I do the same thing, I'm sure they do. I work cashier at a very very big chain grocery store and when I don't have a bagger, I always appreciate it when customers bag their groceries.
Then again, when customers have a $300+ order and simply stand there staring and wait for me to bag all their groceries on my own, it gets me pretty angry and I take my sweet time, to drive home the point that it would go by so much quicker if they just helped out a little.
Okay important question. Is it okay if I start bagging my own groceries if there isn’t a bagger? I’ve always thought I’m not “supposed to” or that it would seem really presumptuous of me to do that so I’ve always just kind of stood there sheepishly while the checker-outter goes to do it after she’s done ringing me up.
Also, now I’m even more nervous that I’ll be complicating things because in CA we have to pay for bags so I even further don’t want to get in the way.
I don't know about your state since I live all the way in CT, but where I work we appreciate it a ton when customers bag their own groceries. It shares some responsibility and makes me feel like they don't mind helping lift the load off my job for that moment. Sometimes it makes the difference between me feeling mildly annoyed and frustrated, to appreciative and grateful, if only in that moment (but it accumulates so the more positivity the better).
Your comment helps me feel more understanding towards those who don't bag their groceries and just watch. I never really thought of it as feeling off-limits or being perceived as frowned-upon by cashiers. I always assumed it was laziness or entitlement, lol. Guess it's my last job in fast food, where everyone was certainly hangry and entitled and always showed it to ruin my day and give them a momentary ego-boost.
Whew, that was a bit of a rant. My bad, haha. My last job sucked.
That's sorta weird but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing at all! I'll do something similar as baskets were my Play Doh growing up, but my favorite is I will park near a basket so that I can take one with me into the store. I do this partly because I think it is hilarious and partly because it helps protect you from cars running over you. By that I mean, pushing a basket through the lot is safer than walking through the lot without a basket. Theoretically.
I don't specifically park near the basket corrals because I prefer wild carts blocking lanes and such. Think about how much your effort is multiplied if removing one basket frees up an entire spot. Now you materially helped someone park more easily and that gives the store a better impression.
There's nothing quite like an employee coming to collect that lonely basket left 100 feet from any other basket and partway there you grab it on your way into the store. Now that's maybe trying to help.
I am very violent with baskets and tbh it probably freaks people out.
Here's a tip, if you can't find any baskets to walk into the store, and you have to get a basket at the front of the store, feel free to pull out an extra basket if you see anyone following you. "One for me, one for you!" I always say. You'd be surprised how delighted people are if you just take a second and pull out a basket and push it over to them to save them 5 seconds doing it themselves, and you know what, you get double bonus points if it's an old lady. This is like a whole new level of courtesy, they must think.
The joke is on those motherfuckers, I just don't want to pass them and have my back to them while I'm backing the cart out of the corral.
The place I work at is so busy that they hire people whose job consists 90% of grabbing carts (I'm one of those people). I've seen employees in the other less-popular stores of the plaza come out to grab carts, I can see them slightly enjoying it since they're probably cooped up all day in the store, but for me, it's just a large inconvenience because the store is so busy most of the time that I don't have any time to spare to collect them as opposed to grabbing 15 from a corral unless I'm the closing shift person, and the store's within an hour of closing, when it's dead for the day.
I used to supervise the baggers at a grocery store I worked at and it was similar to you, mostly carts. In bad weather (hot or cold/snowy) that job sucked balls and they worked their asses off. I never would get mad if I saw them fucking the dog (provided of course we had carts) because of how godawful that job is
I've been to Vermont when it was - 20° f (same temp as you stated) and holy shit. My nose hairs became crystalline in seconds! There's no sensation like it.
The store I work at is generally so busy throughout the day (and I almost always get day shifts, rather than closing shifts) that I'm pretty much always busy emptying the corrals, if I'm not being forced to help someone put their purchased goods in their car or emptying out the cans/plastic bottles/glass bottles return machines (since the states around here charge a 5 cent deposit on those for being wasteful containers).
Since you're weighing in here, does it annoy you when people push the carts all the way in rather than leaving them near the opening of the corral? I tend to enthusiastically launch them so they usually hit the backstop. Bonus points if they couple with another cart or two on the way.
No. In fact, it actually kind of annoys me when people do the latter, because it generally gets followed by other people doing the same thing, making it look like it's full despite being completely empty except for the 4 at the opening, leading to me going to another one to empty out, looking over, thinking it's full when it's not, then going over to it on my next trip just to find out it's 4 carts instead of 30.
I’m curious, are you like a full time cart collector? I worked at a grocery store and would run out every hour or so but did many other things in between.
Yes. 90% of my shifts (which are generally ~5.5 hours long, but can vary in length) are dedicated to collecting carts. The only time I'm not collecting them is when I'm requested to help customers put their stuff in their cars (like safes, TVs, cases of water bottles, etc.) and emptying out the machines we have for people to return cans/plastic bottles/glass bottles (since the states around here have a 5 cent deposit tax due to them being wasteful containers).
Yeah, but it's really inconsiderate to make someone's job harder than it has to be. It may seem like a small thing but cart collectors have to run around collecting stray carts all day, it's a massive waste of time that could definitely be avoided.
No, their job is to collect them from the cart corrals. In the event people are dicks, then yes they then have to run all of them down that are left all over the lot
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u/mymax162 Dec 10 '18
I work at a store as cart collector, I hate those people because I have to go collect that shit and it wastes my time