Geriatric Go-Getters

Previously I have used the pulpit this blog provides to discuss why I think the self-checkout lane is amazing no matter what kind of store it is in. Mostly my love of that lane has to do with the ability to get in and out as quickly as possible simply due to the fact that the people who usually slow me down at the grocery story (i.e. the ones who still pay by check or love to use a mountain of coupons) avoid this lane because even they know how much of a pain waiting on them can be. But even I will admit that there comes a point in which going to a lane with an actual person working the register is worth the few extra minutes it may take. Usually it has to do with how many items I have in the cart (I feel like the self-checkout lines double as an unmarked "12 items or fewer" lane), but another big factor is what items I am buying. If it's a lot of fruit or other things which are based on how much they weigh I just would rather not deal with looking it up myself. As if the service of someone adding up and bagging your groceries isn't enough, one of the grocery stores near my house goes the extra step of having the baggers offer to push the cart all the way to your car and then help you load them. (I assume this is also done to get the carts back into the store and not rolling around dinging people's cars.) But what I noticed while I was in the store this afternoon was that while all the people working the registers were in their teens, the people doing the bagging and then bringing the groceries out to the car were all around 70. To me this seemed rather backwards.

At first glance it makes a bit of sense because these days registers have a lot of buttons to push and screens to cycle through before selecting the correct item to scan and if there is one thing retired people who only took this job so they would have something to do with their afternoons don't seem in any hurry to become it is computer-literate. Meanwhile I'm pretty sure this generation gets an iPod why still in the womb. Plus, the retirees have many more years of grocery-buying experience than their teen co-workers and thus would never make the mistake of putting the eggs at the bottom of the bag under soda and watermelon. Still, I can't help shake the feeling the two roles need to be reversed. I mean, every time I turn on the news there is some pundit telling me that the kids of today are too lazy and too obsessed with playing video games. Well, since these kids are ambitious enough to have part-time jobs it is not too crazy too assume they would also be interested in getting out into the fresh air every now and again as well as looking at something other than a computer screen for hours at a time. Sure, they may crack a few eggs in the process, but I am sure they would catch on after a while. They certainly aren't going to learn why that is bad standing there watching someone who is old enough to be their grandfather do all the lifting.

I've been told the older workers actually love the current system because two things which are not good for them are standing in the same spot for long periods of time or repetitive movements so taking customers' bags to the car keeps them moving and gives them a chance to interact with new people without having to mess with any computers. That's fine, but that knowledge wouldn't help me shake the feeling of being extremely lazy if I ever took them up on their offer. I mean, I may not be the best bagger in the world but I'm certainly not about to make a World War II veteran do it for me. This afternoon I thought I would get away without having to have one of those awkward encounters when there was no one around to bag the groceries after they had been scanned. I was fine with this and nearly away from the lane when a man who was probably pushing 75 came over and offered to take my bags out to the car. Even though I know full well this is his job and he is working there by his own choice there was absolutely no way that I, an able-bodied 33 year-old man, would ever let this guy carry my groceries for me. (Before you accuse me of being ageist, I would point out that so far I haven't let any of the kids take my groceries out to the car either. But with them I consider it for .5 seconds before politely declining.) I thanked him but returned the cart and just carried the bags to the car from the store.

That's another thing - I imagine that I am not the only one who feels this way, so these seniors probably get waved off much more than the number of times they actually get to take any groceries out to the car, which is only going to annoy them because my experience with senior citizens has been that they really hate it when you treat them like they are senior citizens. They think they can still do everything they could in their 20s (which is a fantastic thing and I can only hope I am the same way when I am that age), but at some point reality is going to catch up to them and I just don't want it to be walking to my car. I'm not saying these seniors shouldn't be working at this or any other grocery store (when you remember that working at the local grocery store is a lot of people's first job it actually has pretty great symmetry), I just think there has to be something in between, where we aren't asking these people to be personal butlers as well as do manual labor. That is why I think they would be great as in-store customer support. This afternoon we were looking for a specific ingredient but couldn't find it anywhere and never saw anyone who wasn't elbow-deep in another task to ask where the item may be located. But if you took a couple of these guys of bag duty and just has them walking around helping shoppers who needed assistance it would be great for everyone involved. I would find what I need and the seniors would be moving around without any of the heavy lifting. I for one would certainly be more willing to use that service than having them escort me to my car because if they get that far I'm just going to feel compelled to drive them back to the store's entrance anyway.