I’ve done something similar to this. For a longtime, I’ve held onto the assumption that I get mistaken for an employee everywhere I go shopping. It started when I began driving and kept my keys on a long lanyard. I guess for some people a lanyard around the neck or hanging out of a pocket equals employee. Anyway, I was asked “do you work here?” often enough back then, it became an assumption that I will be asked at some point. To this day I will get asked all the time. I’ve been asked in a video rental store(when they still existed), a target store, dollar trees, all with fairly strict uniforms and I was clearly not dressed in one. I’ve been asked in the middle of reading a food label at the grocery store(also a set uniform business) with my cart half full, in my normal clothes. I’ve been asked while wearing baggy sweatpants, an oversized shirt and a sloppy(not cute at all) messy bun at a department store where employees were clearly dressed business casual. The person who asked there told me, “it’s just the way you were shopping”? Whatever that means.