LogFAQs > #910922972

Well, this time it wasn't so much a customer being bothered by the way I was bagging groceries at a speedy pace, but the cashier that was scanning the groceries said something.

She said something about how I should not "throw" them. It's one of those things where if I did things the way some people wanted me to do them, then it would be worse off for most others. Also, this is a very disagreeable employee. (The number of other times that people have vocally expressed that they don't like the way I handle their groceries is only a couple or a few other times, and based on the praise I get from customers, I doubt that it is just them thinking disapproval and not saying it.)

For example, baggers are expected to pay attention to items on the bottom of the grocery cart so that they are remembered and get rung up. Cashiers don't always catch them, and the bagger can see the bottom of the cart better. The customer doesn't always remember to mention them. This cashier has gotten snippy with me for doing my job and has literally stated "You a bagger" as in, I should not worry about that.

Well, about thirty seconds to maybe a minute after she told me to not "throw" the grocery items, and also after the customer didn't mention anything, I hear this from her:

"He doesn't throw white people's groceries".

For reference, I am a white male, very young-looking, skinny, age 27, and almost always... almost exceedingly chipper at my job, going out of my way to offer help to customers that they wouldn't even think to ask for, pretty much.

I'm the only bagger who has figured out how to get the bags to, in my phrasing "unsticky", so that they don't trail off extras like paper dolls, or like a Kleenex tissue box taking an extra tissue when you were trying to just take one (as much). In times where there is not even a spare three seconds to place that trailed-off bag back onto the rack, most baggers allow them to add up and end up stuffing them underneath the bagging area where dirt accumulates, where bits of onion skin and bits of parsley fall beneath the end of the conveyor belt. This is where many baggers that are not me can waste literal dozens of bags in a single hour or in a single of my thirty-minute lunch breaks, by crumpling them up and dirtying them to make them unsuitable for paying customers. I instead just find a place to the side to place the down, and then as soon as I can, try and salvage them back onto the racks oor just use the bags by putting items into them.

The cashier is a black, like almost all of the employees at my grocery store. Over half of the customers are black. The cashier, is, for reference least fifty years of age, meaning that she is not a young person. The customer was a black male, at least thirty years old. Also for reference, most of the co-workers, employees and customers definitely like me.

I'm definitely too busy to develop the double-standard that she, the cashier, not the customer, is accusing me of. I just don't have time to sit there and think "oh look a white customer with lots of grocery items that will require me to hurry to get done before their transaction is finished without them waiting too long for me to finish bagging!"

(Not that this is really that stressful of a thing. I personally am always self-conscious about how long I am keeping customers waiting, even with me being much faster than anyone else there. It's a job, and I do it well, and if I want more money and/or want to do something else for a living, I can go look for some other job)

"...I am going to be more courteous to them because they are the same racial group as me!",