Packing bags too heavy and the bad day customer

[BowserKoopa1]

Making bags too heavy
Day before yesterday I had what I believed to be a germaphobe (I think this is the right terminology for someone who's afraid of germs) come through my line. Everything, and I mean everything, was in plastic bags and this made it take longer since they block the barcode and I had to take all of it out of the bags and scan them, and then put them back in the bags. The customer had asked me not to make the bags too heavy, and I complied. Then I started a new bag and the first thing I put in it was a jar of food. GI= Germaphobe Idiot
GI: Don't make the bags too heavy!
He takes it from me and puts it in his cart. I talk with a slight hint of annoyance to him.
Me: Sir, I did not make it heavy. That was the first thing I put into the bag.
GI: You're making it too heavy!
Me: That was the only thing I put into the bag, sir. How am I making it too heavy?
GI: But you're making it too heavy!

Bad Day Customer
Yesterday I was working a register right next to the self checkout lanes and had a very long line of people. Lady comes up to me and asks me to help her, which I can't cuz I'm not the cashier in charge of self check and I'm busy with another customer.
About a minute later, a customer checks out with me, and he asks me this.
Moron: ***, are you having a bad day?
He said it in a semi sarcastic tone like he really did not care how I was feeling. He was just being a smartass.Why in the fuck would someone ask you if you're having a bad day who's not your friend?
Me (offended a little by his attitude): No sir, I'm not having a bad day. What makes you say that?
Me (what I wanted to say): I was having a good day til you asked me that question, asshole!
Moron: Oh, that lady you just talked to, the one who needed help in self check. You just didn't seem to help her that much, and you seemed annoyed.
Me: Sir, I'm not on self check. There's someone over there to help, and I can only do so much.
Me (what I wanted to say): Yes I am annoyed, dumbass! I'm fucking annoyed by your attitude, and I don't like you asking me if I am having a bad day! Why don't you mind your own fucking business!
Me (with a certain attitude in my voice now): Trust me sir, I am not having a bad day. I'm having a great day! And you have a nice day too!
He leaves and that is the end of that. I didn't even do anything to the guy, so what right does he have to be unhappy with me at all? I think if someone's gonna ask you about your day, they should ask "Are you having a nice day?" and again he did it with a certain tone of voice and attitude. Trust me, he really did not care, he seemed to just want to start trouble and also butt his nose into business where it did not belong.
I'll be glad when the madness of Halloween is over and we can all relax and.... Hold the phone! Now we got the holidays to deal with for the next 2 months! Yay.

[thehuckster]

The first guy must've had some horrible experience where someone did bag too heavy and it ripped and spilled all over the parking lot, and from that moment on, he decreed that no jars or cans may be bagged from this moment forward.

As for the second guy, I would have probably answered with, "Well, yes, actually. I recently witnessed my dog get run over in a freak road sweeper accident, and I just got back from the hospital after eating listeria-infested cantaloupes. How are you doing?"

[Pixilated]

Why do I get the feeling that if you had stopped to give extensive help to the self-checkout customer, Customer #2 would've been complaining about that ...

[Gerrinson]

We had an old lady that tried to pull the 'it's too heavy' with 1 item in the bag. She tried it on our lead bagger after he'd put her gallon of milk in the bag. She insisted he take something out.

So, he took out the milk and headed out back with it. When she demanded to know where he was going with her milk he responded (paraphrased after all these years) "You said it was too heavy and to take some out, so I'm going to pour some of the milk down the sink to make it lighter for you."

That was the last time she ever pulled the 'too heavy' thing with only 1 item in a bag.

[Draco]

We had an old lady that tried to pull the 'it's too heavy' with 1 item in the bag. She tried it on our lead bagger after he'd put her gallon of milk in the bag. She insisted he take something out.

So, he took out the milk and headed out back with it. When she demanded to know where he was going with her milk he responded (paraphrased after all these years) "You said it was too heavy and to take some out, so I'm going to pour some of the milk down the sink to make it lighter for you."

That was the last time she ever pulled the 'too heavy' thing with only 1 item in a bag.

We have people pull that with gallons and half gallons too. Trust me when I say everyone's tempted to make that response, but we don't. Fear of being fired and all. :P

Seriously though, do they think we'll volunteer to go get them the smaller containers (which would cost more to equal the weight of the bigger one) to swap them for free?

[Gerrinson]

Seriously though, do they think we'll volunteer to go get them the smaller containers (which would cost more to equal the weight of the bigger one) to swap them for free?

No, I think they're just looking for a reason to complain.

Tim was strangely free of reprisal for that remark. He delivered it in that perfect 'I'm just trying to help' tone of voice and the manager watched the whole thing go down. It might be that his lack of sarcasm saved him.

[emax4]

If they think 1 item in a bag is too heavy, they should either get smaller containers (and be told to do so by the staff) or start lifting weights.

[BowserKoopa1]

Update on customers who complain about bags being too heavy....
Another lady got upset with me cuz the stupid bitch did not tell me not to make them too heavy from the start, although I always try not to. When I filled them with only half of what I normally put in them, she gets upset again. I apologized 3 times to her and she continued to be a bitch, so I said nothing the rest of the way.
Seriously people, grow stronger or something, cuz I'm fucking sick and tired of listening to yall complain about heavy bags!

[mharbourgirl]

My MIL sort of does this, but in her own special sexist way. She insists on carry-out, but the person doing the carrying MUST be male. She gets very angry when I pick up her groceries and carry them out to the car in two hands, because I'm not playing along with her 'weak, delicate female' schtick. It's even worse when I take ALL the groceries from her trunk and carry them into the house in one trip, with her fussing and fluttering around me about 'Let the men do that, it's too heavy!'.

Mums, I love you, but I bench around 200lbs and a few bags of groceries are hardly what I consider heavy. I'm not pining for the 'good old days' where women were automatically the 'weaker sex'. Sure, my DH is stronger than me... but not by much. I have short-person issues and refuse to accept that I am physically inferior just because I can barely see over the kitchen counter.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

You know, I wonder what would happen if someone turned it back around on them and said "Oh, sir, was wondering the same about you. Are you okay?"

I've had assholes say this to me. Usually the answer was "Yeah, actually."

Passive aggressive shitheads.

[BrenDAnn]

As for the "too heavy!" people, I'd have to be smart ass and literally put one item per bag. Yeah, I know, they complain even then.

The second asshole...I'd have to burst into fake tears and make up some dramatic story about how horrible my day was. just to make him feel like shit.

I might be just a tad bit mean and smartass sometimes though...Just a bit...

[mikoyan29]

BAck in my cashier days, we had this really crappy bagger. Crotchety old bastard and almost useless. One day this old lady told him to not pack her bags so heavy. The guy strained to lift the bags....and just threw whatever in them....bread on teh bottom...cans over that....Gah.

[Rapscallion]

We had people who seemed to think that the main reason they went shopping was to get more and more bags. The most stunning one we had, though, was when someone claimed that putting a single item in a carrier bag by itself made that item lighter.

Rapscallion

[emax4]

I don't know how people would say an item was too heavy when the consumer was able to lift the item and place it into the cart. Unless, by chance, they got a passer-by to do it for them. Something like that is grounds for replying with either, "If it's too heavy, you wouldn't have been able to lift it and place it into your cart/buggy anyway", or, "Before you bought it, you should have thought about your capability to carry it afterwards" Yeah, kind of passive-aggressive, but how else are you going to educate the customer?

[EricKei]

Ugh. The tales of horror from BoutiqueGrocery (Whole raw pig in an open-top box, check. small tree, check. fifteen pies, check) keep bubbling up from ages past...>_<

I recall one time when a man insisted upon getting a plastic bag for his GLASS gallon jug o'wine...at a store where our paper bags were nearly tough enough to be used as tire patches, but our plastic bags were just as well known for their tendency to shred themselves when receiving so much as a nasty look. I had had those damned things split into two from a single loaf of bread >_> We acquiesced to WineDude's demand after a few rounds of "Sir, we REALLY don't recommend that" (not like the flimsy things would disguise the item). Fortunately, WineDude never came back to complain, so I can only assume that his jug survived the trip despite his best efforts.