I receive a call that a seasonal item I requested from a small local store has arrived, so I walk the half-mile to the store to pick it up. The store has a poster in the window advertising another item that piques my interest, so I go to the section the item is in instead of heading to the cashier stationed by the door to pick up my requested order.

I greet the cashier as I enter the store, and he greets me with a cheerful:

Cashier: “Hey, [My Name]!”

My name is the same as a term usually used to describe middle-aged women who demand to speak to the manager. The only other customer in the store — a woman browsing a nearby shelf — whirls around, and with the most disgusted tone, demands to know:

Customer: “What did you just call me?”

Cashier: “Oh, um… her…?”

The cashier points at me.

Meanwhile, I can’t find the item from the poster, so I ask the manager stocking the shelves if there are any left. He looks over my shoulder, happily offers to see if it is in the stock room, and runs away before I can say anything.

The woman, now less than three feet away from me, gets my attention.

Customer: “You shouldn’t let those people use a slur like that on you, honey.”

She spoke in a confiding, yet condescending tone. Clearly happy with herself for imparting such vital information about my actual name, she left the shop in a self-righteous huff, while I remained speechless from her stunning ignorance.

If I had had my wits about me at the time, I might have informed her that I’d rather be addressed by my own actual name than live my life as an ignorant, perpetually offended, self-righteous busybody like her.

Related:
Name Blame Game, Part 4
Name Blame Game, Part 3
Name Blame Game, Part 2
Name Blame Game

My coworker is Hispanic and he goes by both his first and middle names — let’s say Juan Carlos — or by those two initials, so when we call for him we will use both his names. He is working on something across the store when we need him to do something, so my manager yells across the store to him.

Manager: “Hey, Juan Carlos, we need you to make some lemonade.”

There is a customer standing close by who hears the manager say this. She’s a middle-aged white lady, and apparently, she does not like what my manager said.

Customer: “How could you be so racist to this young man?! Just because he’s Hispanic doesn’t mean that’s what his name is! What is wrong with you for calling him that?!”

And so on. The employee himself walks up and hears what is going on.

Customer: “I am so sorry, young man. Your manager should apologize for calling you that.”

Juan Carlos: “But that’s my name, ma’am. That’s what the initials on my name tag stand for. All he did was call me by my name.”

Customer: *Rather flustered* “Oh, I didn’t realize… I’m so sorry.”

And she awkwardly walked away. We all had a good laugh at that and afterward I even translated his name from Spanish to English and started calling him by that as a joke, and this continued until I stopped working there almost two years later.

I want to go to a busy restaurant that requires bookings. I phone up to book a table for two a few days in advance. In the UK, it’s normal to make the booking under a surname; mine is a fairly easy word but not particularly common as a surname. I’m female.

My friend and I arrive at the restaurant and the waitress looks shocked.

Waitress: *Stutters* “There are two of you!”

She runs to the back and starts whispering frantically to get a manager. We are understandably a bit puzzled by this point and there doesn’t appear to be an empty table for us.

Eventually, the manager comes over and explains.

Manager: “Literally two minutes after you phoned to make the reservation, a man called asking for a reservation for two people, same day, time, and surname as yours. The waitress told me his wife had already phoned to book and we thought nothing of it, until we suddenly had two different parties show up.”

They found us a table fairly quickly and gave us some money off the bill for the wait, and I got a pretty good coincidence story!

This story is part of our Best Of January 2021 roundup!

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I’m working in a CD and DVD store. As in a lot of places, it’s unfortunately common for customers to march over and just bark the name of the movie or artist they’re looking for without any further information. We also place and hold orders for customers. On this occasion, a man comes up to the counter.

Customer: “John Williams.”

Me: “As in the composer?”

He looks shocked and a little affronted.

Customer: “No! That’s my name! I’m John Williams! I’m here to collect my order!”

Me: “Oh!”

I turn around to find his order and hand it over to him.

Me: “Sorry. I assumed you meant that you were looking for a soundtrack composed by John Williams or something.”

Customer: “Why would I want something like that?!“

I overhear this in the pet food aisle:

Small Child: *Pointing to a large bag of dog food* “Kitten food!”

Mother: “Yes, yes, we need to get kitten food.”

She puts a few bags of dog food into the cart.

Employee: “Sorry, ma’am, I just happened to overhear and wanted to make sure you know that’s dog food, not cat food.”

Mother: “Oh, no, I know… Hey, if you have kids, don’t let them name your pets, okay?”

This story is part of our Best Of December 2020 roundup!

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