Things that infuriate you well beyond their actual importance

In My Humble Opinion
1181

If someone is starting to bag for me I have no problem saying, “Oh, that’s okay, I prefer to do my own bagging.”

I don’t run into these aggressive baggers much because I really do not shop at supermarkets very much at all. My local food co-op and farm stands bag for people who stand there like the idle rich, waiting to be served, but so many people do their own bagging at those places that generally they ask if you want help bagging rather than assume.

I was trained from childhood, like most women my age, to automatically help with the general labor of housekeeping, which I consider grocery shopping to be.

1182

I dont, but I do like sparkling water, so i own a Sodastream.

Yep.

1183

Yes.

I took it a step further, though. Why bother bringing the bags into the store? I found it easier and more efficient to just put everything back into the cart, wheel it out to the car, and bag everything up there.

I’ve stuck with this system to this day, and improved upon it. I very rarely go through a cashier line. Go to self-checkout, grab the scanner gun, scan everything without even taking it out of the cart, pay, go to the car, bag everything up.

1184

That’s my standard procedure at Aldi, where the cashier scans items and puts them directly into the cart.

1185

I rarely need things to be bagged as I also almost always have a cart and automobile. I thankfully have never run into the scenario of having too many things for my reusable bags nor people squashing things into one bag. Sometimes they use too many plastic bags when I forget my reusables though.

The one thing that used to be infuriating was the one scenario in which I did ask to skip the bagging. When there was an extremely slow bagger that would only be halfway done with the bagging by the time I had already paid, so I just started grabbing the unbagged stuff in the vain thought that this would speed up the process. He would always stop bagging and just stare at me blankly, thus prolonging rather than speeding up the process.

Another thing that infuriates me beyond its actual importance is the size of the packaging of Tombstone pizzas. Not only did they shrink the size of the actual pizzas, they enclosed them in a large box in addition to the old plastic-and-cardboard they used to be in. Now, only 2 fit in my freezer where 4 did before, so it’s an L for Tombstone since I now eat less of it.

They also don’t fit into bags very well. It takes baggers a while to even fit them in, as well as for me to get them out once they’ve jammed them in. So when I forget my reusables, I put the pizzas in the back with the sodas and tell the cashier not to bag the stuff in the back.

1186

Couldn’t you take them out of the box before putting them in your freezer?

1187

I could, but they didn’t listen to me when I Tweeted at them, the only Tweet I ever made before deleting my account, so if they want to continue to engage in flagrant waste, I’m not going to subsidize it.

1188

The supermarket here isn’t well set up to let us bag our own groceries. Rarely a store bagger is present, and then teller (laboriously, it seems to me) turns and puts each item in that bagging area. More commonly he or she bags each item as it is scanned.

My solution, when I can’t bag my own groceries, is to put them on the belt in the order I want them bagged - and after each group, put my reusable bag on the belt.

All the cold, and a couple of the heavy things. Then the strongest bag. Next the cans and a couple rugged vegetables. Next strongest bag. All the cereal boxes. BIGGEST bag. And so on.

1189

What is infuriating me today is apple sauce. More accurately: apple sauce jars.

No matter the brand, every apple sauce jar I encounter is shaped in a way - with those strange indentations - that traps the apple sauce inside. An entire serving or two is wasted unless I get an ice-tea spoon and scrape and curse, scrape and curse.

Sometimes I put on the lid and bang and shake the jar upside down, but this only results in a mess when more than a lid-full ends up dislodged.

Why ? Don’t tell me its got anything to do with the strength or structural integrity of the jar. Mayonnaise does just fine with a smooth sided jar, thank you !

What is up with the shape of apple sauce jars ?!?!

1190

What I hate about bringing my own bags is the large and stiff ones that want to snag themselves on the impulse buys that are hanging near the belt. I put all my bags in front of my groceries and then place a heavy item on top of it to keep the bags still.

1191

Here you go!

1192

Heinz is the worst when it comes to stuff like that. Their Squeezable ketchup and relish containers are impossible to completely empty. Tap, tap, spurt. Tap, tap, spurt. You can never get the last 10% of the product out of the damn bottle!

1193

When you shake the ketchup bottle
First nothing comes, and then a lot’ll

(Ogden Nash)

1194

Modern mustard jars!

They seem to be carefully shaped so as to prevent getting all the mustard out; even with an ice-tea spoon. The only way I can get it to work is if I want to make something involving both mustard and vinegar, in which case I can wash the mustard out with the vinegar. So I wind up with mustard bottles stuck aside slowly drying out while I wait till the next time I make potato salad; at which point I sometimes forget about the bottle stuck aside somewhere inconspicuous, until I wind up with three of them looking progressively weirder from age, and throw my hands up and them out.

1195

Nitpick: Richard Armour.

1196

And the exact quote is:

Shake and shake the catsup bottle. None will come, and then a lot’ll.

1197

I’m in the midst of editing hell with my boss right now.

Our company was supposed to send some letters to people who work for one of our in mid-December, and we didn’t – somebody dropped a ball somewhere. We found out about it last week, and we’re sending a letter to the client to acknowledge our mistake and let them know the letters have gone out.

It’s a straightforward request, and we’ve got the information we need. The account manager asked me and my boss to edit the letter she drafted to make sure it was okay to send. It’s not a complicated message – basically we’re saying we messed up, we’ve since sent the letters, and if the client has questions they can contact us.

We’re now on version 9 of this letter, because my boss will.not.stop.making.changes. And they’re not even relevant to the point – for example, she’s gone back and forth over the phrases “Upon further review” vs. “After review” vs. “After reviewing the dates for member materials.” Trust me when I say it DOESN’T MATTER. But a task that should have taken 20 - 30 minutes has now eaten up the better part of the day.

I got her most recent email a few minutes ago with even more changes, and I literally banged my head on my desk. The poor account manager is probably wondering what the heck is going on.

1198

Just a question regarding grocery store bagging. Are we expected to tip the baggers? If so, tipping for a service I don’t need it one more infuriation…

1199

Not around here, anyway; or, as far as I know, in the USA in general.

1200

I was briefly in charge of a US treasury unit, and one of it’s jobs was to respond to congressional requests. This was before the Govt had any Word style software, so we had a FT pro typist. Most letters went up, got sent back, 'fixed" and then got okayed. But there were FOUR levels of approval. One letter got to step 2, and got sent back for a few things, including getting rid of a comma. Okay, a couple of things did improve the flow and wording a bit, so no problem. So, sent back up, pass 1 & 2, to level 3, who wanted that comma back in. Comma added, back up- level 2 wanted comma out. I had the typist prepare two versions- comma and no comma, and sent them to 2 & 3, with a note- “Can the two of you agree on the comma here, please?” But if I hadnt been there, it would have gone around and around for weeks. IIRC, it was not an oxford comma.

I had another issue, in a much later position with writing Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs). Two managers would had to approve could not agree on one or two spaces at the end. I had to have a meet with them and explain what a SAR looked like when it was transmitted to the FBI, etc - the whole thing was in caps instead, and most formatting went out the window. So, they agreed to disagree and we submitted the SARs either way.

But silly assed unimportant crap like that can delay real important work for days.

Nope, except in one rare place-
My father said at the Army commissary was the only place the baggers were tipped, as they were unpaid kids back then.

Mind you, if they carry the bags out to the car, place them carefully, and perform more than expected etc- well, a handshake with a $5 in it would be nice. But it is not expected- they get at least minimum wage, and are often part of the Union.