self checkout lanes

[doubleohfive]

First of all, I'm not a "dude." See the icon below my name? Female.

Second of all, the word "you" in English doesn't differentiate between one person and many. I'm just pointing out that the behavior you describe isn't the behavior I do. Since you quoted and addressed me, I considered it reasonable to respond in a personal way.

Third: Vulgarity is to some extent in the eye/sense of the beholder. Since you were quoting and to some extent addressing me, I didn't really appreciate the "dipshit asshole" part of your post.

Fourth: Re-read your own post. It seems as though you are in a big hurry to buy those two specific items, so maybe it would be less annoying for you to get them somewhere other than a busy grocery store. I apologize for my own assumption, which was also rude.

1) My apologies. I can only say in my defense that I've been posting here for 10 years; I rarely bother to check profile info anymore.

2) You (Timewalker) are right. I should have specified more clearly which "you" I was referring to in that comment.

3) Understood. For the sake of clarity, I in no way meant to imply or directly say I thought you were a "dipshit asshole" but was instead (perhaps lazily) inferring that those persons ahead of me in line were.


Back on topic...


I finally thought of something that drives me nuts about regular check-out lane vs. self-checkout: bagging groceries.

I do not mind bagging my own groceries. I don't mind someone else doing it either. What I do mind is when (for whatever reasons) the bagger just bags everything together in whatever way they see fit, mixing random items in bags with no sense of understanding to it.

Now, I'm about to tread into murky water here, so bear with me. For as long as I can remember, going back to grocery shopping with my parents as a young kid and being put to work helping with the bagging, I always understood that when you bag groceries, there was a certain logic and process to it.

Fruits and vegetables go together, boxed items go together, meats are double-bagged to prevent leaked fluid getting on other items, and glass/plastic items are bagged together. All this is done as close to compartmentalizing each as possible, depending on what and how much you are getting. Is this not the norm?

I went grocery shopping this morning, and the woman bagging my groceries just jammed everything together. Chicken filets were bagged with yogurt and grapes. Bread was bagged with bottles of salad dressing and shampoo. It doesn't make sense to me. Certainly it may just be this person who doesn't "get" it, but this also isn't the first time this has happened.

So, is it just me, or is this something legit to discuss?

 

[Spot's Meow]

I went grocery shopping this morning, and the woman bagging my groceries just jammed everything together. Chicken filets were bagged with yogurt and grapes. Bread was bagged with bottles of salad dressing and shampoo. It doesn't make sense to me. Certainly it may just be this person who doesn't "get" it, but this also isn't the first time this has happened.

So, is it just me, or is this something legit to discuss?

I was actually a bagger for about a month (worst experience of my life) for a large national grocery chain, and we had to do a training program on the computer to learn how to bag correctly. We were meant to pay more attention to the shape and packaging of an item rather than the "category" it fits into. The basic model was that you put two boxes in a bag, each one on the outside edges, cans in the middle on the bottom, and something light/breakable on top of the cans, like a loaf of bread or eggs. So having a bag with a box of cereal, a box of hot chocolate mix, two cans of chili, a bottle of salad dressing, and a loaf of bread would have been very close to the ideal bag. Household goods like shampoo or cleaning products should always be separate, as well as meat. However it seemed silly to me sometimes, if the person bought all groceries and then one deodorant stick or shampoo, to give that its own bag entirely when it could easily fit into another bag, but that's my personal preference. Oh, and refrigerated and frozen items belong together to keep each other cold, so I can see why a bagger might put veggies in with the chicken, even though it really should be separate.

 

[doubleohfive]

See, that makes sense to me. This lady today put coffee creamer, organic grapes, and toothpaste in the same plastic bag with a couple cans of chick peas. And I still had other stuff I bought. Weird.

 

[MacLeod]

Self cheeckouts don't have to cost jobs. If 1 person can man a bank of 4 self checkouts. It means potential 3 other staff members can be used else where within the store. Helping customers, restocking etc....

 

[RoJoHen]

I finally thought of something that drives me nuts about regular check-out lane vs. self-checkout: bagging groceries.

I do not mind bagging my own groceries. I don't mind someone else doing it either. What I do mind is when (for whatever reasons) the bagger just bags everything together in whatever way they see fit, mixing random items in bags with no sense of understanding to it.

Now, I'm about to tread into murky water here, so bear with me. For as long as I can remember, going back to grocery shopping with my parents as a young kid and being put to work helping with the bagging, I always understood that when you bag groceries, there was a certain logic and process to it.

Fruits and vegetables go together, boxed items go together, meats are double-bagged to prevent leaked fluid getting on other items, and glass/plastic items are bagged together. All this is done as close to compartmentalizing each as possible, depending on what and how much you are getting. Is this not the norm?

I went grocery shopping this morning, and the woman bagging my groceries just jammed everything together. Chicken filets were bagged with yogurt and grapes. Bread was bagged with bottles of salad dressing and shampoo. It doesn't make sense to me. Certainly it may just be this person who doesn't "get" it, but this also isn't the first time this has happened.

So, is it just me, or is this something legit to discuss?

As someone who bagged groceries professionally, I will say there is a definite logic to it. However, I think you're being a little bit anal about it. It's not really a question of similar foods being bagged together. It's a question of "will bagging these things together damage the product?" It's perfectly acceptable to put jars and boxes together as long as the jar isn't crushing the box. It's fine to put toilettries in the same bag as food as long as it's not something that could get contaminated.

I tend to get frustrated from the opposite side of things. Baggers around here have the "rules" drilled into their heads, so they're afraid to deviate from them even slightly. If I go to the store and buy a loaf of bread, a can of soup, and a toothbrush, the bagger will probably use a separate bag for each, when I could have easily gotten by with one.

Lately, though, I've been shopping at Aldi, and I just bring a large box. I put everything in the box. I don't care if things touch each other as long as nothing is getting crushed or broken.

 

[Trekker4747]

When I started in the grocery business nearly 17 years ago I started off as a bagger. Back then there was no real training, certainly not the computer simulation they put people through now, just a corny 30-minute video they made you watch that taught you the "Well, duh!" basics.

Not much training on building any kind of "structure" to the bag but more stuff like not mixing cleaners/chemicals with exposed food items (meats and produce, stuff that isn't in a sealed package inside a sealed box), and putting crushable items (like bread) on top.

Got in trouble once for using eggs as the "base" in a bag to put lighter items on top. (Being smart and knowing the eggs could take the weight and it'd reduce the chance of them falling out of the bag and breaking.)

Today the process is a bit more complicated and seems to be more about saving on the bags on the store's level and the "structure" of it, rather than the practicality of things.

I took some groceries home not long ago and the bag was so over filled it actual tore/broke and the package of eggs fell causing two of them to break and one of them to fall out, roll down the sidewalk and break when it fell off the curb. The other three eggs in the half-doz package survived the experience, luckily that was exactly what I needed.

Also falling out of the bag was a can of biscuits which proceeded to roll down the sidewalk, off the curb, through the parking lot, out the driveway and it rolled across the street, missing and rolling under cars like Oscar's baby carriage at the beginning of Ghostbusters 2, before finally coming to a rest in the curb of the driveway across the street. I proceeded to drive over there and pick it up -undamaged- when I left.

Big problem for me is that at my store and all other stores I shop at that don't offer self-checkout is that the checkers are just really slow. Those scanners can be remarkably fast at scanning items and don't need a full-second delay between items. But, man, the checkers just scan each item slowly, always seem to have trouble finding the barcode and just... ugh. Produce I get, it can be tricky to know the look-up number, or to find the sticker, the scale on the scanner can be a bitch sometimes on when/how to place things. So produce is usually a pass on slowness for me but scanning everything else should be pretty damn quick.

Again, when I got started in this business checkers were rated/graded on their "Scans per Minute" with small rewards given to checkers with a high SPM at the end of the week, usually something fairly small like a free lunch, video rental or something along those lines. Once in a while for a quarterly best you'd be given a PTO day.

That's why if I can I scan the groceries myself, I can scan faster than most checkers I encounter which is sad considering I haven't been a checker myself for a long time.

 

[Amaris]

Self cheeckouts don't have to cost jobs. If 1 person can man a bank of 4 self checkouts. It means potential 3 other staff members can be used else where within the store. Helping customers, restocking etc....

That would be customer service which is, I must say at this point, a frivolity. As long as the shelves have food on them and the register is open, you're running the bare minimum, which means saving money. This comes from the current corporate and managerial mindset, of course. Customer service is a joke for two reasons:

1] You have to buy food as a customer.
2] Many customers firmly believe in the customer is always right.
2b] Most employees don't give a shit. They're scraping by in wages anyway.

 

[MacLeod]

It depends on the size of the shop, larger shops you would try and package different types of products togther i.e. Chilled, Frozen, Ambient and Household items i.e Detergent, Bleach.

And it was simple heavy stuff goes at the bottom slowly working you're way up so the light stuff i.e bread is at the top.

As for scanning rates, don't rate them myself, becuase it can mean the cashier is so worried about reaching that rate that customer service becomes secondary. When it should be the other way around Customer service comes first. You should take as long as it neccessary to serve the customer in front of you (Without deliberatly going slow)