Grocery shopping can become awkward when customers mistake another customer for a staff member.

The following story involves a man who was shopping for an Instacart order.

Another customer approached him and mistakenly thought he was a store employee.

She demanded to know where the juice was while an actual employee was already helping him find a specific soda.

The misunderstanding quickly turned into an argument… and he painfully watched them go back and forth.

Read the full story below for all the details.

I don’t work here…. but he does

A few years ago, I shopped for InstaCart for about two weeks before I got fed up with it.

One day, I was shopping an order at Publix, and the customer had ordered a couple of cases of a specific soda.

That soda was on sale, so of course, the shelf had been completely cleared of it.

Luckily, there was an employee in the soda aisle, so I asked him if he could look up if there was any more.

He pulled out his inventory device thing and was looking it up for me.

This man was approached by another customer looking where the juices were.

A woman came up and, with no “hello” or “excuse me,” asked where the juice was.

The employee did absolutely nothing to acknowledge the woman.

After a second of awkward silence and her staring expectantly at me, I said:

“Um, I think it’s a couple aisles over. I believe on aisle 7?”

She wasn’t impressed with this answer and went, “You think? You don’t know?”

Which made me realize she thought I was also an employee, and clearly not a very good one.

He told her he didn’t work there and pointed to the employee.

I told her I didn’t work there, and, pointing at the employee, she went:

“Well, he does! And he’s not even acknowledging me!”

The employee looked up for the first time through this whole interaction and immediately snapped at her, saying:

“I can only help one person at a time, and I’m clearly helping this person right now!”

The employee and the customer continued to argue.

The two of them had a back and forth.

She told him that he had bad customer service and should have at least acknowledged her when she initially approached.

He defended that he was obviously busy assisting someone else and she needed to wait her turn.

I just stood there dumbfounded, waiting for him to find my soda.

I was thinking about how they were both kind of right but also so unnecessarily rude to each other.

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Lol. That was a little funny and cringe to watch.

Both the customer and employee had a point, but their unnecessary rudeness made a simple situation much more dramatic.

The customer could have waited politely, while the employee could have acknowledged her briefly before continuing to help OP.

Do you agree? Let’s find out what others have to say about this.

I totally get the employee, says this one.

This person had a similar experience.

Here’s a valid assumption.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about people who have to go to court to get their land back after their neighbor sells it.

Lol! Short and sarcastic.

Finally, another honest opinion.

A simple “excuse me” could have prevented an unnecessary argument.