Where the Wide Aisles Are

[steepholm]

My daughter has been working at Sainsbury's for a week now, but yesterday was the first day I'd actually seen her in her Sainsbury's jacket and name badge, when she popped home for some things before heading out again into the night.

It did make me wonder, though, whether she would ever be able to go into a supermarket while so attired. If she went into different store, say the Co-op, I imagine she would be driven out by staff enraged by her livery, much as crows will mob a sparrow-hawk. But if she went into a different Sainsbury's the following exchange would have a certain comic inevitability:

C [to the cashier]: Just this chewing gum, please.
Cashier: That'll be 45p.
Manager [interrupting]: You! Get to Till 13 right away! Don't you know we're understaffed today?
C: Me? But I'm only buying some chew--
Manager [hands already bunching into fists]: Don't answer back! Till 13 - hop to it!
C: But I don't even work here.... [Is bustled away to Till 13 and spends the next 7 hours weighing carrots.]

I don't know why I imagine all managers as ex-RSMs, but I do.

Comments

[calimac]

I've had the experience in stores of other customers assuming I'm an employee, even though there's nothing about my dress to suggest it.

[steepholm]

I'd suggest that perhaps it happens to everyone - but it's never happened to me.

[kalypso]

My father was once mistaken for a car park attendant, and car owners got quite cross with my mother when she tried to stop them giving him money. (He had Alzheimer's by then, so was too confused about what was going on to stop them himself.)

[steepholm]

That is bizarre indeed. (And it brings to mind this old too-good-to-be-true story about Bristol Zoo.)