People who don't bag their own groceries are the most irredeemable scoundrels

lamp is a bajillionaire imo

Lamp grows all his groceries

just boxes of Cheerios sprouting up all over his yard

The Brooklyn Trader Joe's isn't really set up so you CAN bag your own groceries -- they kind of take all the stuff and do it behind the register. Plus they always have the nicest clerks and I like striking up a conversation with them. Which I guess has nothing to do with who bags. Otherwise I like to do it if only to get out faster.

I'd prob go to Trader Joe's more often if the clerks weren't so friendly. Yes I've tried these choc covered edamame before, yes they're pretty good, now stfu, wish you were an automated kiosk.

jerks who dont put out dividers for the person behind them in line: savages

― VegemiteGrrl, Monday, March 28, 2011 10:17 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark

YES. THANK YOU.

"Sir, is this broccoli yours?" "Let's see, so far you've scanned my box of Bugles, three pints of Ben & Jerry's, Jalapeno Cheddar Cheetos, and ranch dip. NO THAT'S NOT MY FUCKING BROCCOLI."

i buy lamp's groceries

and then sell them on ebay

also kind of hate the "leave your stuff in the carry basket" move. only exception is if there is no clear place to leave it...but even then, i usually take my stuff out of it at least.

The cashiers at every Trader Joe's do a great job of packing groceries! I just hand them my tote bag.

But local stores like C-Town and Associated and Key Foods -- no. Usually the cashiers have nails so long they can barely type on the registers, and they bag your stuff at a snail's pace and put avocados and salad greens on the bottom. Just no.

worst bagging recently: frozen mac and cheese on bottom; hot sandwiches on top, bottle of olive oil plonked on top of sandwiches. wtf

lol @ ppl who buy their own groceries

― em.pty HOLD (Lamp)

in canada the government delivers vegetables to yr igloo

hottest checkout chicks

Online grocery ordering/delivery is the bawmb. But the Coles here realised it was losing them money (they started with suprisingly cheap delivery fee and no min spend), so now theres a min $50 spend and the delivery fee's $10+

Worth it for some occasions tho, like the other week for my party, I ordered a ton of bottles of soda, and heavy shit like catlitter and canned things. When you dont drive thats a godsend. WOuldnt do it on the regular tho, you cant get decent fresh food that way for starters (they'll sell it but I'd never buy vegetables off the interwebs)

Are Trader Joe's clerks required to take Ecstasy at the start of their shifts?

No they snort lines of powdered Acai

Trayce OTM – grocery store delivery is a godsend for carless drunks like me. I started a thread about it once.

Read that as careless drunks and envisioned you drunkordering 20 cases of Tide, a bag of cat litter and a slab of 4Loko and then wondering a day later why it all turned up on your doorstep =)

trayce the other negative about coles delivery is that *nothing* is on special and in some cases they add a premium to products without mentioning as much. i did some sums and my standard $200 shop was something like $280 w/ home delivery :(

Yeah I had a suspicion that was the case.

Also here, you can SWIPE YOUR CARD and enter your PIN while the cashier's still scanning things - just need to push a green button at the end. So you can have your wallet put away and your groceries handed to you as soon as the cashier's done.

Living the dream.

I do most of my grocery shopping online now anyway. My local supermarket doesn't have a lot of the fancy dan things I buy, but the big delivery depot one half an hour away does. So let them bring those things to me. I'm lucky enough to work from home, though, so I can avail of the half-price off-peak delivery charges.

Is it 'cause there's no music?

No, it's the way it's done very very cheaply. I understand why, but I found that one place I went to VERY depressing. It was a rundown one in some depressing location.

http://www.powned.tv/images/fotos/Aldi_gr.jpg

My nearest Aldi is, I think, the one that Corey referred to as being sleek like ikea, but strangely it's in a rough-ish part of town. Their baked tortilla chips are very cheap and good. Also the nuts, both snack and baking.

ugh 2.19 for verse snijbloemen?!?!

lol

Would hate to go grocery shopping with you guys.

In Britisher land the cashier will grudgingly bag your groceries if you're a disgusting savage and don't do it yourself. I usually have my own bags and want to pack them myself anyway as I'll be cycling.

wow that aldi also has three feet of water on the floor.

And only €2.19 for Verse Snijbloomen

Liabilities have gotten so ridiculous that the poor baggers just do whatever the managers specify, which is why you end up with a double bag with three things in it.

I worked in a supermarket as a cashier a million years ago and I swear those bags were thicker (double bagging was for heavy loads like a gallon of milk) and we were required to fill the bag. It was an art, I was actually trained in how to pack the bag.

First time I was in a Dutch grocery store (not to be confused with the sexual act "Dutch Grocery Store"), I noticed the cashiers were sitting on stools (because why not? It's a shitty job, and there's no reason for them to be standing), and not only do they not provide bags, but you have to bag your own shit. I was down with this, but wish I'd known it before I had to walk four blocks carrying an armful of bagless groceries.

There is this grocery store in the Northwestern U.S. called WinCo, which is cheap and great and I <3 and miss it. You bag your own groceries, though, to keep your groceries ¢heap. I had applied for a job there when I was 17, and a few days later, I found a WinCo uniform polo shirt for sale at a thrift store. I had what I thought was a brilliant idea, to dress in it and go to the WinCo and start bagging people's groceries to show I was a "highly motivated self starter," as they say in the classifieds. This did not go over well. I got a manager called on my immediately, and they threatened to ban me from the store forever if I didn't leave right away. Didn't get the job. This is the anecdote I tell to cashiers when I stand around bagging groceries for myself.

This is a great story. We used to do something like this when we were making bets. Basically we had to wear a Wal-Mart uniform (a buddy of mine used to work there and kept the uniform), fake up a nametag, and try to work the "night shift" (11PM-7AM). Myself and a friend of mine had to do this and we both got booted after a couple of hours. A few times I had to try to direct customers around; I didn't get caught then because Wal-Mart employees are always clueless, but I got spotted by a manager who gave me the "who hired you?" line and I was kind of like..."uhh...I don't remember?" Luckily the cops didn't get involved.

I loved Winco when I lived in Redding. Each register had a divided bagging area so they could get right to the next customer's checkout and not wait for the previous customer to finish bagging.

Ye olde supermarkets used to do that here too. A nice big sweeping divider that allowed the cashier to just go "a-a-and we're finished with YOU" and start in on the next person while you pack your shopping away as god intended.

They don't do that anymore?

The divided bagging area was cool. I found myself sort of competing against the person across the divider from me..."nyahh, you checked out first, my cart was fuller, and I still beat you out the door! And my eggs aren't under a case of beer! I WIN!"

I am too competitive.

When I worked in a grocery store we employed a weird guy named Grey who was legally blind and was a tornado of bagging. I remember once he put a loaf of bread in a bag and then plopped a two liter of Coke on top. No one had the heart to correct him or fire him, but it wasn't even like he was nice - he was gruff and weird.

Walmart cracks me up because their express lanes are for "25 Items or Less".

It should be "…or Fewer", but I'm not even going to get started on that right now.

― http://tinyurl.com/vroooo0ooooom (Pleasant Plains), Monday, March 28, 2011 12:25 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

this drives me nuts whenever i shop there - i'll be behind someone in the express lane who has a shopping cart full of shit, and i'll be thinking to myself 'they can't possibly be under the limit' and then i start counting before i remember its 25 items... its such a defeated feeling

nowadays i basically hate any grocery store without self-checkout

The thing that bugs me about Trader Joe's friendly cashiers is that it's so obv a corporate-ordered faux friendliness. I like spontaneous, genuine friendliness, I really do.

another TJ annoyance is that the area to put your purchases on is like 1 square foot

Someone upthread said something about people being instructed to only put 2 or three items in a bag. WHY?! It's infuriating. Why would they be told to do it that way?

x-post - That is extremely annoying, yeah. I'm not really a huge fan of TJs becasue I feel like even though I spend a lot of $$ there I come home to find I haven't actually bought anything except funky hummus or some interesting cookies and have to go shopping all over again but that's another thread entirely.

The thing that bugs me about Trader Joe's friendly cashiers is that it's so obv a corporate-ordered faux friendliness. I like spontaneous, genuine friendliness, I really do.

tbh I will take corporate-mandated fake friendliness over churlish disdain and acting like doing your job is a massive inconvenience

I used to think I was a "food snob" (galley kitchen = lots of take-out and xpensive imported food)...that was before I got a bigger kitchen with all of the appliances.

That's when I realized that true food snobbery (unless you are hung up on organic) means cheapies are more FUN. Bags of beans for 30 cents! A week's groceries for $40! All if you're willing to bag your own at places like Food 4 Less!

ENBB - because the bags are so thin that the bag might break on the way to your car and then the store has to replace the items!

xp: (not that I ever shop at Trader Joe's anymore since Costco's with a self-checkout lane + Super Stop & Shop's handheld scanner system > everything else)

agreed that is worse, DJP

i go to trader joes once a year and then stare at my items and think...wow i spent $100 on nothing remotely edible. Awesome lemon papaya mango cookies, frosted chilis, a gallon of chocolate goats milk.

Maybe I'm just bitter because the 1st time I visited TJ's I was like "oh man, this cute granola-y chick totally wants me", 2nd time I was like "oh man this sun-ripened aged hippie totally wants to smoke a doobie with me when he goes on break", and then the 3rd time I was like "oh man this fitness chick totally...HEY WAIT A SECOND!!"

Yeah srsly the alternative to TJ's-style service is enormous disdain for you as a person, and total contempt for the speed or quality of work. I could handle "unfriendly" if it was ever also "coldly efficient" but it's not, and so I'll take the rictus grins with the maniacal over-packing of my tote bags.

we used to go to TJs exclusively for DUMPLINGS! and booze

ah, those glory years of being just out of college

xxp: lol this sounds exactly like the process a close friend of mine went through, only instead of ppl working at TJs... it was strippers