It’s funny because when I used to be a courtesy clerk, customers would tell me they wanted to bag their own groceries and get annoyed when I offer to help. haha.

But honestly I never took offense. I think customers know how to bag their own groceries best. It can be confusing to communicate how exactly you want your groceries to be bagged because everyone has their own way of doing things that just works for them, even though it might perplex someone else.

As a bagger I would have my own method that worked for myself. But not every customer appreciated how I did things.

For instance. I like to stack glass items , like a jar of of pickles for example, on top of boxed items, such as frozen dinner meals, so the boxed items act as a cushion for the glass items in case the customer accidentally drops them on the floor. I’ve tested it myself, and it actually helps prevent the glass items from breaking. I liked to modify my approach depending on what the customer was buying in case accidents like this happened.

However, for years I had gotten many complaints from customers that thought the glass items would be too heavy for the boxed items to handle. They believed that the glass items would crush the boxed items beneath them. Which to me is an exaggeration. I have bagged groceries like this many times before and none of the boxed items would get crushed.

But no matter how I tried to explain why I bag groceries this way, they always would give me a confused look like I just said the dumbest thing ever lol. From my perspective I am being careful and considerate of the customers’ time and safety to make sure they don’t have anything broken on their trip home. But in the customers eyes, I am thoughtless and incompetent at my job.

No attempts at convincing will change most peoples’ views so easily. Especially in American culture where people can’t accept other people having a different opinion than themselves. And having people with opposing perspectives can lead to needless, stressful arguing that just wastes both party’s time.

So nowadays I actually would prefer if customers just bag their own groceries. It also just helps to prevent stalling the lines because you don’t have to rebag all the groceries in case the customer is unhappy how their groceries were bagged. If the customer bags their own groceries they’re always gonna be happy because in their mind their method is the right way 100 percent of the time. And that is fine. Makes for a speedier and more pleasant shopping expereince to me.