It’s not really fair to expect an employee to know what someone can afford just by looking at them.

Yet, one grocery store worker is supposed to do just that after “selling” five pounds of king crab legs to two college-aged customers.

A few minutes after the customers walked away, her supervisor came back with the crab and explained that the men had tried to leave without paying.

The employee apologized, but there was no way for her to know what they planned to do from the back of the store.

Read on for the full scoop.

I’m sorry, you want me to… what? (Not sure if management can ask me to do this or not)

I work in a grocery store at the seafood counter.

A couple of months ago, I was working a closing shift when a couple of college-aged guys came in and asked me several questions about the king crab legs.

I was low on stock and told them that what I had out in my case was currently all I had left, and that we should be getting another delivery the next day.

The interaction seemed pleasant enough.

They talked for a while and then asked me for five pounds.

I filled the order, wished them a nice evening, and sent them on their way.

The whole interaction took probably about 15 minutes.

Suddenly, an angry manager appeared with a bag of crab legs.

Ten minutes later, my night supervisor stormed back with the bag of crab in hand and proceeded to slam it down on my counter (in front of a few customers) and tell me, “Next time you do something like this,” (pointing at the crab legs) “you need to tell me first.”

I was actually speechless for a minute before I asked him, “Do what? Sell crab legs?”

He tells me that the two guys had tried to walk out the door without paying for the crab legs (about $80), and when he confronted them, they actually tried to fight him over it.

She tried to explain it to the manager, but he didn’t want to listen.

At this point, my face is bright red, and I am being forced to ignore my customers to listen to this lecture.

I apologize to my manager and tell him that I didn’t realize they would try to walk out with it. Realize that the seafood counter is in the very back of the store, and I can’t even see the check stands from it, much less the doors.

He tells me that next time, “If you sell a lot of stuff like this to someone who looks like they can’t afford it, you need to tell a manager.” And then he walks away.

Now, she’s not sure if the rule is reasonable or not.

I was almost in tears at this point, and my customers who had been waiting just shook their heads and told me that they didn’t know how I was supposed to know if someone could afford crab legs or not.

There hasn’t been an incident since, although I do normally call ahead to the check stands now if I sell lobsters, so the checkers know they’re coming.

But I am still kind of in shock that I’m supposed to be profiling customers and informing a manager if someone who’s “too poor” to buy seafood is trying to do so.

Don’t know what to do. What do you guys think?

Oh yikes. The fact that the manager told her to do that is pretty wild.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit feel about the whole thing.

That’s actually a good point.

Here’s someone who would be mad if she were wrongly profiled.

This would be a good question.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who thought HR was doing them a favor, only to realize they were really saving the company money.

Or this is also good advice.

That manager was way out of line.

There’s no way an employee can look at someone and know whether they can afford a bag of crab legs.

If the store is worried about expensive seafood walking out the door, then management needs to come up with a better way to handle it.

Either way, telling employees to judge customers by how they look definitely isn’t the answer.