Entitled Customer Demands Fellow Customer Help Her, Mistaking Him for an Employee, Tells “His Manager" Who Power Trips and Threatens To Fire Him From a Job That Isn’t His for Not Being in Uniform: ‘I Didn’t Know I Needed a Uniform To Shop Here?'

Brad Dickson • Managing Editor

Aug 13, 2026 12:00 PM EDT

Many of us have been mistaken by a customer for an employee of a store. But have you ever had a manager make that same mistake and threaten to fire you from a job you didn't even have?

I think that some of us must just look like we're waiting and willing to answer any question a complete stranger might have. It doesn't matter whether or not we're wearing clothing that remotely resembles the store's uniform… we just give off that vibe.

Maybe we just have a sense of familiarity or an openness about us that makes us seem approachable. And that approachability translates into some subconscious signal. A signal that causes some of the perpetually confused people who wander this earth to single us out and latch on to.

I have always thought that people can somehow smell the fact that I once worked a former life in retail and in the service industry. That this somehow clings to me like an aroma that gives me away wherever I go.

Whatever it is, if, like me, you find yourself constantly being mistaken for an employee of a store when you're out and about in the world... than you know exactly what this is about.

For the rest of you. Well, lucky you. You can go about your day without being accosted in the store by an expectant customer who is frustrated that they aren't being helped. And, they are frustrated that you aren't offering to help them.

That's when you turn to them and say, "Hey, I don't work here, lady!"

Still, sometimes, as much as you try to explain to them that you don't work there, they refuse to accept it. Through stuttered sentences, you fail to explain to them that, in fact, you don't work there, like you already said. But, ears firmly closed, they'll eventually threaten to get your manager or something when you, the "employee," refuse to serve them.

That's what happened to this customer who was approached by a woman, another fellow customer. He explains that this type of thing happens to him frequently, even when not wearing the color of that store's uniform. But he did happen to be wearing a red polo at the "red polo uniform" store on this occasion. So an understandable enough mistake, in this case, on the woman's part.

This instance took on another level of absurdity when the manager themself failed to recognize that this stranger was not their employee. It probably says something about the turnover of the store that they mistook a customer for a fresh-faced new hire.

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via Getty Images

An employee of the store, like the one the customer was mistaken for.
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"You can’t fire me, I don’t work here."

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Entitled Customer Demands Fellow Customer Help Her, Mistaking Him for an Employee, Tells “His Manager" Who Power Trips and Threatens To Fire Him From a Job That Isn’t His for Not Being in Uniform: ‘I Didn’t Know I Needed a Uniform To Shop Here?'

Many of us have been mistaken by a customer for an employee of a store. But have you ever had a manager make that same mistake and threaten to fire you from a job you didn't even have?

"You can’t fire me, I don’t work here."

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