It might not seem like an art.
But it was for me for a few years, and much like anyone who has ever served time in the food service industry, certain job skills you just can never seemed to shake...
I was a teenage bag boy.
I worked at Snider's Super Market in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland. I want to say I worked there for a few months in high school and then returned for a brief spell during my semester stint at the local community college while I transitioned from one college to another, but my personal history's archive can be patchy at best some days (and today is one of them).
I was inspired to think about this after a recent visit to my local grocer this past weekend when the bag boy - even though I asked, "Could you put all but the six'er of beer in one brown bag?" - delivered my $40 in goods in just about a bag-per-item. What the fuck was he thinking? Why would each item require its own bag? I think it is the curse of the plastic bag first and foremost: because they retain no form and provide so little function they beget the need for singularity.
My first hunch was to equate this with my current perception that most employers do little in the way of training anymore; training is almost always done on-the-job (OTJ) now. I remember spending days with the seasoned baggers, who not only told me how to properly bag a brown bag but also told me how to spot the big tippers. If you bagged dry goods from heavy to light and cold foods in the same manner (in a separate bag!), you'd get a better tip than if you just tossed anything and everything into the bag ad hoc.
And maybe that's the rub right there: baggers today have little incentive because few receive tips for their services anymore (correct me if I am wrong folks, but when was the last time you dropped a five spot on your helpful bagger?). Being a city market, Snider's pretty much required help getting to your car, so again maybe my rural lifestyle for the last decade and a half is reason enough as to why I don't encounter the veteran bag boy (nee person!).
Where have all the good baggers gone?





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