Ugh, so this kind of really pissed me off yesterday. Not because it was an inconvenience to me, necessarily, but because of the oblivious attitude and sense of entitlement that people exude these days.
I was in line at the checkout at the grocery and there was no bagger for our lane at the time. So the guy in front of me is having his groceries scanned and they travel down the conveyor belt where they collect, just inches in front of him. He just stands there, trying to make flirty glances at any guy possible in the other dozen lanes or so. God forbid he make a trip to the grocery without receiving his daily quota of cruisy stares. Anyway, the cashier finishes scanning and dumbass swipes his card and resumes standing and staring. The cashier scrambles to bag his stuff as quickly as possible, for there is quite a line forming. Dumbass continues looking around, even at the cashier himself, as though he’s thinking “Why is this taking so long?” He leans against the counter as his SlimFast is put in a single bag, to which he eventually responds, “Could you double bag that? I have a long walk.”
What the fuck? Is it so hard and unbelievable to use your own two hands to put something in a bag? In some countries, as mindblowing as it may seem, you’re expected to bag your own groceries. You might even have to bring your own bags! The world must be ending!
Speaking as a Brit, I have ALWAYS had to bag my own stuff. I can only imagine your frustration at having to stand in line behind this prize A*hole. He probably has his own wiper for when he visists the john.
Hey, here’s a horrifying thought: I often bring my OWN bag, and put my groceries in it my very own self. By choice! I must be insane or something! I should be in an institution for crazy people that put their own goddam food in their own goddam cloth bag!
To think, they let people like me just walk around loose, bagging their own stuff, carrying their own bags… What is the world coming to?!
The cashier can be expected to help out once they’ve finished ringing the damn stuff through, but while theyre emptying the conveyor belt, in the interests of moving the queue along (and getting home quicker yourself) wouldn’t it expediate matters if you started bagging yourself?
No one has to do it. However, if you stand there and stare while the place is short staffed, extremely crowded and just complain and bitch and moan about it, I have no sympathy.
I always bag my own groceries-it’s just quicker that way.
I knew a woman who used to come into the grocery store where I worked who would bring her own bags and wouldn’t let us bag for her. She wanted to make sure she had them the way SHE wanted them. She was pretty cool and fun to talk to.
I tend to bag my own groceries if there isn’t anyone there to do it, especially if there’s a line behind me. It isn’t exactly that hard, and I can put all the groceries for this meal in this bag, that meal in that bag, the stuff I have to take to work over here, etc.
Sure, they’re getting paid to do it, but is it so hard to toss your own stuff into bags when there are five people behind you with melting ice cream?
If there is already a bagger, I do some bagging anyway. It gets me out of the store faster. Sometimes it inspires the baggers to be more efficient, too. Also, then I have a hand in how they proportion the stuff.
<rant>
Why is it so hard to grasp a few simple concepts:
Put the cold stuff together in the same bag.
Don’t put all the heavy stuff in one bag.
Put the squashable stuff in last, not on the bottom.
Or even a few apparently difficult concepts:
Whan I ask for single paper bags, that does not mean a plastic bag, or a paper bag inside of a plastic bag, or two paper bags. Duh.
You don’t need to put a single heavy item (a 12-pack of soda, for example) inside a bag.
I’m a cashier at a grocery store and I pack as I scan. It really isn’t that hard and it speeds things up. What bothers me is people who don’t unload their own baskets and just stand there staring at me.
msmith: He should have done it because there WASN’T a bagger at that register. Instead, the cashier had to do the bagging, and that is not the cashier’s job. If indeed there HAD been a bagger, then there’s no reason the customer should have felt compelled to bag his own groceries. Since there wasn’t, it would be a good idea for him to have done it (thus allowing the cashier to continue his/her work with the other customers).
I’m so used to bagging my own groceries after living in NYC that I have to stop myself from doing it here because the grocery store I shop at prides itself on having a home touch and doing those things for you (they also take your groceries to your car and you’re not allowed to tip). If they’re short on baggers, I’ll step in and help, but they usually aren’t (of course, the prices are a little higher, but the quality is always good and since I buy mostly fresh, I’ll pay a little more for good quality). They seemed shocked the other day when I told them that I would carry out my three small bags on my own to my car - after walking 8-10 blocks with six or seven heavy grocery bags on your own, you get used to it. I just don’t get why people can’t exert the tiniest bit of effort to do things for themselves once in awhile.
Hey so you have to wait a few minutes. So what? I say there should have been a bagger there. Maybe next I’ll pump my own gas at the service line even though I’m paying the higher price. How about I help out the waiter and bus my own dishes?
People are paid to do a job for a reason. What If I smush all my eggs and bread in with the canned goods? What the heck do I know about bagging groceries? What if I drop a bag of grapes and everyone starts slipping all over them? The bagpersons are there for your protection as well as the stores.
We rarely if ever have baggers at all in the UK, and I must say I’ve never felt in danger because of the fact.
‘Bagpersons are there for your protection’
The Police are there for my protection as are the fire services I don’t think Bag persons qualify.
‘What the heck do I know about bagging?’
Hell you were intelligent enough to load the stuff in your trolley/basket without mashing it up, presumably you can do the same when transferring it to baggies
I almost forgot some of those other, lesser states (sarcasm? ya think?) have full-service gas. By Crikey, here in the Southern Behemoth we pump our own gas, fill our own cars with oil, and wash our own windows. We refine our own oil, too, in the backyard.
Bagpersons can drop grapes just as easily as you can; as for bag-packing procedure, I believe you would in fact only have yourself to blame if you ignored the laws of physics when packing your own bag.
Let me guess, you are the type of person who waits until your entire order is totaled up and bagged before giving the cashier your coupons, and then waiting until the discounts are taken off and everything is retotaled before you get your checkbook out, and then of course you have to spend 5 minutes rummaging through your purse for a pen, and you have to ask what the date is, and what store you are in, and you ask no less then 3 times what the total amount is.
It is not financialy feasible for grocery stores to have baggers at every single checkout line.
It’s amazing, but you seem to have created a new catagory beyond laziness and slothfullness and even couch potatoness.
When I go to the store, I want the people in front of me out of the way as quickly as possible. That’s why considerable time and tactical effort goes to looking for the shortest line possible, taking into account things like total shoppers present in each line and comparing that to the amount of items in their carts and then making a decision. To stand there while the stuff piles up, thereby extending the time that I have to stare at the back of someone elses head, shows two things. Arrogance or cluelessness. The person is either so full of himself that he would not deign to do the work of lesser mortals or he simply has his head up his ass. Regardless, he just needs to get the hell out of my way. I don’t want to wait in line for one second more than I have to.
