Odd, I’ve never been in a store that didn’t seem to have an overabundance of baggers, and since I’m occupied with watching the readout to make sure everything is scanned properly and standing ready to get the correct amount of money out, I wouldn’t feel safe bagging my own groceries and not paying attention to the readout/my wallet.
Well, “peak hours” for the grocery business is typically 4-6 on weekdays, all day Saturday, and 12-2 on Sunday. If you shop at any other time, then there will probably be extra baggers hanging around with nothing to do.
Sigh.
I worked in a supermarket for six years, starting as a bag/cart boy. A supermarket’s resources are pretty thin–they don’t have the luxury to afford a mass of employees to do everything. In fact, bagging was a luxury for us–only if the store was slow, the carts were in, and there weren’t any tasks to do were we allowed to bag. There just wasn’t time otherwise, unless a customer who REALLY needed it made a request for one, or the store was so crowded (i.e., Christmas eve) that they needed to get customers out in a hurry.
Mind you, I liked bagging…it gave you a chance to chat with the cashiers and yes, even the customers. When I became a chashier, it was always fun to bag (for another cashier when my line was slow) because it got you away from the register and broke the tedium.
But an obligation? Nah. If the customer can’t bag, the cashier can do it for them–but otherwise, it’s an expectation that can’t be met.
Whether there are baggers or not depends on the part of the country you are in, assuming we are talking about the U.S. If you shop at a Publix in Florida, there will be baggers galore. If you shop at the Pathmark in New Jersey, forget it.
I second Guin with her pro-Eve stance (heh, sounds bizarre). I was a cashier for about two months this summer at a local Kroger, and one of the reasons I quit was because of lack of sackers, thus forcing me to bag most my own groceries (among other reasons). Occasionally there would be a customer who would take the initiative and bag their own, which was great. As a cashier at Kroger, I never received any instruction on how to sack groceries, and it wasn’t in my job description. However, due to poor staffing, I found myself doing cartloads. So, although not required, if you’re able to do so it’s much appreciated.
How do you bag your own groceries?
At most of the stores I go to, there’s a counter between me and the checkout person, and a little indentation where the bag goes while it’s being filled. To bag my own groceries, I’d have to lean over the card-reader swipey thing and then all the way over the counter to even get near the bags, much less to put stuff in them. At the very least, it would seem incredibly odd, rude even, to do that.
So, yes, I expect my groceries bagged.
I always bring my own canvas shopping bag and usually can get it mostly bagged by the time the last item gets scanned. If there is a bagger there I make sure they wait until I’ve finished unloading my bag and can hand it to them.
It never ceases to amaze me that they can watch me arrive at the register with all my items in the bag, then ask me if I think it’ll all fit back into the same bag.
Sorry, I gave my anecdote, but didn’t really answer the OP!
We are as obligated to bag our own groceries as the individual supermarket “says” we are. So, here in Japan, it is obvious that the customer is obligated to bag our own. The supermarket doesn’t even have to say anything, or put up signs; its just obvious when you see the bagging stations separate from the cashier.
I totally agree.
Really? I find in my situation that although the cashier usually gives me a certain number of bags that there are more available at the bagging station.
Oh, and the cashier will always bag it for me if it’s a single bag’s worth.
Here in Ireland, a tax was recently introduced on plastic shopping bags. It’s 15c a bag and the revenue is ringfenced for environmental projects. As a result, the vast majority of people have purchased re-usable bags and these are very much the norm in supermarkets etc. Anyway, packing big canvas bags is much quicker at the check-out and loading the car is much easier than with ten plastic bags. After some initial whining, the initiative has been remarkably successful.
The situation in Ireland varies between upmarket supermarkets who almost always have baggers, to mid-range who sometimes do but the cashier will do it for you if you wish, to cheap shops where you are more or less obliged to do it yourself.
Here in the UK it’s very rare to find anyone to help you bag your groceries. It’s accepted that you’'ll do it yourself. It amazes me that people here are whining that they don’t have anyone to help - unless you’re disabled or something?
A supermarket has another problem:
The boxes where everything is packed. Apples and that kind of stuff comes in boxes to the shop.
In Finland it is not so usual, but it happens, that when You come to the super-market, there is a big wooden box filled with empty boxes.
So when I go shopping, I take the cart and go and go to the wooden box and choose a box for myself. The banana-boxes (e.g. Chiquita) are best, they are wide, they have holes for Your hands and they are not too high.
So I put this box under my cart. (I think every country has this kind of carts where You can but a bigger box if You buy beer or something like that.)
So when I go to the girl and she is reading the codes of each package with this electronical system, I take my box and stuff my things in that order that I want them to be packed.
When she has made the last reading, I am also ready (about two seconds later) and pay.
Then I put the box into the chart and leave the cart were it properly should be left.
It is easy to take my box to the car.
So I am happy, the enviromental people is happy, and the shop-keeper is happy because he does have much less waste.
(Later I light my sauna with these boxes).
I do not know how common it is now, but some ten years ago when I found a shop with this system, I always went there.
We never have baggers in Finland.
Or I know one. The story goes like this:
There was 3 supermarkets faceing each other. I speak of supermarkets which has maybe 25 - 40 people working each shift. The competition was hard. It was a race.
One of the shopkeepers had made a system like this.
Everyone had the same “uniform”. I think this is usual everywhere. But the shop-keeper had an uniform of differen colour. So You had not to be very bright to understand who is the boss.
This foxy guy (foxy here filled with my admerition) put his wife to do almost everything that a shop-keeper usually do.
He himself, always whenever he had time, was lurking near the cashiers.
Then when an elderly woman was paying he went there and begun to pack for her. Then he helped her to the door, chit-chatting and took her stuff to the car. I think he rutinuely made this some 20 times a day.
And he always did this when there was no rush. Even if he helped a lady only one of 500 customers, this gave an effect.
The pensioners begun to come at these hours when the business is at it lowest.
And what do pensioners do: They talk to each other to their families. So if You ask granma where we should shop, it was naturally to the shop with this “friendly” owner.
In Finland pensioners has usually a pension about 60 - 70 ) of the sum that was their salries. All mortages paid, childer away, etc.
I found out this system of this “foxy” guy, when my mother in law said to her eldest son: “Go to that shop, they have the best bread!” In reality the bread was not better or worse than elsewhere but it was this foxy guys chatting point.
OK, pensioneers does not eat much = buy much, but as propagandists they are exellent!
And when it was raining, this guy, who knew what to do, took the ladies to the car with an umbrella, because the ladies had oin other shops both to carry the stuff she bought and try to keep the umbrella.
Now You think that nobody canafford to have the head of the Supermarket to do this, but I think he was the most productive guy of all their personel. And it went fast around.
Naturally, he could not help everyone, but nobody expected that either. And everyone was happy.
He did not want anyone else do this special helping of the customers, and the others had other things to do, because it had to be so, that not “just someone” had helped, BUT the owner himself.
I think a pensioneer tells about her day, approximately to 3 - 10 people. And everybody is polite but usually nobody really cares to help them, “because they are busy to run to the next palce, meeting” and whatever the career takes.
I have myself worked quite much with marketing, and the usual problem is that the “Mr Big Boss”, does not put himself out in the crowd. He likes to make big decicions and “rule over his staff”.
I would say that You can spend as much of money as You like on marketing, but the best marketing is when You get the consumer to do it for You.
I would also say, that this kind of example is creating also a good spirit among the staff.
I agree that it depends where you are in the country. If I’m in a food co-op, then I can usually help bag my own groceries – but in a normal grocery store here in Asheville, NC, the setup precludes my bagging my own groceries.
Actually, now that I think about it, it was the same way when I lived in Olympia, WA. I’d be astonished (not offended, but astonished) if the cashier asked me to bag my own groceries.
Daniel
From my observation, there are few things a customer can do that’ll irritate a cashier more than attempt to bag their own groceries. I’m not sure why that is, but nearly every time I’d seen someone do it, the cashier has looked upset.
If I went into a supermarket with a canvas bag and started putting food in it, I would expect to be arrested for shoplifting! :eek:
Costco does this also. They have cardboard boxes that you can use to put your food into. I agree with this idea because, in concept, you are lowering their costs and ultimately your prices. Costco is a members shopping place like Sams club.
Yep. I always ask sheepishly and immediately start helping with the bagging when I ask for paper in plastic. I have to walk a couple blocks with all my groceries to get from parking garage to condo, so I need them to be easy to carry and hard to break. I do notice the evil stares I get from the baggers.
:mad: 
amarinth, in some stores, there’s a long counter so the cashier can just swoop your groceries over the scanner and shove them on down the line. Sometimes there’s even a conveyor belt to move things along, but most often it’s just a counter with a slight slope. At the very end of the counter, there are bags. Sometimes there’s a bagger to bag the grocieries as the cashier sends them down the chute, but if there’s not, you pay for your grocieries and then scamper down to the end of the couner and bag your stuff. (Usually the counter is split into two different “lanes” so the cashier can just send the next person’s purchases down the other lane.)
The best strategy if there isn’t a store-provided bagger is to bring the hubby or the chillins along and have them bag while you wait to pay. 
Gee, at all the stores around here, they ALWAYS bag my groceries. Plus the bagger always asks if I need help going to my car, which I always decline. If the bagger isn’t at the station, the cashier does it. And at Trader Joe’s, they keep the bags behind the counter, so it’s impossible to do it yourself. I never even thought of offering to help - I always figured I’d be butting in on their job. But I like that idea. Next time I’ll ask if they’d like me to do it myself.
here in oregon. a certain grocery store has a few lanes called ‘u-scan.’ not only do you have to bag your own, but scan your groceries as well. there’s usually one clerk to every four scanning terminals to keep make sure that only scanned groceries go into the bag.
I perfer it because i work with customers all day and i don’t like to make small talk with boring strangers unless im paid to do so.
Here in Matsuyama, the only extra bags which are available at the bagging station are the little freezer bags for putting individual fruit/veges in. Or frozen foods. Certainly not big enough to pack more than one item, though!
But yeah, I forgot to mention that the cashier WILL bag my stuff if I only have a little. Thanks for reminding me!
Do they have the promotions where you get discounts if you take your own bag in Wakayama, though?
We have those Self-Scans here at KrapMart. I actually like them-the lines aren’t as long, and I’m so used to scanning things, no one is ever fast enough for me.