RHU Poll: Name Tag Switching

We never had to wear name tags at The Big Fancy, but at my other retail hell jobs, Macys, movie theaters, and Long John Silvers we often switched named tags!

Have you switched your name tag with a coworker? Did the custys notice?

 

 

Comments

[MJay]

Many eons ago, when I worked with Tom at a 7-Eleven, he put his favorite radio station (WMGK) on a name tag and wore it. I think it took two weeks before a customer noticed it.

[Not Sarah]

I have a rather uncommon name but when I changed with a Sarah at my job suddenly every customer was saying "hi Sarah" and "thanks Sarah"

[Deiseaj]

I've walked around work with my Male Polish co-workers tag on (and he mine) and no-one, not even managers noticed.
Once we got told we were going to get sent home if we showed up with out our tags, so of course I lost mine that night and in a panic I borrowed a friends. No one noticed... she works for a different company......

[lamer]

My bff is of the opposite gender. Many people of my friend's Gender have the same name, including my bff's significant other. When my bff quit working for bank of America, my friend sent me the badge with said name. Now, I do not look like the opposite gender and was working for toys r us, I wore that badge and NO ONE noticed... Ever.

[Nomnom]

Honestly... I'm not going to notice your name tag unless there is something really bizarre that is obviously not a name ... and then only if I bother to look at the name tag. Not sure what this comic is supposed to be griping about. Customers are not going to notice if you switched name tags with your coworker unless they are regulars - they don't know who the fuck you are. Your name very well could be your coworkers name for all they know. I'd at least expect managers or other coworkers to notice since, you know, they actually know what your name is supposed to be.

[Toyman]

Yeah, I don't think your non-regular customers will know that you don't look like "Tom" when you are "Bill".

However, swapping names seems chancy. Suppose "Tom" does something that pisses off a customer while he is pretending to be "Bill". That customer is going to complain about "Bill", getting him written up or canned.

[InSecurity]

Heh. My lilly white ass has been mistaken for my very black co-workers. Not just once. Twice. Two different co-workers, years apart.

[Long Time Retail Slave]

My name is Ashley but I spell it Ashleigh. You would be surprised on how many people mispronounce it. It's beyond annoying. The worst one of all, though, is Ash-LEE-A-AH. Like really?

I've forgotten my name tag a few times and no customer ever truly noticed. The only ones who did were the managers because they like to harp on you for everything possible. Sometimes I'd just wear my "New Team Member" tag because I grew so sick of people mispronouncing my name.

[Melpomene]

I started at 10:30 one day, and was working until 8. At around 7pm a customer looked at my badge, and frowned slightly. She calmly said "That's quite an unusual name for a woman - is it short for something?" "(name)? Yeah, it's short for (Full name)"
At which point I got horribly confused, because my name isn't at all unusual.

She was even more confused because apparently that day I'd decided my name was Tim.

After that I checked to make sure I'd picked up my own badge from the windowsill.

[RainyDayGirl]

I'm a girl, but my name is spelled Aron. I used to get people asking "did you grab Aron's apron/name tag by mistake?" or "Isn't Aron going to be mad to find out you're wearing his name tag?" And when I'd tell them that no, I'm Aron, they'd look at me like I was lying. Then they'd make me explain why my name is spelled the way it is, like it's any of their business.

[KitKat]

So happy people really can't screw up my name (it's Katherine). The most I get is random variations (Catherine, Kathryn, Kathrine <--um, what?). And if they can't pronounce it/spell it, I also go by Kat (which often gets misheard as Pat by my residents. I tell them "like the animal").

[NC Tony]

@ Ashleigh: My friend spelled her daughters name the same way yours is spelled, so I would have gotten it right off the bat.

While I've never worn someone else's name tag, after I lost mine at one job, I made up one that read "Rufus T. Firefly" (a character played by Groucho Marx in the 1933 movie Duck Soup) only a handful of people noticed, and only a couple got the reference. My manager finally noticed and made me make one with my real name on it.

[Hellraiser]

I actually prefer it when customers don't notice my name. Whether it's on the nametag or over the phone, the customers who take time to read it or repeatedly ask for my name and spelling just weird me out. I keep thinking, "Why do you need to know this? I'm the one who's supposed to be asking the questions, thank you very much. So shut up so we can get on with this."

[Mollywobbles]

My co-worker, "Jean", has been wearing a name tag that says "Yolanda" for almost three months now. Literally NOBODY has noticed - not the customers (even her regulars) and not even our bosses. As long as you're wearing a name tag in the first place, I don't think management really cares. I've had pawprint stickers on mine since before Halloween, myself.

[Damn Yankee]

My last day at Arby's, I admit, like a bad teen, I swapped my badge for another manager's badge that she foolishly kept in the safe. This manager had driven out myself and 80% of our stable, worthwhile staff. I then gave lousy service to every asshole who wanted a roast beef sandwich. I wasn't nasty to -every- customer, just the ones that thought I was a doormat.

I never heard anything about it, but damn, it was satisfying.

[Smidgy]

Where I'm working right now, we have badges that are blank, and you write your name on them in permanent marker. Except, with these badges, permanent marker isn't permanent, and the names get wiped off very easily, leaving it blank. The record for someone wearing a totally blank name badge without anyone noticing (or, at least, saying anything about it) currently stands at 8 months. It would have been longer, but we got notice of a planned visit from some important guy from the higher echelons of the company, so the store manager went through the whole store and staff to make sure everything was as corporate dictate it should be, and noticed it.

[candieaddict]

I've gone a bit without wearing my nap tag since it's pinned to our aprons, and it just fell off. I didn't even notice! I just saw it lying on the counter next to me.

One of the workers took the boss' apron and tag to wear at one point, which no one really noticed, but the boss wasn't happy about it at all.

[Framer-Fatal]

I have worn the nametags of coworkers past before. Rarely do I get any notice, but a few did comment the couple times I came in as "Richard".
And of course, if Richard pisses anyone off he's not going to get in trouble, and my boss and pretty much assume it was me.

Also once went around all day as the boss (boss was out and left me in charge). That day I changed my name tag to Oren Ishii.

[AmigaTech]

I had suggested to a very nicely curvaceous friend of mine that she should put on her nametag, "SLAMT". Then when obnoxious male customers hit on her without looking her in the eye she can tell them what it stands for.

She was amused, but went with a made-up name instead.

--AT

[Eccentric Lady]

Actually, I did once wear my name tag upside down...nearly the whole shift until the second-to-last customer 'fore closing noticed and mentioned it. LOL

[Zyffyr]

Way back when I was young and working at a movie theater, I changed my nametag to say Zaphod. I wore that for a year before a manager noticed, and in that time only 2 customers said anything.

[SCS]

I did it once with a co-worker. We thought it was funny - him being a guy and me being a girl. Then a crusty had to go and ruin our fun when he asked if my co-worker was a "f**got" because he had a girl's name.

Stupid people ruin everything, and I haven't done it since.

[BookBitch]

I leave mine off whenever I can get away with it, have a different name on my real one (with permission, although it's not what I WANT on it), and then I cover THAT with the random bagstuffers we've had over the years. If I don't know you, you are damn well not going to know my name. I'm weird with names. Really weird. (Obviously. :-P)

["Adventerous" Clerk]

I changed the name on my name tag everyday for three months, it took about the first three weeks or so for anyone to notice. After that it became a game with my regulars to figure out where the name came from, I typically used mythologies of various origins with some Shakespeare thrown in. Corporate then sent down some rules about the name changing. I had at least a dozen people wanting corporates number to "complain about taking my fun away".

[Daisy]

I switched nametags with a male co-worker of mine. He was walking around as Daisy and I was Will. No one noticed for like three days, until some old pervert asked me what I was "Will-ing" to do to him after my shift. I told him my friend Daisy was available to help him if he needed it.
He asked what she looked like, I said "Tall, blond, blue eyed. Daisy is also very athletic."
'Daisy' walks up and the man freezes.
We switched back, he complained that Will had played a mean trick on him but he described us completely different so we didn't get in trouble

[The Last Archimedean]

At one of my old jobs I was Zaphod Beeblebrox. No one cared for 6 months, then one guy wanted to make a stink about it. He shut up when I went to fetch my manager... Ford Prefect.

[ajason495]

My mother and I used to work at Mervyns together. Not in the same dept, but we were both full time employees, and we often car pooled when we had the same shifts. We always had this stack of crap from our shirts and pockets on the dryer of name tags, markers, tape measures, footy sock try on things. One day we went to work and apparently I had picked one of her name tags. I went all day thru lunch with "DEBBIE" on my shirt. No one actually called me "DEBBIE" but I did get a lot of second glances and odd eyed stares.

Never again did that happen in the 4 years before Merv's closed.

[ajason495]

Sorry 2nd funny store involving name tags. I worked at Hollywood Video back in the day, and all our name tags were of movie stars, or characters of movies. We only had like 10 to pick from and everyone usually took the good ones home with them. So I was always stuck with Jackie Brown. Since I am a boy it was the most boyish sounding one, since only girl tags were left. So many people called me Jackie. Luckily someone quit so I became James Bond, and then that started "wow your parents named you James Bond?" Yes, dumbass, yes they did. I always responded with "mm hmm"

[Gonster]

A comment from the other side of the checkout counter: I tend to read the name tags of the cashiers while waiting. I just don't do anything with that information.

[Hellbound Alleee]

When I worked at the big bullseye, we often left our nametags on a big board. Sometimes we'd forget and take them home, so often we would take a name from the board if they weren't working that day. I can't tell you how many times I, as a female, was "David," or "Steve."

It was funny when some crusty got mad and wanted to report me. It's not like any crusty would take the time to write a letter about my above and beyond work.

[Jenyfur]

I wish I could do that at my job but our name tags are also our way to clock into work.. Though honestly I've forgotten my name tag a couple of times and everyone notices it. ><

[Nocturnesthesia]

There was a small, very pretty blonde girl who had a name tag that said "Garry" at a store I frequented when I lived in the USA. When I asked her if it was short for something she told me that she switched tags with her very large, very intimidating male coworker. She did this so when creeps who would call or show up and ask for "Garry", they would instead come face-to-face with the 6'8" brick shithouse and stop trying to bother her after that.

[badges]

I wish I could do that at my job but our name tags are also our way to clock into work.. Though honestly I've forgotten my name tag a couple of times and everyone notices it. ><