That's why I did the whole, "Hello, how are you today" thing when I was in retail. Some people get really uppity when you mistake their gender.

Hell, when I had long hair as a guy I walked into a music shop, Strawberries if anyone remembers that company, and the person said "Hello ladies". I wasn't all that slender a 'gal' with my flabby stomach and man tits that I still have now, but at least I could laugh off that offhand greeting knowing that I was just wearing my five year metalhead headbanger growth.

Some people get very angry about their gender. To me that misapprehension wasn't that much a problem and it was something to laugh about when I brought that same clerk a Suffocation and a Mortician CD to ring out. My mom, on the other hand, was half laughing and the other half proud, she finally had a daughter for a moment as we laughed our ways through the girly stuff aisle.

Either way, sometimes those things get to people. For someone working in retail it really sucks because you see dozens of people a day and they all have their own hangups that you have to negotiate lest they cry foul. This was an honest mistake and that woman's reaction was simply idiotic.

P.S. The Mortician CD was terrible, the Suffocation album was their first EP, "Human Waste". Definitely check out "Human Waste" if you're a fan, it really shows how much the band changed up to "Effigy of the Forgotten" and "Pierced from Within".