Without knowing anything, people judge you first | by Pallavi Punj | Nov, 2025

“A small incident that showed how quickly people judge.”

So today in the evening, I had a shopping plan with my family. We went to a mall where we brought five pants and one jacket. After billing, we were on our way out. At the checkout security point, suddenly the siren went off. The security guards stopped us, took our bag, and started checking it.

Then the mall owner also came and began taking out the clothes to check them. They found a metal tag still attached inside the jacket. The owner checked the bill and said, “ Yes, the jacket is billed.”

My mom was confused, thinking, what is happening? And they didn’t even explain anything properly. Actually, I didn’t even know at that time there was some issue. I just thought they were checking the bill normally. Then when I saw one of the staff members removing the metal tag, I realised they must have forgotten to remove it during billing.

We came back home. Later, my sister and mom were discussing that when the incident happened, the staff was checking the jacket pockets and saying things like, “ Sometimes people even keep things in the pocket.”

Then I was thinking that it wasn’t even our fault, but we were judged immediately. And when they realised it was their mistake, they didn’t even apologize.

Then I thought, if it was their mistake and they simply said nothing happened and ended the matter, it was fine for them. But if unknowingly we had made a mistake, who knows what would have happened? After everything, I said, “ We would have been treated like criminals for no reason.”