Don't Tie My Bags!!
Sunday morning was drizzling and dreary as I sipped my coffee. A headache developed as the morning turned to afternoon. I was holding my head and bemoaning the ache in it. HeWho asked if I had taken any tylenol. I responded in the negative, sitting with Eddie by my side. Did he offer to take the 4 steps to the kitchen to get a dose of pain relief for his wife. No, he did not. I didn't ask him to, just got up and dosed myself.
I had put the last 3 gallon bottle of water on the dispenser earlier and knew we would have to go to Walmart to fill the other 3 bottles. Soon as the headache subsided we climbed into the truck, knowing it would be time to eat after we purchased the water. Since I still had no stove to cook on .....
So we meandered through the store and found some deals. Boneless Prime Rib, $4.90 lb. and a few other good buys and went to check out. There was a long line at the self check-out.
HeWho is a big fan of the self check-out. Me, not so much. I will say that I could accomplish the task faster than he could, even with my help. His slowness is sometimes irritating. But today check out lane 3 was open and no one was clamoring to get to the conveyor belt, so I loaded it up as the cashier was watching me as she continued to wipe things down with a wad of paper towels. She did not even start to scan the items until I had finished unloading all of them.
HeWho had to tell her how to find the barcode for the 3 gallon water refills. I went to the end to start putting the bags in our cart. This was after she had scanned that box of treatment for septic tanks that keeps the bacteria growing to do the necessary job. She stopped to relate a story of how her cat found a box of the stuff behind her toilet on the floor and was dragging it out. I was confused, thinking maybe she might be thinking of something else since the brand was Rid X. No one would store this on the floor out in the open ..... would they? She said her cat was taking probiotics and "smelled" the contents of the box.
She wasn't content to just put the items in the bags and turn it to let me put the bag in the cart. She carefully put items in bags, then wrapped the bag around one item and put it in another bag and then tied the handles together!! Then she would hand the bag to me. Nearly made me go crazy! I put the items on the conveyor belt in the order I want them bagged. All the cold stuff together, all the cans and other grocery items together and then any other incidentals. Well, she would stand there perusing my choices and then proceed to bag them in her double bag and tie fashion with cold items and other items together.
I did not object, afraid it would most likely make her even slower. We do not live close and I have insulated bags in the truck to keep the cold stuff cold. This makes unloading a little easier for me. She put all the cans together, then double bagged it and tied the handles tightly. It was heavier than it needed to be for an old woman with arthritic hands.
Then she decided to chat about the items I had purchased. I bought myself a lightweight jacket n sale for $10 and she wanted to tell me to be sure to wear warm clothes under it or I might get too cold! I didn't bother to tell her my body thermostat is set too high, I just wanted her to finish the transaction and hand me the receipt! I had to ask for it after I couldn't control myself anymore.
She was probably my age or older. She could have been younger, but she did not look like she was. She must be a new employee and the other shoppers who had experienced her checking them out must have been avoiding her lane. I know I will in the future. She needs more training. Walmart trains with CBL's (computer based learning), or they did when I worked there. They are basic, common sense approaches to all aspects the job requires. It covers bagging. It is one of the very first ones a new employee watches. She needs to watch it again. She won't last long. She is too slow. Customers will wait in a longer line to avoid her and they will schedule her less and less until she is no longer on the schedule to avoid firing her.
Made my unloading and putting up my purchases longer as I had to contend with the knots in the bags!
I hate knotted bags, as I reuse the ones I get. I use my own cloth bags for groceries usually, but need a few of those plastic ones as trash basket liners. You survived yet another W-mart expedition! Someone should keep count of how many each of us endure and give out an award every once in a while!
ReplyDeleteWould we then be referred to as "the people of Walmart"? No, they already have those and it is a eally special club! We use reuse the bags to pick up poop. I use them in the little RV trash cans, as well. If you go on U Tube you will see some people who cut them and then crochet rugs. I can't see myself making trash bag rugs, no matter how bored I might get!
DeleteI don't like the bags knotted either, but my husband often knots them as he puts them in the car. So far I have kept my mouth shut about it, because he thinks the bags need tied in case the fall down on the floor of the car, so everything won't fall out of it.
ReplyDeleteI can see his motive to ie them, as they tend to fall over and let the contents out, free to roll around. I have a bunch of totes in the truck that I put the bags of stuff in that prevents them from toppling over. Tieing the light weight bags makes them harder to carry because you can't line them up on your arm to carry a bunch at a time. She bagged some thing separate and they were very light, yet she put a jar od salsa and 5 cans in one bag and that one was quite heavy. She was a strange one!
DeleteI hate tied bags! My mom used to do that when she gave me stuff. I had to rip the sides open to get the things out. Of course I didn't tell her. That might have hurt her feelings.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that most checkers will change up the items you have arranged when they bag them. Like not putting all the cold items together. Yet they WILL put all the canned items in one bag! As if we elderlies can lift that stuff. And they seem to think that boxed items, with their sharp corners, are fine to put on top of bananas.
I have had bags rip completely apart if something inside has a sharp edge on it. No chance of that with this one, as she was apt to put some items in a bag and fold it over and then place it in another bag. But the heavy bags of cans with the jar of salsa wasn't as well preserved and too heavy for my hands o carry in because she knotted that on twice. According to Walmarts training on bagging, they are supposed to avoid double bagging and not to make the bags too heavy. No rhyme or reason to her bagging style! And why she felt the need to tell a woman of my age how to dress for cold weather is a mystery!
ReplyDeleteI hate knotted bags.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't have been able to stop myself telling her to put cold items together and other items just as I had laid them out. Also to never tie the bags as they are sometimes unable to be untied after being lifted in and out of cars etc. I tend to think she might welcome a little instruction even if she doesn't want it. Anything that improves her work. I do try to place the heavy items first so they get bagged before lighter things like eggs and bread which need to go on top, not squashed under perhaps cans of pet food. I remember asking people if their bags needed to be lighter when I was working checkout and things already in bags like potatoes or carrots sometimes didn't need to get bagged unless the customer specifically asked for it that way.
ReplyDeleteI would have had no problem telling her not to tie the bags. and double bagged everything? I tell the checkers and baggers at the grocery store no bags please, just put everything back in the cart. I have 3 sturdy boxes in my trunk and it's easier for me to just transfer it all out of the cart and into the boxes and faster than transferring all those bags (because they don't fill them enough in my opinion) and then have everything roll around in those flexible bags and I don't end up with a lot of bags I have to recycle. easier to carry it all in in boxes instead of multiple bags too.
ReplyDeleteI use the bags for dogpoop. Not that my dogs poop in the house, but I like to pick up the yard every day and we keep them in the RV for that same purpose, plus using them to line trash cans. This woman was not pen to suggestion or commands. I just wanted to get away as fast as I could and not slow her down any more than she already was!
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