Advertency, we have it not.

[rolanni]

So, I stopped at the grocery store on the way home and picked up a few things, a good bit of it cold, a few frozen items. When I got to the checkout line, I placed two bags -- one an insulated cold bag and one a thin, made-with-recycled-soda-bottles or something bag on the counter ahead of my order. The bagger picked up both bags, considered them earnestly, then proceeded to pack all the cold stuff in to the non-insulated bag.

Into the insulated bag went the bread.

*sigh*

However! I now have nineteen days off from the day-job in a row, which I'm treating for book-writing purposes as I Don't Have To Go Back EVER. It's not that the perfessers are a bad bunch, but they are a bunch and they do din in the head long after the day is done. Which speaks more to how I process people than anything particularly awful in daily interactions, but still... I can hear myself think.

How. . .pleasant.

Comments

[elbales]

Did you make the person repack the bag? The mood I've been in the last few days, I'd have made him repack it. (Detoxing off antidepressants makes E a snarling beast.)

As for time off: Huzzah! School's out for me, too, but I'm still busy and tired, doing all those things I didn't have time to do during the school year.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Did you make the person repack the bag?

Nah; there were people behind me and I was feeling all mellow and all about being a Free Woman.

School's out for me, too, but I'm still busy and tired, doing all those things I didn't have time to do during the school year.

Ghost Ship? Was originally due on August 1.

...I'll be over on the couch, writing, for the next 19 days.

[elbales]

Seriously. *hands you sandwiches as needed*

[(Anonymous)]

I've always been impressed by baggers' willingness to carefully put all of the fragile items, like eggs and fresh produce, into the bottom of a bag...

...which they then fill with canned goods.

I'm to the point where I often use the self-checkout aisles so that I can pack my bags myself.

[brock-tn.livejournal.com]

Er, the above is from me. I keep forgetting that the laptop I've fallen back on refuses to log me into LJ automatically.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

See, I can't make the self-check-out thingy work. I expect I don't approach it firmly enough and it senses my fear.

I'll just have to add "and please put the cold things in the thermal bag," to my Ritual Greeting of the Cashier.

[brock-tn.livejournal.com]

Yes. I keep telling my co-workers that any sufficiently complex electronic device develops the ability to sense uncertainty or fear in its operator, and will seek to take advantage.

None of them believe me.

On the other hand, I know a Buddhist who burns a joss stick in front of his monitor every morning and never has a problem. Go figure.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Chickens. Sacrifice a chicken to the hardware and it will work. Well, as long as it's a SCSI drive, other hardware can be fussy about which sacrifices they want (one device insists that it has to be human blood, and takes it from me whenever I approach it).

Other time it can be enough just to threaten the device: "I have a screwdriver and soldering iron and I'm not afraid to use them!" In fact my sister's system is so terrified of me that she only has to threaten to call me to get its cooperation. Some hardware is easily intimidated...

(I'm an animist, I believe that everything responds to being talked to. I also thank things when they do something for me, so I say thank you to ticket machines and photocopiers when they give me the appropriate bits of paper, and to the car after a journey. This gets me some strange looks from some cow-orkers and other people who don't know me...)

Bagging Groceries

[trekgirlmo.livejournal.com]

There's a reason I prefer to bag my own groceries! Whatever happened to the days of teaching customer service, counting change and packing groceries?

Enjoy your time off, you deserve it!

Maureen

baggers

[tessie614.livejournal.com]

What irrates me most at the check-out line is the "idjet" who grabs a fresh loaf of bread in the middle and holds it "firmly". Squish goes the bread. I've been known to send them back for another loaf after teaching them how to handle it correctly and carefully.

GENTLY

[saffronrose.livejournal.com]

I have had that same result at checkout recently. Grr.

[trolleypup.livejournal.com]

In trying to figure this out, all I can come up with is "hard things together in one bag, soft thing in soft bag so it doesn't get crushed."

I'll note that many of the local Safeways hire the developmentally disabled as baggers and while it may be a bit painstaking at times, they never put the bread on the bottom, and indeed generally bag as one would wish it done!

I wonder if there is anywhere left with blue ribbon trad checkouts? I remember Berkeley Bowl in the golden days of yore (1980s) when they would 10 key the prices weigh and bag the mostly produce and bulk items about as fast as a reasonably athletic two handed person could move all the items 3-4 feet. And the bags would be neat and properly filled.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Yay for 19 days of freedom!

[mardott.livejournal.com]

"I expect I don't approach it firmly enough and it senses my fear."

This is me.

When I worked for the USGS, we had a sign on the mass spectrometer with a long explanation of how the user's emotional state affected the machine. It was hilarious. But it was also true!

[brock-tn.livejournal.com]

Please. Do not get me started on the issue of Operator Headspace problems. I used to do onsite tech support and consulting in the metalworking industry. The horror. Oh, the horror.

Oh yeah, somebody already did. (http://brock-tn.livejournal.com/6888.html?nc=6)

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Plain paper photocopiers. I'm convinced that they are actually psychokinesis amplifiers. You see, when they are installed everyone believes in them, and they work. Then someone has a bad day and the thing stops working -- after they see or hear that then everyone loses faith and it doesn't work for them. So they call a technician, who is convinced about his own ability to fix things -- and often it works for him without having to do anything! And does as long as he's around, once he's gone it stops working again. Unless he does something to convince the users that he's fixed it, that is, in which case they regain faith.

That is why the cry "but I did that and it didn't work!" is often true, when they tried it they didn't have the confidence. I 'fixed' a pirnter at work like that the other day, just opened the top, looked at it and told it not to be silly, closed the top again and it worked fine, it was probably just lonely and played up to get attention...

[6-penny.livejournal.com]

They are too smart to pass the Turing test. They know that if they did they'd have to file income tax forms, and probable spend all their time adjusting softflesh colleagues.

[hapaxnym.livejournal.com]

Huh. All the grocery clerks I have encountered here has amazing bagging-fu. Indeed, I have often complimented them on their efficiency and care -- I do so love to see competence, in whatever form it chooses to exhibit itself.

That being said, hurrah for the freedom to concentrate on the Important Stuff -- cats and cooking. And mebbe a little writing on the couch.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm wondering how many cats you share the house with.
C.