It can feel uncomfortable when someone comments on the way you speak. Some won’t mind it if you’re asking about their accent out of curiosity, but hearing it mocked can feel offensive. That’s what one shopper says happened to her and her mom during a recent visit to a Marshalls in Connecticut. In her TikTok video, the woman said she and her mom were in the fitting room trying on jeans when they came across an employee who, in her view, was rude. At first, they assumed the worker was just having a bad day. Later, as they returned the clothes, the shopper who was rushing to pick up her daughter hung one pair of jeans inside out by mistake. That was when the employee scolded her, calling it “ridiculous” and “horrendous.”
The two tried to correct the clothes, but the employee then asked, “Where are you from?” The shopper answered that she lived in the next town and had been there for three years, but the employee replied that she didn’t “sound” like she was from there. The customer claimed that the worker even mimicked her accent, insisting she must be from somewhere else.
The woman also added that she normally would have been glad to share her “entire life story,” but in this situation, it felt like an insult. “We didn’t want to spend a single minute in the store anymore,” she explained. By the end of the exchange, both she and her mom felt humiliated and decided they would never shop at Marshalls again.
What People Are Saying About the Connecticut Woman’s Experience
Some netizens felt the shopper was partly at fault. One person wrote, “You should never hang the clothes inside out. I’m sure it didn’t help the woman’s mood.” Another agreed, saying, “The lady was right, you had all the time to try on the clothes but not enough time to return them the proper way. It’s disrespectful.” Others argued that the employee shouldn’t have treated the customers badly regardless. “Some people are just horrible and they want to ruin your day, I hate that you and your mom had to deal with this lady,” one netizen said. Someone else added, “Get a lawyer. Asking where you are from is perceived racism and comments about your accent IS RACISM.”
Many suggested that she should have taken the case to management instead of cancelling the store entirely. “You should have asked for the manager and told him or her, or at least given a bad review,” one commenter wrote. A second remarked, “I’m sorry that happened to you. You should report her to the manager because that’s not ok at all.” “Glad you realized it was bad to return clothes inside out. The staff was quite clearly racist, but for you to not visit Marshalls anymore because of the action of one employee is a bit… Had you filed a complaint to Marshalls and they dismissed it, then it would have made sense to boycott them,” said a third.
