In retail, looking helpful is sometimes all it takes to get bombarded with questions.

What would you do if just holding an iPad in a store made people assume you worked there, even though your uniform was clearly different?

Would you keep correcting them?

Or would you help out wherever you could?

In the following story, one beer distributor finds himself getting mistaken for store staff constantly.

Here’s how he handles it.

Carrying an IPad makes me look like a store employee everywhere

For 4 years, I worked in sales for a beer distributor that carried a lot of big domestic and import brands.

My route serviced grocery and big chain stores, all with specific uniforms like red shirts or blue vests.

I would walk these stores with an iPad that I used for inventory and ordering purposes.

I guess carrying an iPad in a store makes you look like an official store employee because, without fail, I would be approached by customers all the time.

He was asked all kinds of questions.

They would ask me anything and everything, such as item locations, directions to the bathroom, the sales ad has this price but the price tag has this price, or they would ask if we have more of this item in the back because there’s none on the shelf.

I always found it interesting as to why people would assume I work there because my work uniform didn’t match the store employees’ uniform, but holding an iPad while punching in numbers really makes you look like you work there.

Most of the time I would politely tell them I don’t work here, I work for the beer company and I could help them find any beer they wanted.

After enough time, he narrowed down why it happens.

If they had a question that I knew the answer to, I would kindly point them in the right direction.

I never had a negative or bad response to telling customers I didn’t work there; it was generally followed with an apology, or they would see the logo on my jacket and say, “Oh, you’re the beer guy”.

From my experience, it seems most people are in a hurry/lazy, or have poor situational awareness, and just turn to the nearest person to ask their question.

Wow! Well, at least people are generally nice about it.

Let’s see what the people over at Reddit think about the situation.

It happens to this person all the time, too.

This employee did the opposite.

You just can’t talk to some people.

This guy sounds like a real joy to deal with.

At least he helps when he can!

Other people tend to get angry or annoyed in this situation, so it’s nice to see someone go with the flow.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.