As a cashier; please don’t. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve been checking and come upon a bag full of limes which is tied shut so that I can’t easily count them, and when I ask the customer how many they have, they say “I don’t know”.
Yes, yes they are. Also, a thump on the head to whomever decided that putting green vegetables into a green plastic produce bag was a good idea - lots of stuff starts to look alike wrapped up like that. Cilantro/parsley being the worst offenders in that regard.
Yep, this - a LOOSE knot is OK, but they can tighten up a lot. There have been times I’ve needed to rip the bag open so I can tell what’s actually in the bag and count the items. Which annoys some people but hey, if you want to pay Honeycrisp prices for your Macintosh apples, OK…
Over the years I’ve learned to distinguish between cilantro, parsley, and Italian parsley.
Still can’t tell the difference between kale, collards, turnip greens, and mustard greens to save my life, though.
Apparently a lot of customers can’t distinguish the greens, either, just randomly grabbing what’s there.
Another annoyance as a store employee is when customers will bundle together a bunch of different things and say “but they’re all the same price!”. OK, sure, but the different colors/varieties of peppers all have their own code and are tracked separately in inventory and ordering. I know the customers don’t care, but the store/inventory system does. Sure, there is supposed to be a human double-checking but every so often we’ll have twice the number of pepper X arrive and none of Y and Z… because according to the software we sold lots of X and none of Y and Z when in fact a lot of Y and Z were rung up as X. This is only going to get worse with self-checkout, because while I will usually correct this sort of thing on the fly the average customer, completely unaware of the problem, will not.
I do not use the cashiers, preferring self checkout by far. And who is the moron that doesn’t know how many limes they purchased? 
Never would of thought of this as a problem. When I do tie it, I tie it as loosely as possible, but that’s to avoid having to rip open the bag when I get home.
Thanks!
One who shops where Broomstick works?
Are you sure? Because around here, like at our Ralphs, we could bring our own bags, but then had to bag it ourselves.
Yes- which of course was my bag, since clearly a bag is something you would not expect in a bagging area. But they fixed that.
Not under S?
My issues is that I have fat fingers, and “call attendant” is right next to “no bags” and there is no way to cancel call attendant, nor proceed.
No lines. or even if there is some line, it is a single feeder line, which works well.
At the very beginning of the pandemic your own bags were banned because they were worried that they’d be infected and would sit on common areas. My store, at least, did away with the mandatory plastic bag charge, but that was allowed on a county by county basis.
Then you could bring your own bags but if you did you’d have to bag them yourself. Now we’re back to the bagger using your bags again.
Right. Early in the pandemic, Safeway (and Trader Joe’s) were restricting the number of people who could enter the store at once, so we had to line up outside, six feet apart, until enough people left that we could go in to shop. And then Safeway had a common line for the registers. And yes, we were not allowed to bring in our own bags but because of existing law, the stores were charging for us to get the reusable ones.
Shopping sure gets complicated in Murica.
Every Friday I take my list to Tesco and my bags (we have to take our own or buy expensive ones). I collect a scanner at the door and tour around, picking up the items on my list as I go. Loose veg has to be bagged, weighed and scanned by me before it goes in the bag. All pre-packs just get scanned and stowed.
I may well spot offers and may decide that they are worthwhile. I always check use-by dates. When I am done, I head for the checkout and link to the till. Sometimes (rarely) an assistant will want to carry out a random check. Sometimes (even more rarely) a complete check. Meat from the butcher has to be checked, and if I buy alcohol the assistant has to confirm my age.
I can sort the purchases as I go round and only handle them once. There is hardly ever a queue at the checkout. I am well aware that Tesco are accumulating data on my shopping habits but so does Amazon and a whole raft of other people - a fact of modern life.
Usually the same people who tell me halfway through ringing them up to “Stop when you get to $200” but we’re already at $350 and they’re still putting stuff on the belt.
There are very, very few stores in America with handheld scanners for customer to carry around. The only one I know of is Amazon Fresh.
Stop N Shop has them.
Amazon Fresh is the one that big brothers you with cameras everywhere and detects when you pick something up.
Kroger, Meijer, and Stop & Shop all have it here.
Where’s “here”?
No, that’s Amazon Go. Amazon Fresh is a less hoity-toity version of Whole Foods.
Amazon Fresh was their grocery delivery, but they’ve turned them into larger Amazon Go’s.
Or is this regional?
OK. I looked it up. Apparently, this is in select stores and we are having different experiences.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GLMJKXBCU6T28HS5
I imagine there’s a practical limit to how large a store can be in order for the cashierless system to work. The store I work in has about 70,000 square feet of floor space and can have well over 500 shoppers inside on a busy day - I don’t think any number of cameras would be able to track every item coming off a shelf in that environment.