Employee From Another Retail Store Was Shopping At Walmart In Her Uniform, But A Lady Thought She Worked There And Grabbed Her By The Collar

Mila Cardozo

1 month ago

Unsplash/Reddit

If you were ever mistaken by an employee, you know how uncomfortable it can be.

But in this case, it also felt dangerous, since an angry customer grabbed a woman she thought was an employee by the collar before even asking if she was an employee.

She tells the whole story.

Lady grabs me by the collar in Walmart

I worked at PetSmart during most of my undergraduate degree.

We were in a strip mall type area (as most are) which ended with our store pretty much right in a massive Walmart parking lot.

This was great when we needed supplies like sharpies for writing codes on the fish bags or something like that.

It wasn’t uncommon that I would run over on my break to buy an energy drink or lunch or something for the store.

On this day in 2012, I was being really dumb.

It was finals week and I was running on 2 hours of sleep for the last five days in a row. Completely on auto pilot.

She was dressed for the part.

Our uniform at the time was khaki pants and a light blue collares shirt with “PetSmart” on the back in HUGE red letters.

We also had just gotten head sets.

I went over to pick up a small whiteboard for my department and COMPLETELY FORGOT to not only take off my work shirt, but my headset as well.

I tried to stuff it in my pockets as best I could, but anyone who knows lady’s dress pants knows that was not happening.

She wondered if maybe, just this time, it wouldn’t happen…

But I was already in the store by the time I realised so I decided to rush and hope it would be ok.

So, I’m crouched down digging through the cheap whiteboards on the bottom shelf trying to find one that isn’t broken and suddenly I’m knocked on my ***.

This lady grabbed my collar (right above the BIG PETSMART LOGO) and had pulled me over!

I turned to look at her and said “excuse me, are you alright?”

My retail brain was still on and I also maybe thought she’d grabbed me to keep from falling or something? I don’t know, I was pretty out of it.

But it was just someone mistaking her for an employee.

She starts shouting about the lack of good employees these days.

She was maybe in her 60s, small framed and LOUD.

This is when I realised and I said “oh, I’m sorry I don’t work here actually.”

I pointed at the logo on my back.

She goes off about how I’m clearly a manager, pointing at my headset. By now I’m clutching my whiteboard and trying to leave.

She tried, but the lady decided she had to be an employee.

I again apologised, said “no I work at the pet store across the way” and pointed at the small logo on my name tag.

I think she took this to mean I worked at the pet department in the Walmart.

After a couple of minutes of arguing while I backed away and managed to make it halfway to the register she asked for my manager.

I told her “his name is Stephen, he works at Petsmart, if you go over there you can talk to him!”

I thought she got it finally because she stormed off.

She thought she would never see the lady again…

I paid for my things and went back across the way. It wasn’t until an hour later, but she came in!

She asked the cashier for the manager, while I spied from a couple of aisles over. She actually tried to make a complaint about me not helping her at our “sister store”.

My manager essentially laughed her off and told her he couldn’t do anything about what I did on my breaks.

She left, threatening to call corporate but I never heard anything, I can only assume she called Walmart corporate to make the complaint.

Let’s hope she doesn’t do that to someone who knows Karate and gets scared easily.

The woman’s experience in retail helped her de-escalate the situation.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this.

Often it’s a lifelong commitment.