Grocery store shifts are rarely exciting, but they do bring a fair share of odd moments.

One day, a customer’s odd pronunciation of an every day household item set the stage for an unforgettable interaction between two co-workers.

It was the kind of mix-up that would haunt the employee for the rest of his shift!

Read on for the full story.

Sorry, what are you looking for?

About three years ago, I worked in a grocery store in the front end as customer service/supervisor.

I was working customer service when another front end employee came up with a family in tow. I’ll be ME, employee will be E, and family will be F.

The interaction went something like this.

ME: “Hey, what can I do ya for?”

E: “This family here is looking for shoo-gah, do you know if we sell it?”

He asks for a clarification before he finally realizes what his coworker is saying.

ME: “…Sorry, what are you looking for?”

E: “Shoo-gah, do we sell it?”

I gave E a blank stare for about five seconds, then turned to F and said:

ME: “Are you looking for sugar?”

This ends up being what the family was trying to say all along and his coworker immediately starts blushing.

F: “Yes, shoo-gah, we can’t seem to find it.”

ME: “Oh, we keep that down aisle 5, let me show you.”

E at this point was basically beet red, and I was internally laughing my butt off.

Luckily, F was a really nice family and probably just thought E didn’t know where sugar was kept.

The mistake ended up being the inside joke for the rest of their shift.

E went back to his till, I showed F the sugar, and then proceeded back to the front and bugged E about it for the rest of the day.

He’s never going to live this one down!

What did Reddit think?

Communication really is hard sometimes.

It can take hours to put two and two together.

Certain dialects can be tricky too.

Another commenter had a similar misunderstanding.

Ultimately, the mix-up made for a way more exciting shift than usual.

Mistakes are part of life, and sometimes they end up making things more fun!

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.