Does anyone know how to bag around here?

[Special Patrol Group]

In Australia paper plates are always wrapped in plastic protecting them from moisture etc. But then Australians are great innovators.

People can be so nuts about their packing. I once had a person complain that the bread I carefully put in with a light pack of cookies would break the cookies. Maybe, if the the bread was made of concrete lady. Some complaints about packing are legit but I think some people are just way too fussy.

Personally I rather save a few bags and be kind to the environment than be that fussy. If I really want it bagged in a particular way I do it myself or nicely ask the bagger to do it in a particular way.

[jnd4rusty]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but it's something I've never understood: why do you care? I mean, sure, you don't want the possibly-leaky meats in with fresh vegetables, or either with poisons, or fragile items with heavy, but why *not* put lettuce on top of a box of crackers? It's too light to hurt the crackers, and they won't bother it. Why *not* paper plates in the same bag as frozen foods, if there are no more frozen items to fill it up? What possible difference could it make?

I care because I don't like to have my fresh food or refriderated foods mixed with my non-refridgerated foods. I just think it is common sense when they bag your groceries to just keep items seperated. It saves time and nothing is more frustrating than to try to put away can goods into your cupboard and find cheese or lunchmeat in the bag...it is disruptive to the flow of putting away the food. One time I put away all the can goods..a few days later I discovered a can of biscuits in the cupboard. They need to be put in the fridge and I ended up throwing them away. The can was similar in color to some other can foods and I just assumed it was for the cupboard. Not only that I have ended up with hairspray bagged with my bacon and such. It is just annoying. And of course one should never bag fresh meat with anything else due to ECOLI and Samenella.

[Kitten in the box]

At our store we sometimes get people who cannot bag (employees) they put gallons of milk in bags (is a no-no unless requested by a customer) and get MAD at me when I do not follow suit. We also get people who put bleach (gallons) with meat, bread and the like...we have had other cleaning products mixed in with foods and hygene products mixed in as well. When I bag I try and put cans with cans, frozen with frozen, chicken goes either by itself or with chicken..the same with meat, and seafood. It keeps the customers happy...and plus its the way we were trained to do it.

[AFpheonix]

Amazingly, in the US we're advanced enough to have plastic wrapping around our paper plates too, but they occasionally have holes in the wrapping.
Chances are, I'm also buying non-refridgerated or frozen stuff too, and my paper products can go in with them.

[Lehk]

you can actually get condensation INSIDE the protective wrapping if you have a frozen item right against the paper plates.

as for chemicals bagged with food whenever i get called up to bag i leave an inch or so around the cleaners bags so they aren't even touching a food bag

[blas]

Problem fixed.

I was lucky enough to find nearly all of the self checkouts at WalMart deserted today, and even though I had a full cart order, even though it's kind of SCish, I said "f it" and used the self checkouts anyway.

No one got behind me until I was almost done scanning my last items, and they didn't appear irritated. Considering my experience in retail and knowing where all the barcodes are, I'm able to scan out all my items in record time. And, most importantly, I got to bag my own groceries and bag them properly!

This sounds incredibly rude, but I wish a few employees could have watched me bag and learned a thing or two. It's really very, very simple.

I used to be apprehensive about using the self checkouts with large orders, but now I really don't care. I'll let anyone with less items go ahead of me, and I'm very fast at scanning and bagging.

[Becks]

At our store we sometimes get people who cannot bag (employees) they put gallons of milk in bags (is a no-no unless requested by a customer) and get MAD at me when I do not follow suit.

At the store I work at, they automatically put the milk in a bag. I find it annoying, but I guess that's how things are done. (I'm not from around here.) I have to (NICELY) ask them not to do that for me, because it's easier on my arm to carry it as is.

[wagegoth]

I like the self-checkouts, especially at one particular store because the baggers were apparently trained by the baggers at blas' WalMart.

The one problem I've run into with self-checkouts is that the scanner glass gets dirty, but there never seems to be any cleaner handy. Also, apparently due to idiots using the self-check, the glass is often seriously scratched.

[Kogarashi]

When I first started cashiering, the cashier training me gave me a good run-down on how to bag properly (yes, at Wal-Mart). Most of it was fairly intuitive. I tried to bag customers' items the way I would want them bagged myself.

When I started at the Wal-Mart here, I noticed that in the 3-4 years since my last stint as a cashier, the company had added a video on bagging to the training materials. It didn't go into much detail; all it really stressed was how to fill out the bag properly with boxes on the side, cans in the middle, and soft items on top so you can fit the most items into one bag and have all the bags weighted the same. As if every customer comes through with the perfect order for that system.

I had at least three different new employees training with me during November, and it just boggled me how two of them seemed to have no concept of bagging. Not only did they put unalike items in the same bag, one would switch to a brand new bag each time she got to a slightly different item, resulting in bags having no more than two light items in them. I tried to teach them how to bag, but most of the time just ended up rebagging the items (when the customer didn't do it first). One of these trainees also happened to be the girl who didn't really talk to the customer. I had to remind her to greet the customer, to tell them the total, to tell them how much change they had, etc. Otherwise she'd be rather silent for the whole transaction.

That said, I usually go for the self-checkouts unless I'm doing price matches (which require the cashier's assistance). Every Wal-Mart I've been to out here has at least two SCOs with full-length belts instead of short counters, which to me is an invitation to take a large purchase there. If another customer behind me has a problem with it, they should've gone to the express lane, or to the counter-SCOs instead of the belt-SCOs. If there's a full belt, by golly I'm going to use it. Besides, having been a cashier, I know how to use those as fast as they'll allow, which is more than most (fairly clueless) customers can say.

[powerboy]

When I was younger, I would go shopping with my mom and grandma. At that time, they would shop at Food 4 Less. I would bag, and ofcourse I learned how to bag, from sign they had up showing how to . Now I bag, exactly how I learned. I put softs with softs and etc, etc, etc.

[Pagan]

What annoys me with some of the checkers at Wal-Mart is that for some reason, they seem to think that I'm incapable of lifting a bag with more than three cans in it! Now, I know I'm small (5'4", @120lbs), but I'm a lot stronger than I look and believe me, I can pick up more than the weight of three cans!

I used to be apprehensive about using the self checkouts with large orders, but now I really don't care. I'll let anyone with less items go ahead of me, and I'm very fast at scanning and bagging.

Blas, don't worry about using the SCO if you have a cartful at whatever time you're there. They're not express lanes! I actually don't get why the belts are there in the first place. Seems like you wind up with an unneccesary step. Get to SCO, take stuff from cart and place on belt, scan, into a bag. I never use the belt, I just take it straight out of the cart. Of course, I'm only shopping for one and therefore don't have a whole lot of stuff. And there's the whole added benefit of getting to bag it the way you want!

[HYHYBT]

The belt lets you unload the whole buggy at once, so you can then put your filled bags back in as you go, same as at a regular checkout.

Unless you're talking about the kind with the belt *after* the scanner, with a metal arch thing over it, in which case I don't know what they're for either

[alogram]

Actually, sometimes the self check outs are 20 items or less.

The Wal Mart I go to constantly has people at the self checkouts with full carts, and for some reason it is ALWAYS the people who have no clue how to use them. And the employees are not allowed to tell them they can't do it.

It is stupid because they don't want to upset the people with full carts, yet the other people with only a few items get upset and the lines get longer and longer.

Stupid.

AND I do not get the concept of price matching. If I see an item cheaper somewhere else, I go to the other store. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that every person who has ever wanted price matching was obnoxious about it.

[Despina83]

They never trained us on bagging or ever even really gave us tips, they just threw us out there. So sometimes I bag too heavy and sometimes too light. It's hard to find a happy medium.

[Catwoman2965]

I hear you...most of the stores by me do ok, except they always want to put a half gallon of OJ in the same same bag with a half gallon of milk, and othe rthings. that's fine, but i have to carry it all up 2 flights of stairs, and i like to balance it out, as I'm lazy, and only make one trip, whenever possibly.

I will just take an extra bag, and move things, or ask for one, politely, or ask that they put only this and that in a bag, and the expalin its easier to carry. Never had a problem - but I know waht you mean, i've seen stuff just tossed into bags, regardless of what it was.