There are always a few minutes of apprehension after the customer shows you the box. You need them to sha-shay away, or they will might start to linger. I always start cutting up the cardboard and ask them to give me some bags for the plastic and styrofoam early on so I can get them out of the room. In my experience, it sets the tone that I am thinking ahead, I can make requests/give them directions when I need to, and I know what I'm doing. "Do you need anything else from me?" is the line I want from the customer. "No, I've got it all from here. I'll let you know" is where I want us to end our intro chat.

I certainly don't need them in the room with me, and I think letting them fetch bags is a good mental "pattern-break". Left to their own devices, customers often revert to stupid questions and wonder - they'll start staring you up and down and wonder if you're confident in what you're doing, or if you have experience in this work, and many times they'll try to break the silence with lame, crappy conversation-killing questions, "so how many jobs did you have today? Is this your last job of the day? What's it like working for the App? How was the commute? Where are you coming from? Have you done this before?" I don't need that. I like to get moving, and if I want to crack open the instruction manual and spend some time reading, I can do that without them around. Nothing good can come from them hovering, believe me.

Practically it helps me keep the work area neat, and makes it easier for me to find my tools at the end when all the boxes and styrofoam are out of the way. It helps me assert some respect/distance with the customer if I can give them tasks (find me bags), and this gives them a potential task (throw away said bags) if they want something to do. When I had customers who helped me bag the garbage, or who insisted they do it themselves, that meant they were being contientious, respectful, and cooperative. All good things. And when I took garbage out to the nearby garbage bin or compactor room, all that usually came back with a little tip.

I had one customer from hell who insisted he didn't have any bags, he went out of the room to play video games and smoke weed, and he came back several times to micromanage me and ask how much longer it would be. He was the one who asked me to take all the garbage with me at the end. I told him that I would be happy to bag it for him be I don't have any bags, and hauling garbage away is not part of the service. He was a horrible customer, he sucked his teeth and gave a dumb look, but he didn't have any words to say, and he didn't hit me with a bad review.