Men keep ignoring me in my own bloody shop

[Kitee]

I own a small local shop that sells office supplies/ printing equipment etc amongst other things.

I have been noticing lately that men COMPLETELY blank me in favour of my male colleague whom I have recently employed - let’s call him Joe (until then it was just me so they had no other option)

For example, yesterday a woman came in with her husband. I greeted them and asked if I could help with anything. He started to reply to me and then when he noticed Joe he just turned his back on me and continued what he was saying to Joe. I was so angry! It’s my shop!

Second example, a man came in with a list of items he needed which included product codes etc. Once again I greeted him warmly and he walked straight past me, did not even acknowledge me, to make a beeline for Joe.

I’m seriously getting fed up of this.

I know not ALL MEN do this.

I don’t know if they even realise they are doing it?

It’s pretty disheartening to be honest, I feel like I’m not taken as seriously and it’s presumed that I just don’t know what I’m talking about.

Anyone else experienced this or have any way of dealing with it?

AIBU to wear a big sign round my neck staying that I am more than capable of serving you in my own shop?

black I really want to do this

I am a CEO in an organisation that is medical /operational. The number of people who address all questions and comment to my male Ops Director, even though they know who I am and my role, is just infuriating.

The positive element is that he is just as annoyed as me and, in such situations, refers more back to me than he might otherwise. He also makes sure he calls me “boss” or “guv” lots. Not all guys are bad!

Oh OP I feel for you here! It's so frustrating isn't it. It might feel awkward getting namebadges but I do think that might help. I don't imagine Joe would mind- know he's a wee bit older but when I got my first job at 16 I was really pleased to get a badge with my name on

Same as you, opinionatedfreak - the annoying thing is that actually as a doctor I'm of the opinion patients should be able to use my first name if it makes them feel more comfortable. But over the years I've noticed that "Hello I'm firstname surname, your [specialty] doctor" doesn't seem to sink in as well as "Dr surname". It's as though some people hear firstname, see woman and think "not doctor" and stop listening :(

I had a farmer who called us in an emergency, but on being told the attending vet would be a woman, turned all his lights out and went home, leaving me wandering his farmyard in the pitch dark looking for a sick calf. That's bloody mad. What happened to the sick calf?
We only have one male vet and the rest are female. I'd like to think people wouldn't go on like that now.

I’m sorry jux 🙁

It’s ridiculous isn’t it? Some will completely blank me even though I’m standing in front of them right at the till. HELLO??

Joe is lovely, and has come to me on numerous occasions for no other reason than he needs my approval or confirmation. In front of the customer, which seems to annoy them more often than not.

Our stockroom is about the size of a small bathroom so I couldn’t confine him to it 😂 the reason I employed him was to help me on the floor. Not necessarily with customer requests but stock rotation/ cleaning/ stacking shelves, price tags & deliveries.

He often seems more bewildered than me when customers (men) approach him!

I had a job as a secretary.

I left.

They hired a guy to do my job and changed the title to 'assistant'!

Fucking sexism.

I'd let Joe answer the questions if he can, good practice for him, surely?

200 odd years ago I turned up to inspect a building site (on behalf of Planning Control) with a young male student in tow. The site manager greeted him, ignored me and gave him a tour of the site. I waited in the portacabin with the brickies drinking tea til they were done. Then when they were done and it became clear that my student couldn't sign off the work, he got to do it all again with me.

20 years! Feels like 200 sometimes though.

Are you dressed similarly? What I mean is, do you look the same status?

It's beyond insulting. What the hell do we have to do???

A campaign of civil disobedience? It worked for the suffragettes.

Brilliant Barbarian! That'll have learnt him (hopefully), as they say.

This conditioned behavior isn't consigned to shops and it's not always the men who are guilty.

If I'm walking down the street with my OH (who is no oil painting) and a single woman walks past, the woman will, nine times out of ten, nearly always automatically look at OH, say high to him, whilst ignoring me.
The default setting of some women is to acknowledge all man and blank the women.
It doesn't matter how young or old they are either.

Test it out the next time you're out and about. Its scary how often it happens.
A bit sad as well.

My DH is acutely aware of this, to the point that he refuses to engage in a ‘blokes’ shop and if they try to speak to him, just points to me. Lots of priceless faces. If they still won’t engage we walk out.

Do you think it's a UK thing or everywhere? I did notice it a fair bit when I lived in London, but not ever at my work which was predominately female. I've since moved back to Ireland and haven't encountered this at all. Even little things like filling in a form, in the UK any correspondence would tend to be addressed to H and then me even if I had been the initial contact, but in Ireland they always address correspondence in the order in which the information was given.

Also, I have met Kewcumber in person and can confirm that the resemblance to Julia Roberts is uncanny.

The same thing happens if a couple walks past us. OH usually gets the direct look and the 'hi'.
I don't think I having a resting bitch face

On the other hand, typing my anecdote is reminding me of another much more positive one...

I recently had a fairly nightmarish problem with the drains outside our house. I organised DynoRod to come out and do a CCTV survey thing and was off work that day post-night shift. I answered the door wearing an apron as I was keeping myself awake by having a baking session. Fully expected to be treated like the little woman by the late 50s CCTV guy and his trainee. However he was totally polite, enquired if I'd like to see what he was doing and on learning that I was a doctor, got excited and said "Oh it's just like one of those endoscopies - a lot less complicated though, ha ha" and proceeded to send his trainee off to make tea while he showed me how to work the kit. It's a shame I suppose that I was so pleasantly surprised, but he must have been around the same age as my feminist dad, so maybe I shouldn't have been that surprised either.

It's so frustrating.

I used to provide tech support for a small company and men would always say "put me through to tech support, love". When I explained that I was tech support, they would invariably argue with me about this - "surely there must be someone else I can talk to??" - meaning someone male, of course.

In a general sense, I don't like dealing with men much in a professional capacity - they make everything so. bloody. difficult.

Would Joe wear a t-shirt saying

the boss is OVER THERE
I just happen to be male

Try running a pub (in a previous life)
The amount of times suppliers, contractors and customers have asked to speak to the manager, and I say hi that’s me how Can I help - to either be greeted with a look of surprise, or they start asking if there’s a chap around to explain how he’s fixed the fire alarm etc

I’ve had a customer ask ‘is there a manager around, where is he’ and when I say that’s me, they’ve said ‘well where’s your manager, it’s the boss I want to speak to’

I have called people out on it if they are blatantly sexist and rude. Especially a couple of the contractors that have been bad and a customer who was just awful.

I get this a lot. I am a doctor in a male dominated field (and in the case of my department, the only female there). The number of times patients or their relatives address my junior colleagues is ridiculous. Like above, I can have seen them, explained the management plan and in some cases operated on them and they complain that they haven't seen a doctor yet!

i have also had waiters take my bank card, having watched me take it out of my wallet, and pass the card thingy to my husband and addressing him as doctor. Do they think I just carry his card around like a good wifey?!

Not long ago, I was looking to buy a number of professional power tools and quite a high volume of accessories. While there isn’t a huge profit margin for the actual tools, there is money to be made with the various bits to fit. I took a male friend to help me lift some of the stuff in my van. I went to an actual bricks and mortar store, guess to support independent retailers. It was obvious that my male friend has no clue about tools while I have in-depth knowledge, more than the actual sales person. And guess what he didn’t answer my questions and just told crap, pretty lame and somewhat sexist jokes to my friend who even said to him he wasn’t buying. Rather than explode and lose my cool, I let this dude ring it all up, almost rubbing his hands with glee as he was on a commission. He then looked to my male friend to pay who shrugged his shoulders and repeated he wasn’t the one paying. He finally took notice of me and I walked out. Ordered it online for next day free delivery and ended up saving a lot. I am too long in the tooth to tolerate this shit. There is so much choice and competition now. I just vote with my feet.

OP - I have a small business, we do outreach work - myself, & 3 male employees (1 of whom is freelance). Without fail - when we arrive together at a venue, all quwriws and information are relayed to male colleague. They've become pretty good at standing there until the talker has finished - and then pointing to me "you'd better ask/relay info to this lady, she's in charge". I don't know how you'd stop it - people naturally defer to men. What would we women know, after all. I'm not phased by it, the silliness of it all can make me roll eyes at times tho do I understand how you feel.

Many years ago I worked in the electrical department of a large department store in Brighton.
I had a woman bring back a CD player saying that it wasn’t working. I looked at it and agreed that it wasn’t working. I would either exchange or refund it.
This wasn’t good enough for her. She demanded a man look at it, even though I agreed with her.
So I called down to haberdashery where a man who made John Inman look butch came up to look at it.
He looked at it and said that he didn’t have a clue but if I thought it wasn’t working then that was good enough for him.
She looked very smug and accepted the exchange.

We're not all like that - my kids love video games and the ladies that work in our local shop are far more friendly and knowledgeable than their male counterparts. How about a name badge with "Manager" above your own name on it? Sorry, just a quick suggestion.

Sorry now I'm on a rant. On one occasion, a rep for some implants wanted my boss to try them out. He told him to make an appt with 'his registrar' as he didn't have time. The rep duly turned up to the office for our meeting, saw me and asked me if 'Mr More was in, sweetie, and could I get some coffee'. I declined both the meeting and to get coffee.