My husband received a letter from the VA office. It announces the new regulations effective from January 1st 2020. He will be qualified for receiving some benefits of Military. One of them is to shop at the grocery store on post.
I had a bad memory about this store.
At the time right after we married, my husband was serving as an active duty military. As a military spouse, I was qualified to shop at the grocery store on post. We lived in the government housing on post. From our house to the store, it was just a 10 minutes’ walk. Those days I didn’t have my own car, so it was convenient for me to shop at the store.
I appreciated for the nearby location of the store, but I had one concern about the store. It was about the baggers.
The baggers in this store does not get paid from the store. Since they are fully depend on customers’ tip only, the customers were supposed to give them a tip for their service of bagging.
At that time we were a young couple who strove for every penny. Even a small amount of tip of $3 to $5 was hard for us to spare. I asked the baggers politely and gently to let me bag my shopped items. They yelled back at me that it was their job. (I guess it was their way to say No.) After bagged, some of them started pushing my shopping cart heading to the parking lot. Sometimes they bagged my shopped items in a pretty bad way. The eggs were broken or some vegetables were pushed by other heavy items. There were times that I noticed some missing items after I arrived at home. They forgot to put the bag in my cart.
There were no other options to avoid the baggers in the store. There were no self-checkout cashiers available at that time.
I wanted to shop at the other grocery stores to avoid the baggers of this store. But I could not do so, because I didn’t have my car.
Because of the uncomfortable experiences, when my husband mentioned about his new benefit to shop at the store, I was not excited that much.
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Today my friend told me a good news about the store.
The store now has self-service bagging lanes for the customers who want to bag their shopped items by themselves. Now I am willing to go back to the grocery store.
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Please don’t get me wrong. I am not intending to offend the baggers. Firstly, I understand the tipping is Americans’ traditional custom. Secondly, I know some customers appreciate the baggers’ service to bag the shopped items, to carry the shopping cart to their vehicle, and to load the items into their vehicle.
I just wrote my personal experience. There are people who strives for their every penny or wants to bag their shopped items by themselves in their preferable way.
Therefore, it is good to offer both options for everybody to match their preference.
three wisdom 