#515 – Perch
Posted on May 26, 2008 at 12:00 am by Chris
Chapter: Comics
Bagger is one of the common teenage jobs that I missed out on. I imagine that I would have been good at it. I respect other people’s belongings. This is apparently not a requirement to get the job at most stores. I have a feeling that a lot of people are hired for this position and never given any real training. You get to keep your job as long as you aren’t caught stealing a donut from the bakery.
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You’re exactly right. Pretty much the only thing you can be fired for at my store is stealing. Most people don’t care about how they bag things, but I try to be careful. I’m nowhere near as good as Biff though!
Biff looks like he comes from the “soft things on the bottom, ton of weight on the top” school of bagging.
And I’m calling “Job” week
Not just “job” week, but “Joe Job” week – Menial jobs.
Biff hadn’t better sneeze, or there’ll be eggs and flour everywhere when the bag topples.
I prefer to pack cans and such in the bottom, then boxes or dense packages (Bacon, flour, etc), tops with odd, light items (Broccoli, carrots, etc.)
The Duck Has Spoken.
I dunno about other stores, but my first job was at Kroger as a Courtesy Clerk (basically, a bagger/janitor/cart getter/shelf stocker), and there were a ton of guidelines for bagging. I actually got a complaint filed on me once because I made the bags too heavy for the customer! O_o
It depends on where you work, I think. The grocery store where I worked, there was an actual system (taught in the first 30 minutes of employment) for how to bag groceries. If you actually paid attention tot he training video and gave a damn, you could be a pretty fast bagger and still manage to not damage anything.
However, of course, most people didn’t pay attention, and acts of management generally only happened if someone complained – regardless of whether or not you were doing it right.
efficient, yes. well like, no. can you imagine walking out to your car carrying that?
I think I’m going to call grocery week m’self.
Here in The Netherlands we don’t have baggers in the supermarkets or grocery stores we just have to pack it up ourselfs.
I love bagging groceries. I was a cashier for over two years (my first job), and that was my favorite part. I worked out a little system for bagging cans/boxes. I had a scale for fruit and veggies. Things like cucumbers and eggplant could go on the bottom, while grapes or tomatoes stayed on top. It was fun.
*tuts* Biff’s squishing the bread!
In England the checkout staff are expected to help bag things up for you- unless you tell them you can do it yourself (which is usually quicker and results in less squished bread and crumbled crisps)
PsychoDuck’s method of bagging was how I was taught when I was working at Safeway.
Apparently, it’s a Safeway policy that the average number of items per bag should be around 8-10 every time
The store I worked at was so anal, they actually gave us tests. They would have us take these plastic bags which looked like they could give way with just a few cans, then had us fill it with the following: Two cereal boxes, 5-6 medium-sized cans, and about 3-4 other items ranging from medium crushability to heavy crushability. By the time it was finished, you coulding link the two handles of the plastic bag together, and it literally looked like it wouldn’t make it to the customer’s car, much less into their home.
I quit after 2 months. Their level of anal was simply too much
What surprises me is that you don’t often seem to have handles on the grocery bags in the USA. On TV or in the movies, they always struggle with carrying four or more grocery bags, and I always think “boy that would’ve been easier if the bags had handles”.
Any Americans who care to comment on this?
was?!
I was a sacker for a while, and my system was pretty much hot-with-hot, cold-with-cold, soft-with-soft, boxes-with-boxes, and cans-with-cans. It was efficient, but not fast. I always got yelled at for being slow, and whenever someone tried to show me how to go fast, they always ended up mixing stuff.
Oh, and instead of the infamous “Paper or Plastic?” question, we were told to ask “Is plastic okay?” leading them away from paper. I could probably count on both hands the number of times I sacked an order in paper bags.
And to Sam-the-Swede, It’s true most of our paper bags don’t come with handles. There were a few occasions where we got handled paper bags, but we usually filled the paper bags as full as we could, sometimes a bit overflowing, which made the handles a bit useless. I think that’s why we tried to steer customers toward the plastic bags, which do include handles, were faster to load, and couldn’t fit as much, which made them generally lighter.
Is there much of a culture Stateside of re-using shopping bags? UK supermarkets seem obsessed with selling you a canvas- or more durable plastic- bag to use instead of normal carrier bags- perhaps the lack of handles is to drive sales of those?
/b
@ LazerWulf:
Thanks, that makes sense actually.
I always reuse my shopping bags, either for another grocery purchase, or if they’re plastic, I also use them to line my trash cans.
At the Kroger’s where I do my shopping, they’ll take five cents off your order for every bag of your own that you bring in. Environment-friendly initiative and all that. They sell bags for about a buck, so if you plan on eating food for an extended period of time, these will eventually pay for themselves.
Noticing that the store is called “Z’s,” I can’t help but think of a certain green coach from Homestar Runner. “Great jorb on the baggin’ there, Biff!”
I’m going to say teenager week.Because this is a typical teenage job.
@ beemoh: There is a very quickly growing trend to do that in the US, and I should know, I work in a grocery store myself XD
@ DracoZereul: The Price Chopper I work at has the same policy of 8-10 items per bag, but we’re not really required to stick to it unless it’s obvious that you should.
I worked at a bagger and a maintenance guy for two years until I finally got training for register (my schedule didn’t allow a lot of time for work after school). I’m so glad I did though =D
I hate bagging shifts, but I can deal with it when I’m on register. also, I know how to bag stuff properly. I was simply given the common sense advice from my mom: Bread and Eggs together, hot with hot, cold with cold, boxes/cans away from or below crushables, and most of all, meat SEPARATE.
also, your comment about getting fired, Chris, is mostly true, as I’ve seen at our store. Some of the people we’ve hired don’t know how to bag at all. It’s not until the customers start to yell at them that they realize how to do it right XD But it’s not that hard to get fired here if you’re a complete dolt. needless to say, I’ve been written up at work a total of… I’d say three to four times over my nearly three year stretch of working there.
man I need to get a new job >_>
oh, and I’m going to make the call I have not seen yet on the week it is, and I’m going to say packing week (cars, trunks, suitcases, grocery bags, etc.)
Actually that is pretty much true with baggers. I was a bagger, in fact it was my first job I ever had, and we didn’t need really any skill and they didn’t actually train you.
@ beemoh:
That’s a practise quickly picking up steam here in Canada. We have about five or six of those bags, and we always take them with us when grocery shopping. Hooray for environmentalism!
The Duck Has Spoken.
Bagging was my first job as well (fortunately, I have moved far beyond that). It is so easy for me now. I think at least part of it can be contributed to the hours of Tetris I played during Calculus class.
I’m going to guess grocery store week.
I happen to work at a grocery store, and when I was hired, I had to sit through a half-hour video, a half-hour watching someone else bag, and then an hour of “shadowing” a bagger, which is the same thing as watching, except I was very close behind him and was peering over his shoulder. When all was said and done, the manager I was reporting to said, and this is a quote, “We have to put you through all that because corporate says so, so bag however you want, just don’t squash anything, and keep the meat products separate.”
I love bagging. It is my dream to bag again!
The way the stores train you is to make you play 72 hours of Tetris straight.
Maybe I’d make a good bagger. I have been playing Tetris for about 15 years 😀
The Duck Has Spoken.
I like to be different, so I’m calling “construction week” 😛
Ah, bagger. I used to be a bagger at Winn Dixie. I miss that job. The only training you get is, “Don’t put bread, chips or other ‘crushables’ in a bag with heavy things or on the bottom of the cart.” “Don’t put chemicals or insect killers in with food.” “Cold items go in a bag by themselves.” and “Hot items go in a bag by themselves.”
I still dream of Winn Dixie. Man, I miss that job. It was my favourite.
That’s why I like those self-serve checkouts. I can organize my bags the way I like, and I don’t get a million bags. (For some reason, the cashiers at the store where I shop most often seem determined to use as many bags as possible.) As for the bags, I save those and give them to my parents. I’m not entirely sure what they do with them, but they seem happy to get them and it gets them out of my way, so good deal.
I reuse bags in the house, usually to line garbage cans or to empty my kitty litter (or my cat’s, anyway) into them. I have never in my life seen someone bring their own bag to a grocery store. Then again, I live in Texas. We’re wasteful and we’re proud of it! I don’t know if bringing your own bag has started catching on in the more civilized states.
He.. he WAS an efficient bagger? What happened to his efficiency skillzzzzzzz?
This just reminds me of my friends who work at extra foods. Their manager actually kicks people out who complain about their job performance. He’s all, “If you don’t like the service go somewhere else and get the Hell out of my face!” It’s hilarious. He’s an awesome boss.
Mr. Z died in October…
Personally, I think people forget when packing bags that if you put the softest items on top while packing, then they will end up on the bottom when unpacking. Thus, loading the shopping cart with the bread on top means it might end up under the pickle jar when bagging.
He must play Tetris.