Now just to note, I have left the cashiering profession but did indeed stand behind a register for roughly one year at Wal-Mart. Let me assure you, we hate you as much as you hate us. And if one thing positive about the experience can be said, and in all honesty there probably is only one positive thing, it’s the stories I was able to collect from my days behind the register. However those are for another day, our dear colleague Shining City wrote on her blog about buying the new cloth bags taking over our supermarkets. I also bought the bags, and they are the best investment I’ve made in a quite some time. While I’m a green Republican and a founding member of my old high school’s Sierra Club, I’m very well aware that for every one thing I do to help the environment, I’m ruining it with another four actions to match. Call it an act of false contrition. Really though the comfort is of having bags that don’t break, rip, take up space and just find new ways to annoy, is reason enough to pick them up the next time you shop.
http://shiningcity.townhall.com/g/04753c20-bdda-4f46-b7a3-f5a967fda3b6
While she confronted the aspects of being seen as a tree hugger, I’ll be speaking on the behalf of the poor cashiers that must bag your items to begin with. First of all we know how to bag (Really the bread should be by itself, I had no idea, and to think I was going to put your milk on it?). On my first day bagging seemed fine and even a little, dare I say it, fun. Then on my second day, hell welcomed me with open arms. There are people out there who want, I am not kidding, their bags filled to the brim with their items and if the bag is not breaking, they aren’t happy. God forbid, if you double bag. “What am I suppose to do with all these bags (I look at the cart, where there are four bags for forty items)” “Oh, I’m so sorry (inner thoughts…well you could put one of the extra bags over your head and save me the trouble. Then there were the special needs customers, the people who ask for only one item per bag and that it be double bagged. (Me: Put one candy bar in bag. Customer: You better double bag that; I don’t want to risk it.) Then there were the customers who want their bags moderately heavy and willing to risk it and those who just want a few items tossed in. Then there were those who wanted certain items in separate bags, and yelled at you if you didn’t and those who yelled at you if you did. And none of these examples was rare, they were daily. After saying goodbye to the register, I breathed easier in a store and now give comforting eyes and a kind word to cashiers confronting the war that is clocking in. You deserve to have your items bagged the way you want, you sick freaks called patrons. Fine, but cashiers aren’t mind readers. Please tell them your preference but lose the attitude that your way is the way it’s supposed to be done. We wish there was a way it’s suppose to be done.
