Worse yet,
ME: Jeans, random graphic T-shirt, ballcap, in a good mood, pushing a shopping cart.
CUSTOMER: Do you work here?
Yup! I intentionally go shopping looking like absolute trash, because almost every time I go shopping, someone assumes I work there, and I’m way too nice and often end up helping them anyway.
I’ll wear sweats, an oversized hoodie, a backwards baseball cap, and earbuds, someone will still stop me and ask me a question obviously meant for a store employee.
Lots of representatives stock the shelves too. Coke, Pepsi, frito-lays to name a few. They send their own vehicles and a stocker to fill the shelves the way they want in grocery and convenience stores. All part of the contract.
Yeah. I had a friend who did this for pepsi and she was asked all the time where other products were. Luckily she was paid hourly and local, so she just told them where it was 🤷♀️
The worst is when they wear basically the same thing as the actual staff.
Then you get in the habit of looking for a logo, so any women think you are being weird, at best… no I just wanna know if you work here without asking a stupid question!!! I don’t even care about your boobs rn, it’s just where your company stores the logo!
I gotta imagine that’s to head off people complaining about someone “stealing” when they remove stuff from the shelves or something along those lines.
A few of our grocery stores the only identifier for the staff is an apron/smock, allows them to wear whatever they want. I’m not a huge fan of corporate “outfits”, so I like the apron/smock idea myself.
Representative checks in with the manager to let them know they’re onsite, grab a smock, and return it when you’re done to sign out. Gotta know who’s onsite for proper fire safety, so you know that everyone is accounted for, employee and contractor wise atleast.
Don’t want to be sending a fire fighter looking for the rep that was supposed to be there between 12-1 but was late and didn’t show.
I’ve asked for help from someone in full grocery worker kit only to be told they were inspecting from corporate or there for a promotion. Neither had any idea where stuff was (or said that to get rid of me)
Half of the time these people weren’t able to help me because “first day”, “from another department”, “don’t know”, etc despite having uniform, tag, cart and whatnot.
This is why you shouldn’t wear a red polo to Target. You also shouldn’t shop at Target, if possible, until they stop being dicks.
Don’t even wear a red t-shirt. The polo appears to be optional these days, as long as whatever you’re wearing is still red. Or even red-ish.
Don’t wear an orange t-shirt whilst hoping to casually browse a Home Depot.
I just say, “Can I ask you a question?” Doesn’t matter if they work there or not…
“Do I look like I work here?”
Anyone and everyone in the grocery store I always ask…
We should normalize asking other customers where something is. Like if I’m looking for something and I see it in someone’s cart, I’ll politely ask them, “Oh I’m looking for that! Where did you find it?”
Likewise, if someone looks lost, I’ll ask them, “I don’t work here but can I help you find something?”
