Loading the cart from the cashier’s counter, you mean? That, too, is no courtesy. It remains in the best interest of the store to move the items off the counter to the cart in as expeditious manner as possible. If there is a bagger moving the groceries to the cart, then the store has undoubtedly raised prices to pay that person’s salary. If there is no bagger but the customer has purchased, for example, a week’s worth of groceries, it is in the store’s best interest to assign to the cashier the task of moving the groceries off his or her counter so that another customer may be serviced. This is no courtesy. The employees do not do this in order to help you the customer out.
In defense of the OP, he/she didn’t exactly portray it as any sort of profound social injustice, so what’s your point?
Well, gee when you put all that thought into it…
But see, the bottom line is that it’s in MY best interest to get the heck out of the store. I have better things to do than hang around a market. Strangely, I’ve noticed this phenomenon with other shoppers as well. Everyone seems to leave the store!
As such, I really don’t care how the bags get in the cart. If someone is there and does it, fine. If no one is there, I’ll load 'em in.
But I’ll forget the courtesy line since you’re making your point to well. HOWEVER, had the glob been so enormous as to drop onto the floor and create a puddle, someone would have had to come mop it up, and that would have halted the line for an unknown period of time. Or, suppose no one saw the puddle and the customer behind me slipped and fell and sued the store? Certainly it is part of the cashier’s job to maintain a safe environment?
My point is that I disagree with the OP. Sorry - I thought that was clear.
I too shop regularly at a “full-service” grocery store. The checker always takes the groceries out of the cart and the bagger always bags them and loads them into the cart again, and will gladly help you out to the car if you need it. (Which, when I shop with my 3-year-old daughter, I sometimes do.)
Of course, this same store also has stockers that perpetually roam the aisles straightening the lines of cans and boxes so the shelves are always perfectly aligned and pristine. And they keep their fleet of shopping carts in tip-top condition, so they’re never squeaky or wobbly or rusty.
Their produce is a dream, and their meat is gorgeous.
Did I mention the valet parking? I’m not kidding. This is LA after all … .
Do I pay extra for this? Yup. And I consider it worth every penny. Every week it’s a pleasure to walk into this store.
And like the OP I too would be taken somewhat aback if the procedures were suddenly switched and I was asked to do things I had grown accustomed to have done for me.
No shit? You disagreed with the OP? Gosh, I had no idea.:rolleyes: I recall the word “petty” being in there, which goes beyond simple disagreement. It never ceases to amaze me how people get their dander up so much over simple little BBQ Pit rants. It’s not like anyone’s writing their Congressman about it, or screaming at the store manager.
I raise you one no shit? Golly, I had no idea you already knew I disagreed with the OP.
“Petty” isn’t exactly a battle cry, ya know. My dander is definitely down.
Nitpick: Well, that’s not precisely it. You’re being charged more money, if you are, because you like having someone do the bagging. They aren’t charging you more because someone is doing the bagging; they’re charging you more because you’re willing to pay more to shop there.
Julie
That’s the whole point - OF COURSE it’s petty. This is the BBQ Pit. That’s the plan here.
Ok; I see your point. To clarify, then: I think it is Extra Double Petty - not just regular petty.
How do you figure? If they’ve hired someone whose main job is to bag the customer’s groceries, then they’re spending more money than they would have if the customer had to bag his or her own groceries. They have to justify this added cost, so they raise the prices overall.
Now, of course the more popular a store becomes, the easier it is for the store to raise its prices - that’s a standard axiom of capitalism. But this one’s more direct. There’s a direct added cost of having an extra person bagging, and the store has to recoup that cost by charging you all more money.
The opposite of this reality are the bare-bones “warehouse” grocery stores, such as Shoppers near me. The customer always bags their own stuff. Always. It’s not that it’s “the right thing to do”; it’s the store’s policy. And because they don’t have to pay someone to bag your stuff, their prices are lower.
What’s the name and address of this store? I might start driving out there every month or so----------
No. Their prices reflect what their market will bear. If they could simply raise prices at any time and people would pay more they would. They don’t raise prices to pay the bagger’s wage. They raise prices if, and only if, people will pay the raised price.
To use an absurd example: Say Kroger hires a mime. They have to pay the mime $50,000/year. Can they raise prices to pay for the mime? They can only do so if the demand/market for the store increases as a result of the mime being there. And the demand has to be high enough to pay for the mime.
Now, most people wouldn’t pay more to go to the store with the mime. Some people would want to pay less to go to the store with the mime. Kroger’s pricing is dependent on how much people want to come to that particular store NOT on how much Kroger wants to spend on mimes.
This may seem like a nitpick, but it drives me crazy, especially in sports. Someone will say, “Oh, the Texas Rangers gave Alex Rodriguez a huge contract. Now they’ll raise prices to pay for it.” No no no! The Rangers will set their price to maximize their profits, not to cover expenses. They might be able to charge more for tickets if people decide they’d like to watch ARod, but they can’t simply raise their prices at any time because if they could they would already have done so.
Julie
No, they will raise prices to cover a particular cost, Julie. The only question is by how much, and what they wind up doing is raising them only as much as the market will bear.
To use your example, if the store hires a $50,000/year mime, they then raise prices as high as they dare. If people still come, then the market bears the cost of the mime. If the people don’t come, then the store lowers its prices enough so that people do come. If the prices are lowered so much that the store is no longer profitable, they will get rid of the expensive mime.
So we’re both right - they cannot have prices higher than the market will bear and still be in business, but they also must raise prices to cover their operating costs when they add something to a working system (e.g., the bagger or the mime).