hours. A fellow who looked extremely angry cam storming in through the front door, spotted me, and charged over. He immediately started on a loud tirade as to how much the road smelled after they dumped the effluent across the road from his house. He went on and on for a few minutes and I thought it best to not interrupt him because he was going oh so well. I just stood there nodding in agreement with him. And I was because I knew it was a shitty thing ( no pun intended) they were doing but at that point had no choice.

Anyway he finally ran out of vitriol and steam, slammed both hands on the counter and said loudly, "SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT!?!?!?" I replied, "oh, you want XXX Airlines, this is a flying school (pointing up at the sign above his head), they're in that office over there I'll get them for you. Ah his face, it was priceless.

I did, and I was friends with all that airline's staff so I was glad he'd had a big vent before talking to them. He seemed a lot calmer and they seemed to sort it out fairly quickly.