Maybe this is an allergy to stupid people.

[Dreamstalker]

The thing I hate about spring is that over the last year or so I seem to have developed some pollen allergies. Which I have never had before.

It hit me yesterday (worse in the AM, which is another reason I don't like working mornings). As such, I was hyperaware of when I blew my nose (tried to do it when there wasn't anyone in front of me) and making sure I at least wiped my hands.

After a mad rush (luckily between customers) I had to blow my nose badly; to do so I shut off my light and was able to quickly nip over to the podium area where the Purell wipes were. So I took care of the problem, got a wipe and scurried back to my lane. There was an older lady with a severe case of CBF waiting.
CBF: "I can't believe this! You blew your nose! Use some hand sanitizer! blargle blargle blah."
Me: *holds up wipe* This is a *points to dispenser* sanitizing wipe. Please excuse me, I have allergies this time of year."
CBF: *goes on about my daring to inconvenience her*
So I start scanning. For some reason she's put all the meat in plastic produce bags, so the barcodes won't scan and I have to open the (tied-off) bags. Same with the produce that has stickers; the stickers are small enough that I can't read the numbers through the (multiple layers of) bags and actually need to open them and touch the peel briefly to see the number.
CBF: "OhmyGAWD why you touchin my fruit?! You don't need to touch it to scan it! You dirty!" *scan...? ohhh, she must think our registers can read the barcodes on the stickers) Said item was a mango, which you need to peel anyway to eat, right?

Sheesh. I later see her over at the desk gesticulating to manager L, and then she storms off. L comes over and told me later that she told the lady "The cashier is NOT sick and wouldn't have needed to touch your items if you didn't tie them in bags."

[EricKei]

I can understand putting meat in ONE clear plastic bag each (especially if it's visibly bloody), but not layers upon layers of the things >_> With just one, they should still be scannable.

I just love how she bitched to you about using sanitizer while you had a sanitizer cloth in your hand. They only see what they WANT to see...

[Dreamstalker]

The bag thing is just another symptom of people in this town hoarding plastic bags (never mind that the produce bags rip if you breathe on them a certain way). I don't get the multiple-layers thing either...the more layers of bags, the more likely we are to need to tear it open to get to the barcode/number.

She bitches about a sanitizer cloth, yet I've heard SCs bitch even louder when we had the pump bottles at the registers during flu season ('zomg you blew your nose and now your hands are damp'...you just SAW me use sanitizer).

[Pixilated]

Kudos to your manager for backing you up! I've seen people put meat into produce bags and as EricKel says, ONE is understandable, but ...

She sounds like one of these people who believes all this stuff about how you MUST use antibiotic this and that -- completely ignoring the fact that unless you encase yourself in a plastic bubble, you cannot possibly live in a germ-free environment.

[HawaiianShirts]

(never mind that the produce bags rip if you breathe on them a certain way)

Seriously. That's why we bought our own reusable mesh produce bags. And I wash and/or peel my fruit anyway because it's already been touched by who-knows-how-many hands, so why should I care if the cashier--who knows how to properly handle such food--touches it while ringing me out?

...completely ignoring the fact that unless you encase yourself in a plastic bubble, you cannot possibly live in a germ-free environment.

Perhaps I'm evil for it, but I love pointing out to people with this kind of attitude that they live with millions of bacteria on and inside them at all times and couldn't even digest food properly without some of them.

[mathnerd]

I must admit that I'm one of those people who puts meat inside plastic bags, though I don't tie it up, just twist the top. I also ask for all the raw meat to be bagged separately from everything else. It's a quirk about mine. I've had meat packages get ripped and bleed all over everything else, so I'm sort of paranoid now.

That said, multiple bags seem way over the top, and yelling at you and complaining to the manager even after she saw you using the wipes was just uncalled for.

[Aethian]

I usually do two meat packages to a bag. Both sides facing out so that they can be scanned. Irks me to no end when the cashier takes from from the bag, tosses the bag, scans the meat, and then places them bare into my re-useables. Heck I even make sure the labels for scanning are near the open end so you just have to peel the bag down a bit if needed.

[Seshat]

Avoiding the fluids from raw meat touching your other food isn't sucky, it's basic food safety practice.

Ditto for keeping food of any sort separate from cleaning goods, and especially household poisons.

Don't worry about it. Noone here's complaining about that. Dreamstalker just had a woman who was over the top about things.

[EricKei]

I've found that one way I can, at least partially, make sure that I don't end up with bleach in my roasts is to place the items on the conveyor belt in clusters. This really helps if whomever is bagging doesn't know what they're doing (sometimes they do, and sometimes I have to physically prevent them from putting cokes in with the eggs or bread...)

Heavy stuff first so it ends up on the bottom of the basket, boxes all together, cans all together and they get doublebagged, raw meats together, and bread/eggs/etc saved for the very end just to make sure nothing heavy CAN go on top of them, etc etc. When I used to run registers, tho, I did get some people who didn't even want bread on top of a carton of eggs >_> I don't mind it, tho, as long as it's on top, and not side by side.

[PepperElf]

worse in the AM, which is another reason I don't like working mornings

i was hit by a flurry of sneezing and sniffling this morning. yay for allergies

and yeah, for me it's always worse ... not necessarily in the morning, but when I wake up. i suspect it's cos stuff was settling in my lungs or whatever.

[Dreamstalker]

I can sometimes scan meat barcodes (using the hand scanner, all the scanner scales are picky) through a single layer of plastic, but all bets are off if the bag won't lie absolutely flat and/or the label has any creases or other defects. If the label is stuck to itself, I have no option but to lay hands on it to see and type in the number (we're not supposed to use price + department).

[Food Lady]

Once she realizes how much bacteria there can be in raw meat her head will explode....

[smileyeagle1021]

She sounds like one of these people who believes all this stuff about how you MUST use antibiotic this and that -- completely ignoring the fact that unless you encase yourself in a plastic bubble, you cannot possibly live in a germ-free environment.

And even if you could live in a germ-free environment, you wouldn't want to. Other than has been mentioned about the helpful bacteria, even harmful bacteria serves its purpose (namely keeping your immune system in shape... not all threats are external, a genetic flaw such as cancer can be helped with a strong immune system).

[Lovecats]

We are trained to not put certain things together. And I did have one elderly customer once that used to put everything cold in the plastic produce bags. But only one and she didn't tie them.

[RootedPhoenix]

Covering the meat with a bag is one thing (I do that). Meat has a way of getting gross rather speedily. But once it gets in the way of the cashier doing their job...aargh.