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?

I was a senior professional staying for a few weeks at a 5* hotel for meetings. Obviously, I was wearing a suit. Sometimes I popped in and out of meetings to get documents.

Whenever I did so, other guests at the hotel seemed to assume I was hotel staff (I guess because I wasn’t in leisure clothes and clearly a youngish woman can’t possibly be at the big important meeting 🙄). So, guests would ask me quick questions which I’d usually answer, as I knew the hotel well, and saying “yes breakfast is 7-10am’ was quicker than “I don’t work here blah blah”.

One time I was carrying a pile of heavy files and obviously in a rush, yet a man stopped me to ask if I knew where the restaurant was. I was walking in that direction anyway so I said “yes it’s this way follow me.” He followed for a few moments then popped into a hotel shop and expected me to wait outside for him holding my pile of heavy stuff until he’d finished window-shopping 😐 🤷‍♀️ so I ditched him.

The whole thing was an interesting insight into how rudely some people address hotel staff.

A fair few times people have mistaken me for an attendee or general nobody at an event I am running or where I am a speaker, not sure on those occasions if it was my baby face or the wheelchair.

I was once totally ignored and dismissed by someone at a Trade show, unfortunately for them I had been invited by their boss to discuss something mutually beneficial but probably better for them than me... When I did finally get someone to speak to me, they told me I couldn't be me (yeah, no, I don't get it either) because ... and then he waved at my wheelchair... and then turned and walked away.

Boss was v apologetic after the event but by that point I'd gone elsewhere.

Weirdly though, theres been at least two occasions I know of (and so possibly more I don't know about) where people are absolutely convinced they've met and talked to me and they definitely haven't.

One person I actually asked 'Oh I thought you were going to come and say hi at x Conference, but I seem to have missed you', told me he'd had several conversations with me, what was I on about.. and we did work out who he had talked to (who knew there'd be two people in purple wheelchairs!)

Another person told me it was super to have met me ... and we hadn't, and I have never worked out who it was she met, though potentially could be the same person as the previous one.

I don't know her so ... no idea if shes pretending to be me on purpose (unlikely but who knows) or what!

This has happened to me many times at work but a benefit of aging is that it is occurring less so now! I work in a very male dominated industry, currently the only female with 65 male colleagues. I’ve often attended meetings with companies that automatically look to one of the males attending as being the senior and they or I have had to correct them. Blatant sexism unfortunately 🤷🏻‍♀️

1 once got shouted at by a livery cause her horse had the wrong rug on she shouted and shouted till I pointed out I was yard manager and if she spoke to my staff like that she is no longer welcome here surpose we all dress the same but she had been there a few years and thought I was a stable hand

I had someone once say to me 'I expected you to be Chinese' after speaking in the phone (broad regional accent)

I do have a short surname that isn't Asian, but honestly I couldn't look less Asian!

I usually wear black trousers /t shirt when I go into the office. Always mistaken for Marks and Sparks staff if I go there at lunch. Now I just answer the questions as I usually know the answer (and the entire place seems to run on about 6 staff!).

It would appear so 😉

Sadly I'm not though. I'm a SAHM who is currently laid up in bed and bored!

I might get shouted at for this question (I am female, btw) but why wouldn't you do business with him? How was he supposed to know you were a director when one wouldn't expect to see a director, male or female, in reception? He would have been as likely to ask a man the same question, surely?

Of course, if you didn't want to do business with him cos he was smarmy, well that's a different thing altogether.

@Dotjones

'I was the data entry monkey'

'the' - only one?

I thought there was an infinite number of you lot?

Aren't you supposed to be producing the 'Complete Works of Shakespeare' for us?

🤔

One of those things where I thought of so many potential responses after the event!

As it was, it was a meek "I'm sorry, I don't work here"!

After I pressed post on this I realised I hadn't explained myself very well - apologies.

It was very clear by his tone and attitude towards me that he thought I was "just" the receptionist and not important enough or worthy of his time.

Mature uni student last year. I walked into my lecture hall to find one of the lecturers there already. It was early. He turns to me and said "oh are you the guest speaker?" 😂No love, I'm old enough to be some of these students mums though. I should have actually done the guest speaking, he would never have known 😃

Urgh, ah yes, I can completely see why you wouldn't;t have to deal with that attitude again if you didn't have to!

Thanks for the extra info.

In my twenties I arrived to meet some friends early. It was in a shopping centre, so I plonked myself on the floor outside a bookshop, and sat there reading.
A man came over and dropped a fiver in my lap and told me he hoped it would help. 😆

I was once mistaken for a drug dealer in a nightclub in Ibiza. My friend had an upset stomach, I was seen passing her some anti-diarrhoea tablets. Thankfully sorted before the police were called.

Not me, but friend and I were shopping in an outdoor shop in the French Alps. The things we were looking for were on a line of hooks high up on the wall so we asked the chap to pass one down for us to look at, which he did. We rejected it, asked him to put it back and pass the next one. Then we asked him about the pricing, different elements in each product, at which point he said rather crossly that he didn’t work there . Why he went along with it for so long I have no idea. He wasn’t even French 🤣

DD 24 is a bank branch manager and looks younger than her age.
When she pops up to meet people who have made an appt to see the manager, almost without fail they state that their appt was actually with the manager. When she says "yes, that's me" then then ask to see the overall manager (or words to that effect" and look bemused when she says "that's still me"!

I used to organise trade union conferences for my company, in hotel meeting rooms. I’d stand near reception and for people checking the list of rooms, step over and say, “are you here for Company X? Straight down there then left - we’ve got coffee and tea.”

I used to get lots of people asking my help - and I think it’s fair to assume I was hotel staff.

However, it (back when I was young and naïve!) used to surprise me at how many people were simply rude to me when I said, “ah - sorry, can’t help you with restaurant times - I’m just from Company X directing people to a meeting room - you could try reception desk?”

😅

I was mistaken for the fitness instructor at a gym class.

A new member arrived as I was chatting to a bunch of other members, it's a small friendly gym so I turned to include her in the chat - she said some things like 'this is my first class' and asked how long the class was etc. and I chatted and answered her questions.

It wasn't until the actual instructor turned up that she turned to me and said 'oh I thought you were the instructor'.

😂

Yes 35 year old operations manager . Client came in and spoke to me like a child and asked where staff were! Thought I was work experience or something .

To be fair I did look really good still at 35, we have good genes in our family and don’t get wrinkles until our 60s and I had a youthful haircut and was still a size 8….
god I miss looking like that 😭

That's terrible. Just because you are a woman?

Never the most sartorially dressed I got up, chucked on trousers and t shirt and went off to hospital appt. Leaving I was accosted twice by harassed staff asking if I could lend a hand a minute, my bemused face prompted the second one to say 'you are a nurse aren't you?' I then realised my royal blue trousers perfectly matched my tshirt and it looked like I was wearing blue scrubs. I take a little more care now!

The worst instance of this for me was over 20 years ago. I was a shy, inexperienced 21 year old.
Had finished my BA and was graduate teaching assistant doing my next degree and had a few classes to tutor.
Coming up the stairs for the first of one class the hottest guy started chatting to me, followed me to the classroom, while we waited outside kept chatting said he hoped the GTA wasn’t too harsh as he had a tendency to be lazy .. his face when we walked in and I went to the head of the class… I was also somewhat gutted tbh.