To ask if you've ever been mistaken ...

[haveyoueverbeenmistaken]

Have you ever been mistaken at work for doing a different role, eg you're the CEO and someone thought you were the office junior and asked you to
make coffees for the meeting?

The other way round, been mistaken for someone important at work when all I was was the data entry monkey.

Also as a customer I regularly get mistaken for staff in Tesco, no idea why. It's always Tesco, not other supermarkets, and doesn't seem to vary depending on what I'm wearing (it's not like I wear anything similar to their uniform).

My very glamorous friend was meeting her new boyfriend for lunch. She was wearing work clothes, ie a nice suit and heels and had her nails freshly painted and her make up and hair all looked great.

They'd agreed to meet outside Earls Court tube station.

She arrived early and whilst she was waiting, a stranger (male) approached her and the following conversation took place:

Stranger: are you waiting for someone?
Friend: yes
Stranger: is it a man?
Friend: yes
Stranger: will I do?

The man thought she was a prostitute!!!!

My friend was a bit shook up but is able to laugh about this now. She didn't tell the boyfriend!

I can turn up to cardiac arrests, take the head end, ventilate the patient and introduce myself as the ICU doctor and still there is someone saying repeatedly no we need to wait for ICU to arrive like I'm some donkey that's wondered in off the street

A lot of patients think when doing pre operative anaesthetic reviews that I'm a nurse that goes round gathering info for a doctor, even after introducing myself and with "anaesthetic doctor" plastered to my forehead on my cap.

You get used to it

Long, long ago when I was a medical student, one boy in my class had gone prematurely grey at 19. The young consultant teaching us on clinical rounds was taken aback when a patient cheerily told him “It’s okay, son, the consultant’s already been round!” - he’d understandably assumed the grey haired figure in a white coat was his boss!

I was in hospital visiting my father-in-law. I was stood next to his bed chatting to him and one of the nurses came in to the room. She looked me up and down and asked if I was the doctor. 😂

All the time. I have a very chatty smiley persona so often considered to be one the 'girls' in the admin office rather than a senior leader. I could change my persona but it's not me so I don't. Sometimes wearing a blazer helps but I don't like blazers as I feel like a Tory voter from the 80s in them.

Have you?

Not quite the same thing, but I once made the mistake of visiting Legoland Windsor... only to find when I got there that I was wearing the exact same rugby shirt all the staff now wore. I was mortified! And asked questions by everyone all bloody day! 😂they must have thought I was the worst ever employee as I didn't know any of the answers!

I was asked to leave a zoom call that I was chair of and had arranged! It was so I could provide information regarding my expertise to colleagues working on a complex project! Something that they had requested from me.

"Oh bonzaitree you don't need to be in this meeting. Please can you hop off"

In retrospect I should have said "ok bye" and left them all there until someone realised!

In actual fact I put the person back in their box and then told them the information that they had requested haha!

On a side note never ever get the coffee or take the notes as a woman in a meeting. If someone says "shall we get a coffee" then stare ahead and make no eye contact. If directly ask say "I need to hear the whole meeting because it directly affects XYZ project."

If they ask you to take notes say "I'll struggle with that as I need to give XYZ input so can't do both". (Obv if your precise job role involves doing this stuff then you have to do it!)

I’ve had some unusual conversations at conferences and networking events: I have a job title which can be misleading if you don’t know what it is, in an industry which consumers tend to have a very different understanding of to those who operate in it. Often I just play along if the person I’m talking to isn’t going to be professionally useful to me, it’s easier.

Jackie Weaver, is that you?

Many years ago I was in a meeting in another country between Brits who didn't speak the local language and locals who didn't speak English. I'm female, and was young and junior at the time. I was effectively workshadowing in the meeting and didn't contribute, nor was I expected to.

The man who was translating kept looking over at me in a rather pointed fashion whenever he started speaking. After the meeting, he approached me and started talking rather animatedly at me in the local language. I apologised in English for my lack of understanding. As you might imagine, he assumed I was the interpreter and had been failing to do my job, and was cross that he had had to stand in for me.

Clearly there were misunderstandings at the introductions stage!

I work at an institution attached to a library.
I do not work in the library. I have nothing to do with the library. I don’t even have key card access to the library.

I constantly get mistaken by visitors for a librarian!

I suppose I look the way people imagine librarians to look, as our actual librarian is sleek and blonde but I have uninspiring brown hair, glasses and a sort of shy look about me (even though I’m not, I just have a slightly anxious resting face?!)

I sometimes wonder about giving in and accepting my destiny, retraining as a librarian. I do like books. I just don’t work with them!!

My husband was mistaken for a 2000s boy band member in the US. Looks nothing like the guy, but played along with it for a bit.

I’ve also confused general public with waitstaff/shop workers. It’s mortifying.

For the first 6 months at my job I thought our receptionist was the CEO. I stood up straighter any time she walked into the room😂

Years ago, when I was a TA, I was mistaken for one of the students and got told off for being in the staffroom. Thing is that it was a primary school so the person who told me off must have thought I was 12 or younger!

Have you ever been mistaken for a journalist on a slow news day OP?

Not work related......

I arranged my friends hen do.
I bought all the feather boa's, tiara's costumes etc.I didn't know some of the other girls but they were a bit snotty.

Anyway all had a few drinks, picked my tiara and feather boa up and the next thing you know another girl says to me 'that's my boa and tiara'. I said no I put mine here.
She was adamant it was hers and started to tell me that I need to go and find my own etc etc.
It was honestly such a silly argument and she was escalating it. Because i didn't want to cause a scene I let it go but really wish I had told her that it was me that had paid for all 16 girls tiara's, costumes, boas etc and that it cost me loads.

Yes, a guy thought the man I managed was my boss 🙄

When I started at my company there had been a big recruitment drive and we all had to go through the same induction, which was in a hotel, overnight stay etc. I had breakfast with a nice lady who told me she was on a temp to perm contract and she really wanted permanent but was trying to get a foot in the door. We chatted for a bit and she said “which agency are you with?” I said I was permanent staff and she grilled me about how to get in, when we both realised I was her boss’s boss’s boss. She looked mortified and not a little scared and I felt very awkward.

Yes. Been asked to make tea, to which I obliged.

I was mistaken for a secretary or assistant when I worked as program/events director for an organisation. The average age of the members was 60+, and I was a mere slip of a lass of 35.

It was very instructive, the way people treated me before and after they discovered that I was the director. Quite eye-opening. For one thing, it taught me to treat everyone with respect, from the cleaner to the CEO.

In my last two jobs I've been referred to as the assistant to my role, when I'm actually the senior in my role, but that's it. I just laugh about it.

Someone thought my brother was a waiter and not a mourner at his godmother's funeral.

😂

I used to travel a lot with a male colleague who was unfailingly rude to staff in hotels etc. I used to cringe whilst he berated the waiter over breakfast etc. A friend of mine then pointed out that probably all the staff pitied me as they would think I was his wife. 😬😳