We stopped in to the grocery store on Wednesday afternoon, because I realized I wouldn’t have time to do it on Thursday. Everythign was great until we got to the checkout. The clerk was in the worst mood ever and appeared to be having the worst day of her life on top of that.
She sighed dramatically at our cloth bags. She ignored Emma, then pushed her away. She tossed stuff in our bags indesciminately – cans on top of bread for starters. She was flying by extremely fast to the point I was going, “um.. hey.. can… I.. ahh.. ” Then whenever she got to something heavy, she’d make a huge show over how heavy it was and groan and moan over it.
Honestly, I would have offered to do it, but she wouldn’t let me! At one point, she called the supervisor over to have a quick chat, and Sarah was in front of me and couldn’t hear it all, but she said it was full of attitude. She wizzed us through faster than I’ve ever been through a checkout before, and the only thing she said was “haveanicedaythankyou” in a voice that sound like she was going to expire any second.
We were so shocked and bewildered we just took our groceries and went home, discussing it all the way. When I pulled in to the yard, I realized I had absolutely no memory of putting the groceries in the car. There was a split second of panic at the idea of driving all the way back until Meaghan said she put them in the trunk. If I had to have driven back, I certainly would have gone to the desk and said something.
It was really weird.
What *is* that attitude about cloth bags? We get the same thing at Loblaws here. On the other hand, the Food Basics stores, while having crappy quality food, make you pay for their bags. And in our case all we have to do is skip the bag and toss it all back in our bundle buggy and wheel it home sans bags.
At the other end of the spectrum, I went to the health food store last night (I know, buying stuff on Buy Nothing Day…). The cashier there saw my backpack and simply said “I guess you’ll be putting the stuff in your pack, then?”
Things have definitely changed in the past year or so here in Toronto. They are selling reusable bags or bins everywhere. We used to have whole closets full of plastic bags (good for cleaning litter boxes). Now, though, we don’t get enough plastic bags so we have to buy small trash bags for litter.
That’s probably the hardest thing about customer service, though, being able to have a bad day without getting it all over everyone around you.
Well, I have a theory. She was actually a US of A’er who was pissed because she wouldn’t be having thanksgiving the next day, and she arrived after your thanksgiving. Or, uh, she was probably sick and her boss made her come in. What a bummer. I just bought 4 cloth bags as X-mas presents for my family…hoping they don’t think it is a crappy gift. These ones fold up and fit in your purse so you can’t forget to bring them. Mine serves as grocery bag, library bag all of the time.
The Superstore here just “outlawed” grocery bags. They no longer sell them/give them. You need to bring in your own bags/bins, 100%.
Mar – where are you? Our Superstores (at least as of last weekend) still had bags freely available. It’d be great to see them change that, though – there are a lot of people that’d be affected by that here.
Kim – those sound like great gifts. There are occasions, like when I’m out with my backpack but it’s full of library books or something and I’m needing to pick up groceries that I would really benefit from a compact bag. The new backpack I have has a few small, useless-seeming pockets that would probably fit a bag or two quite easily for just such emergencies.
Even Kroger here sells fabric bags now — way overpriced, but still. Wow, that girl definitely had a problem, didn’t she? I might have demanded a fresh loaf of bread — one of my pet peeves is squished bread. Now you’ll know to avoid her aisle!!!
I’ve used canvas totes and “hairnet” bags for years. My favorite grocery store credits me 5 cents for each bag I use. Checkers always ask how many I brought. If they paid by how many I *brought,* I could save $2.00 per tri.
I’ve been asked if I’ve ever lived in Europe, because of the bags.
I get people being annoyed with my cloth produce bags.. not so much the big grocery bags but they don’t seem to be able to comprehend fruit or vegetables being in a bag that isn’t plastic and see through. And they always try to take my stuff OUT of the bags to weigh it, and act like I am the one trying to make things hard for them.
The bread thing is a bit out of line, any mediumly brained person should be able to figure out that you don’t put heavy stuff on top of bread. A person doing that for their job should have been taught it, even if she couldn’t figure it out for herself!
Does your reciept have the girl’s name on it or show which register you went through or anything? I’d be inclined to ring up or send a letter to the manager complaining.
Todd – Victoria
There are two other grocery chains here that give you 3 cents off your bill for every reusable bag you bring in.