Bagging correctly makes people mad

[EricKei]

This totally rings a bell from a post I made a while ago. (why can I never search and find my old posts??)

IIRC, search is limited to the first 100 posts that match your query, in order to reduce strain on the server (remember, this board has been around for damn near twenty years!). Your best bet is to narrow searches down as much as possible by date and by keyword. If you're fairly certain about whether a post was a thread starter, or that it might be in a specific subforum, those will help to narrow the results, as well.

[wolfie]

I can look down the belt and usually determine who will ask for light bags (any woman who looks over the age of sixty will usually do the "make the bags light" thing, which usually means fifty items spread across forty-five bags ).

What happens when you run into a "I said to make the bags LIGHT!" SC, who expects you to spread fifty items across sixty bags?

[Seanette]

My managers strongly encourage us to put non-heavy items on top of eggs to conserve bags, like bread, marshmallows, and the like. Customers rarely complain.

I wouldn't. I don't want a jillion extra bags to keep track of, thanks.

I do object to eggs or bread being bagged with heavy objects (e.g., 2-liter bottle of soda), which has happened to me. I'm quite sure 99%+ of baggers are smarter than that.

[RealUnimportant]

What happens when you run into a "I said to make the bags LIGHT!" SC, who expects you to spread fifty items across sixty bags?

And let's not forget those that expect a gallon of milk to somehow be made lighter even if it's alone in a bag...

[mjr]

Where I live, there used to be a grocery store that was a subsidiary of a larger chain. At this particular establishment, there were no baggers. You had to sack your own groceries. Literally. That's how they did things. They even had signs that indicated that the had no baggers.

Now that particular grocery store has been shut down, and one of its parent stores is in town. They swing the opposite way. Not only are they supposed to bag your groceries, they're supposed to have someone walk to your car with you and load everything into your car.

Yes, they're more expensive. The Mrs. and I only go there if there's some sort of sale, and we usually only purchase a couple of items.

[otakuneko]

Bagging in a certain order I get. It's obvious.

But scanning in a certain order? What's up with that?

[PastryGal]

At one chain here scanning items in an order won't make any difference as they recently changed their receipts to print everything in department categories.

[bbbr]

I do object to eggs or bread being bagged with heavy objects (e.g., 2-liter bottle of soda), which has happened to me. I'm quite sure 99%+ of baggers are smarter than that.

You would think that but yesterday I had to rebag my groceries after the bagger managed to place 4 bottles of Snapple on top of my grapes...

Regarding the folks who object to bread going on top of the eggs (actually got told one day "because i don't want my eggs damaged"), how exactly do they think the eggs got to the store? It sure as heck wasn't individually hand delivered with a protective layer of bubble wrap. If you're that paranoid about breakage once they are yours, get a chicken or two and get them the old fashion way.

[bbbr]

Scanning in a specific order was usually somebody doing a shopping run for another person but was paying for everything at once for whatever reason. The day my old store went to printing by department was not fun...

Sometimes it was just paranoia because of the way certain sales were run. For example- buy X quantity of one product and get Y dollars off another. Of course with those sales the discount never showed up while scanning the order, only once the order was tallied in full. Lots of yelling as to why the sale price didn't show up and how they were owed free product because it rang up wrong. Nope, it's just how the powers that be decided to show the discounts, not a thing I could do about it other than hit the "Total" button and ask them to compare the running total vs what was now displayed.

[Catwoman2965]

I really don't care how my stuff is bag, aside from not loading up all the heavy stuff in one. If i'm buying milk, ok nad maybe bottle seltzer, please don't put it all i none bag. But I will politely ask them to spread out the weight, since I have to carry it up stairs, and its easier for me. I'll also try and bag my own, since most store I shop at don't have separate baggers; the cashier does it when they're finishing ringing.

I've also told them its ok to put say a bag of shredded cheese in with a box of crackers! I guess a lot of folks are pickier than i am but i really don't care too much

[Brojekk]

Regarding the folks who object to bread going on top of the eggs (actually got told one day "because i don't want my eggs damaged"), how exactly do they think the eggs got to the store?

I was just going to mention that. 30 cartons per case, with a divider making two stacks, each layer is 3 cartons across with 4 more layers on top of them.
Not only that when they're stocked on the shelf they're stacks several layers tall. If the cartons on the bottom are not damaged by all that, I don't think a loaf of bread (or two) will damage the eggs.

[wolfie]

If you're that paranoid about breakage once they are yours, get a chicken or two and get them the old fashion way.

Also, eggs stay fresh longest when kept in the chicken.

[dalesys]

Also, eggs stay fresh longest when kept in the chicken.

Nope. Tried superglue. The chicken exploded after four days.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I'm 41 and I look fine, so I will ask the cashier to bag light. Actually, I tend to use the self-checkout most of the time.

As a general rule, I prefer to bag my own but since our new registers were installed last fall, we also have the new checkout stands that have all the bag racks on the cashier side, so it's very difficult to reach over and start bagging my own stuff w/out getting in the cashier's way.

It's even worse at Wallyworld . . . they have turnstyles at their registers. And half of the cashiers there don't bag worth two cents (cleaning stuff w/food???)

Even the discount store I've started going to has those dreaded turnstyles. Ugh.

[Dreamstalker]

The customer immediately removed the loaf of bread. Did she think it was going to crush the eggs?

I've gotten SCs like that. I was taught to not put eggs on top (eggs could go on top of berry boxes because they are rigid) and bag light crushable items like bread, eggs, and berries together. Cashiers are not supposed to bag unless they're an express register (don't get a bagger...that somehow doesn't make sense). When I'm ringing I'll sometimes get SCs with two cartloads who just watch stuff piling up on the belt to the point where I'm putting items on top of other items to keep the scanner clear and give me a nasty look when I ask them to help by bagging (and they're the first to complain if a box gets dented slightly).

We only have three baggers per shift even if it gets busy. Sometimes a cashier who isn't helping anyone will jump out and bag, but depending on the shift lead that is either allowed or not. On SCO, the attendant isn't supposed to bag yet there's one shift lead who will tell us to (and then get yelled at by ASM because if we're bagging for one person we can't watch the other three).