(NB: I was going to pit grocery store baggers and their bourgeois classist assumptions, but I decided it would be too mild for a Pitting.).
When I bring my own bags to the store, why is it that no matter how many bags I bring, the bagger always crams as much as possible into the first bag, unless I remember to ask them to use more bags? Also, this happens no matter what kind of things I buy. For instance, today I bought a gallon of milk, eleven cans of cat food, and a loaf of bread, and into the first bag it all went.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to distribute the load a little? Sometimes I need to carry my groceries a considerable distance.
Isn’t it generally easier to carry one heavy bundle than several light ones? I’d think that having more bundles would lead to more balancing problems.
I can see preferring two bags with handles to one bag with a handle, so as not to strain one arm over the other. Beyond that, it seems like I’d want as few bundles as possible to have to deal with.
I’ve never been a bagger, but honestly why wouldn’t they unless instructed otherwise? The only heavy item there is the milk, at about 8 lbs., the rest is negligible and 1 bag is easier to carry than 2.
I have brought my own bags to the supermarket for over 20 years. They were never filled in a way that worked for me and the 8 blocks I have to walk to get them home. I found myself spending more and more time explaining to the bagger exactly what should go where and how to distribute everything (if you put the pineapple in this bag, and the laundry detergent in that bag, and then distribute the tissue boxes equally…) I still always ended up having to rebag to get the right distribution. Finally I started asking the bagger to put everything back in my cart, and I just bag it myself. It saves time, and everything is always bagged right (well, sometimes it takes me a few tries).
My latest problem is the new self-checkout. I love it, but I found out that if you scan items and put them directly in your cart, the machine gets confused. You have to keep clicking “do not bag”, and eventually the machine will lock up and make you call a supervisor. So now I have to put everything on the little platform first, and them move it to my cart before bagging.
I also (usually) bring my own canvas bags to the store, which gives a 5-cent credit for each bag. Up until now, they’ve always just taken whatever bags I hand over and credit them, no matter how many are used. And sometimes they’ve forgotten to give me the credit. I figure it all comes out in the wash.
A week or two ago, there was a new checker.
First, she put my 10 yogurts in the bottom of one bag, then told the bagger not to put anything else in there. Um, I did have other lightweight things that could go on top, and why didn’t she pack something heavy in there first?
Second, and this is the weird part, she took my three bags, and said she was going to wait to credit them until we found out how many were needed. WTF? Nobody else at any store had ever (literally) nickel-and-dimed me like that. I don’t even care about the nickel – I just like saving the earth and all, and the canvas bags are easier to carry – but it was just so weird.
I didn’t say anything. But the next time I went through her aisle a few days later, she took my bags and just rang them up. Maybe somebody else said something, or a co-worker or supervisor noticed and told her not to do it that way.
It depends on where the OP is from. Doing it around here is not done - unless you’re pissed off and hoping to get the bagger fired for doing a poor job. There are no laws or anything, but it’s generally understood that you only bag your stuff when you’re at a place without someone being paid to do it for you.
Answer, though it takes a little work, is to scan things in groups that go properly together in one bag. I arrange stuff in my cart before I start to scan.
All I know is that my son has done a better job than most baggers since he was 8. I did have one bagger that put all of the freezer stuff in the same bags. Same with the refrigerator stuff. If I realized it as he was bagging, I would have given him a nice tip.
It’s way easier to carry a balanced load than an unbalanced one, or even one heavy one. The classic image is that of a milkmaid’s yoke. Distributing the weight evenly among more handles just makes sense.
I’ve been bringing my own bags to the supermarket for 20 years or more. There have been several phases in which your own cloth (or other) bags have been pushed. In those times the baggers seemed to have gotten instructions on how to bag them, although doing a good job was hit-or-miss. In the in-between times inexperienced baggers seemed pole-axed by the concept of a non-plastic bag.
We’re getting back into a cloth bag phase. The baggers have been getting better. Better is usually defined as understanding three-dimensional variables so that they fit things into bags rather than piling them randomly. Weight distribution is still beyond them.
ETA: twickster, Why should I have to tell a paid professional how to do their job well enough to satisfy the most minimal possible standards? Shouldn’t they start out with, I don’t know, competency and then work up from there?
It is interesting that the old paper bags required the same Tetris-like packing skills as the new cloth bags. While the plastic bags don’t require that at all, since it doesn’t really matter where you put things if there’s no flat bottom.
I worked as a bagger and stock clerk in high school. It was all very glamorous. The store I worked for was part of a well-managed regional chain and I spent a week at a training store learning customer service and how to properly bag things. I doubt they get the kind of in depth training I received anymore.
Frozen, meats, dairy, produce, non-food, canned food and boxed food with cans on the bottom, bread and chips separate or on top of heavier items, eggs separate or below chips or bread only: each got their own bags whenever possible when I have bagged. (Exception: Wine bottles in with paper towels or toilet paper to minimize clanking.)
At my local store, the baggers are expected to know that sort of thing.
When I worked as a bagger at the commissary, this is about what we were told, too. We were allowed to make one layer of canned items per bag, unless it was little flat cans like tuna or cat food. Otherwise, the bags were too heavy. We had to bag poisons in a separate bag from food. Poisons weren’t just bug spray and such, but things like dishwashing soap.
Nowadays we bring our own insulated cloth bags, and I have to say that insulated bags are GREAT, especially in the summer. No more halfmelted ice cream from the 10 minute commute from the store. No worries about whether the milk got a bit too warm. And no need to fret about the costly, costly meat going off if we are held up by one of the trains crossing a street.
At my grocery store, the cashier usually opens up a little shelf in the middle of the checkout counter to do the bagging emself, which doesn’t really give you the opportunity to take the bagging into your own hands. Occasionally, when they find themselves overstaffed and underbusy, they’ll have a separate bagger stationed at the end of the checkout counter, the cashier closes the little shelf and slides things along, and you’d have to go around and displace the bagger to do it yourself.
I do often find myself re-bagging things to distribute the load more evenly between my two hands or handlebars (when I’m biking to the store), but I can’t blame them too much for not getting that right: I think it’s an NP-complete problem.
They should never put a loaf of bread in with heavy stuff like that, lest the bread be crushed. Most grocery baggers know this. When I was a teenager and worked as a cashier even though I was a complete idiot who had never really gone shopping before even I knew this.
At Trader Joes, unless they’re really busy and have a bunch of spare people available to bag, the cashier usually bags the groceries. They will ring up all your stuff, and then bag it. Unlike at, say, Safeway, where they bag as they scan.
Anyway, i just don’t understand why so many Trader Joe’s customers stand there like bovines and watch while the person scans their items and then bags them.
While the cashier is scanning, i grab a couple of bags and start shoving my stuff in. That way, i not only have it packed how i like it, but i’m usually finished packing right after he or she finishes scanning. It means that i get out of there faster, and the people behind me in line don’t wait as long to get served.
I mean, if bagging were hard, or if i had something else to do while the cashier was scanning, that would be different. But all i’m doing is standing there, so why not just bag the stuff and get out?
