"I train baggers!"

[blas]

I don't get a chance very often to post about SCs, unless it's in Sightings or if I dig up an old memory from retail jobs of yesteryears.

This is an oldie but goodie from the grocery store, fall 2003. I was a mere 16 years old bagger, and I was proud of my job. Never had gotten a complaint of how I bagged groceries. Until the Bitch showed up.

The Bitch waltzed up to my coworker's register, and before I could even open my mouth to ask her, she screams "PAPER! I do NOT want ANY plastic!".....alrighty then, Miss Hilton....let me get that for your highness.

So I bag everything in paper.

When I finished, she then waltzes up to me, and does that ever-so-annoying "OH.....no no no no no no no no! This is NOT right....this is NOT how you bag AT ALL!"

Then she empties out every single bag, while my coworker sighs at the huge line behind this SC and the fact that it's time to pay, but this Bitch won't stop bugging me.

After emptying all the bags and doing that even more annyoing "tsk tsk tsk" while doing so, she then proceeds to tell me "Let me tell you something, Missy. I TRAIN baggers where I come from. And I think next time I get a session, I'm going to use YOU as an example as to how NOT to bag these groceries!"

Ok Bitch. Tell your newbies not to put the eggs underneath the bread. Tell your newbies not to seperate frozen and dry foods.

[GolfCart34]

I'm sure you'll agree with me when I say that bagging, while not an exact science, is not that difficult and just takes some common sense. My brother started out as a bagger at the grocery store he works at now and I picked up some of the finer points of bagging from him. These skills come in especially handy when I go to the local grocery store that tends to lack in baggers (hence I end up bagging my own groceries a good percentage of the time). A loaf of bread on top of eggs? I consider that perfectly acceptable. Personally, I'm happy just as long as you don't squash the squashy items and you don't put the cleaners in with the food.

[blas]

She never really told me what I did wrong....so I don't even know what her problem was.

[ArcticChicken]

I discovered today that you apparently aren't supposed to put anything else in with the bagged salad, 'cause it deflates the bag and it goes bad sooner. Or something. She was really nice about it though, so I may actually follow her advice.

[Lingering Grin]

I discovered today that you apparently aren't supposed to put anything else in with the bagged salad, 'cause it deflates the bag and it goes bad sooner. Or something. She was really nice about it though, so I may actually follow her advice.

... but the bag has an air-tight seal... unless you pop the bag, it's fine.

[mattm04]

I started as a bagger and after a year and a half I moved to a new dept. Yesterday the MOD asked me to stay a half hour late because of a NCNS. I was able to help and I only had about 20 customers in that time, thankfully only one was a total bitch. My crime. I put eggs on the bottom of the bag with TWO measly rolls on the top. She decided she didn't want the rolls anymore since they were "ruined."

[LadyAndreca]

My local grocery store only has dedicated baggers when they have more cashiers than customers in line, when the cashiers will help each other bag. I usually bag my own, because I'm so used to doing it at work I can do it as fast as the cashiers. It's not really that hard. (Of course, I picked up a few things from the CS boards, too...)

- raw meat on its own
- raw fruit/veggies on their own
- cold stuff seperate from anything room temp, food or not
- food, cleaners, and clothes get seperated from anything else

Everything else I tend to mix and match freely. My real problem with bagging is that while it fits in the bags well, it doesn't always fit back in a full cart well. I usually just apologize if the guest winds up having to rearrange their items several times to make everything fit.

[Lingering Grin]

I actually feel that baggers use too MANY bags for my stuff at times.

I understand separating raw meat to it's own thing, but I really don't see the point of putting a two-liter bottle of soda, or carton of juice into a separate bag, when there's plenty of room next to the bagged vegetables... or putting cans into their own bag when they could just put them on the bottom of the bag that has the bread in it.


Maybe I'm just not picky

[marasbaras]

when there's plenty of room next to the bagged vegetables

Because those 2-liter bottles will bruise the crap out of those poor veggies.

[Lingering Grin]

Because those 2-liter bottles will bruise the crap out of those poor veggies.

I'm talking about pre-bagged veggies. (Carrots, Celery, Lettuce, Asparagus). A bottle of soda ain't gonna hurt em unless I pick it up and swing it like a sledge hammer... and even then... they'd just be in smaller pieces.

It's really not that big of a deal, I just find it silly that I buy 6 items and walk out with 4 bags... when two would have sufficed lol. I usually just end up putting one bag inside of another anyway.

[powerboy]

- raw meat on its own
- raw fruit/veggies on their own
- cold stuff separate from anything room temp, food or not
- food, cleaners, and clothes get separated from anything else

Everything else I tend to mix and match freely. My real problem with bagging is that while it fits in the bags well, it doesn't always fit back in a full cart well.

That is how i do it. I also put cans separately also

[dawnfire]

That is how i do it. I also put cans separately also

i'll also separate pet food. some of those dried cat food really stink!

[gunsage]

Yeah, clearly she was a bitch, but let me tell you, lately I've been just a liiiiiiiiiiittle pissed about our local baggers. Let me first start off by saying I only really had to learn how to bag (and QUICKLY) when working at gas stations, so yes, I have limited experience, but this takes the cake. So far, this is what has happened THIS MONTH in our grocery buying experiences...

- Unnecessarily bagging milk and OJ, even after we say not to. Look, I'd really rather not waste bags. They're going to be thrown away assuming we don't save them for when we go to Save A Lot or such. We don't really reuse them very much and we're bad about that, but as a result, I'd rather not have certain things bagged if they don't need to be.
- Bagger did the deer in headlights stare after I asked if my wine/beer could be bagged. In Ohio we have an open container law and a lot of cops are real dicks about it. When I worked as a gas station attendant, I would ALWAYS bag alcohol and would often find myself warning customers if they gave me funny looks and just slipped it out of the bag.
- When unloading the car at home, I noticed that there were several instances where ONE THING would be in a bag. Now, I can understand if that ONE THING is beer, chemicals, and maybe even meat, but we're talking TV dinners, baby food, and things of that nature that could've been combined with other bags very easily. And it's not as if we found ONE bag like this, but several.
- Bags that are so goddamn'd full that the moment you touch them, they explode. Look, it's simple. If the bag feels TOO heavy (which normally isn't that hard to determine), you may want to do some load balancing (yes I'm using IT terms...sue me).

Yes, I'm a whiner. Sorry. At the very least, the baggers have been friendly and helpful, but these are baggers that are and have been making the same mistakes over and over again. I don't complain while I'm there, but then, I'm also not sure it would do any good either. For simple sake of not wanting to be an honorable mention on here, I often don't.

[hinakiba777]

At the grocery store I worked out that cashiers did the bagging. Unless it was the express line. If someone went through express, they were either bagging it themselves or one of the other cashiers was doing it.

The bags are set at the left hip of the cashiers on all the lanes, except that one. On express there are two separate conveyor belts that lead down to the bags.

Anyway, we were trying to get people to use green bags at our store. One, because it's good for the environment. Two, because our bags really suck. They rip quite easily. Anyway I back from that with a few bagging pet peeves;
1) When the customer asks for the items to be placed individually in the small bags before being put in the normal bag
2) Triple or Quadruple bagging items. (Double bagging also if they over do it)
3) Forgetting to mention they have green bags, and asking me to take all their groceries out of the plastic. This annoys me because we have to toss out all the used bags. I don't like repacking either.

However this is my big peeve=
Reaching over the lane and trying to grab a bag. This used to drive me BONKERS. Our bags are hung on these weird metal things. The important thing about the weird metal things is that two arms are jabbed through the handles of the bag. You need to slide the bag off horizontally. When people pull up the bags either rip or they get too many. So a crud load of plastic gets tossed in the trash. It's really uncool.

[Jbball]

I don't know about you, but I usually go through the self check out lines when getting groceries, and I throw everything into bags, never organizing anything. I only keep the bread and eggs seperate. It all ends up in the right place once you get it home, so who really cares how it gets there?