Is it proper etiquitte to help bag your own groceries if it is a busy time of day and there is no one to help in your line?
I do this sometimes and get strange looks from the cashier.
ok- this thread has been viewed 46 times and besides the fact that I spelled etiquette wrong - has no one ever helped in bagging their own groceries?
I’ve done it, at a full service grocery. When I did, the rush was on, and the help was appreciated.
I will often tell the bagger to just let me bag my own stuff. I get a lot of looks but I’m faster and better than most of the baggers out there. There was a thread… I think it may have been a pit rant… a while back about people who DON’T help being lazy or rude. I forget what the consensus was though.
(I used to cashier and had a lot of customers who would take my line no matter what because even without a bagger I got them out faster than many registers with baggers!)
I’ll lift things like my 12-pack of sodas into my cart, but I’ve never helped bag the rest of the groceries. I would never expect a customer to bag their own stuff at the store where I work, and I wouldn’t want to interfere with whatever the cashier usually does.
I’ll help bag my own groceries is there is no bagger. And if there is a bagger, I generally try to make things flow easier by removing the completed bags from the grocery counter and putting them in my cart, putting big items directly in, etc. The job is thankless enough as it is…
Had a friend who worked as a bagger at a grocery store in his high school years, and he said that while actually helping put stuff in the bags tended to kind of get in the way, what WAS helpful was trying to organize the items when you put them on the conveyor belt. In other words, don’t put down two avocados and then a loaf of bread and then some really heavy cans and then a pear and then some frozen meat and then a bag of grapes… etc. Try to put heavy things together, non-crushable items (e.g. bread) together, and cold/frozen items together. Makes it easier on the bagger.
If it’s just the cashier there, no bagger is present, and there is someone behind me waiting, I will usually help and bag my own groceries. I don’t know if I’ve gotten strange looks, I just wanna get the hell outta the store and on my merry way.
Well I’m a grocery store cashier so I can offer the general opinion of myself and my coworkers.
*packing is appreciated unless we have a packer, then you are kinda getting in the way.
*removing your items from your basket is preferred.
*loading the bags into the cart if I have no packer is wonderful-just standing there, particularly if there is a line up, is annoying.
*This one is kind of a secret but if you go to our tills while we are packing for someone else and start unloading your stuff without at least looking at us for approval ( “you open?”) we will say nasty things about you behind your back. I know it’s petty but I think it makes all the diff if you ask first. We just feel more appreciated instead of slaves to the till. Of course we will deny this.
Nowadays all the bags in the stores I frequent are down behind the counter, immediately after the barcode scanner. So in order to help bag my own things, I’d have to take them out of the cashier’s hands, reach around behind the credit card reader, and drop them in the bag below.
However, my regular grocery store is old-fashioned in that it hires people specifically to bag and to carry your groceries out to your car. Usually I just run in to get a bag’s worth, and I hate having a seventy-year-old man - who looks like he has less engery than me - carry my single bag while I walk out empty-handed. Unless I have a cartload of groceries, I tell them I’ll get it myself. If I do have a cartload, though, I think telling them they shouldn’t bother might be something of an insult.
Well thank you all for your answers. I feel much better now 
Hey Dreamer, its a bit different over here (in Ireland). I work at one of the supermarkets here and its very rare that we have bag packers, unless its extremely busy, or unless some organisation are in packing bags to raise money. If customers put all there groceries up on the belt and then wait for you to pack it and dont offer any help dispite the fact there theres a long queue, your groceries will usually end up thrown in any old way, maybe thats spiteful, usually its just getting rid of people. We always help though, just we expect some help in return. People do usually pack there own bags now though becuase most people bring there own bags with them, you have to pay for plastic bags in Ireland now its a government thing to clean up the enviroment, and its rare to find paper ones in food stores.
I’d say it’s a nice thing to do but shouldn’t be expected of anyone.
I’ve tried, but I get strange looks or a quick “Someone will be along shortly to do that.”
Plus, I suck at bagging, I have to think about it too much. I’m way too slow. The regular baggers do a much better job than I, and much faster.
I sometimes feel really guilty because most shopping trips I’m usually getting both kinds of cat litter (clumping and clay) and that stuff is heavy. I’ll lift those things myself to save the cashier the bother.
I nearly always help to bag my groceries, especially if the bags are easily accessible to customers and the store is busy, as is often the case at Trader Joe’s here in Baltimore.
It’s harder at places like Superfresh because, as lovelyluka points out, the bags are often out of reach behind the counter.
I carry a backpack when I shop (as well as bags for life) so will do my own packing. The cashiers do help by putting meat and leaky or frozen stuff in smaller bags for protection.
When unpacking my trolley things are arranged for easy scanning, reduced stickers lifted so it’s easy to remove, light things in one pile, heavy things in another, etc.
On the rare occasion the cashier packs for me, I try to make sure things are easy for her to do so.
In my neck of the woods, you’d just be in the way. The checkers bag as they scan unless they have a bagger(which they usually do).
Though I normally go to a store where they have the “UScan,” which I love. No customers droning on about their kids to the clerk, no slow clerks. I scan and bag and am out of there in a heartbeat.
I normally use the U-scan as well. I love it.
But I do bag my own groceries most of the time. I usually get a thank you from the cashier. I find it really annoing when I’m waiting in line and have to wait twice as long because a person won’t bag their own groceries.
I used to go a place called Aldi, where they won’t bag your groceries for you. It was no frills shopping, but my food bill was about half as much as it is now.
Over here, its standard practise to pak your own bags. I was very confused in the States when someone started packing groceries away for me.
That said, one supermarket chain, Sainsbury’s, has introduced a system where the cashier will bag your groceries as he/she is scanning them. Now, that confused me totally, as it was so unexpected.
My grocery store almost always has someone there to do the bagging. They hire the mentally challenged for this job. Also, I’m busy writing a check and getting extra money. As long as someone has been hired to do it (and I’ve paid for that service) why should I rock the boat?