European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 24, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 letters the stars and stripes Friday. July 24, 1987 commissary baggers respond to customer who criticized them this ii in response to the person who had unfortunate experiences with the baggers at his her commis sary we at the Tilburg commissary would like to make a few statements to this person and other who have had similar problems. First if you have any problems with your Bugger immediately go to the head Bagger and identify your complaint and Bagger. Each Bagger has a number and the number will be on your receipt. That is Why the head Bagger is there. It does t do any Good to complain to the wrong people if you expect conditions to change. And it sounds like the conditions need to change if he baggers Are really As uncooperative As the Amer said. As far As the tipping is concerned yes baggers work strictly for tips Only. If you Are unhappy with your service let the person know. We Are working for you the customer no the commissary. The amount of the lip is decided by the customer but keep in mind a few things. We Are there working under All kinds of conditions. We spend our Lime bag Ging your groceries taking them to your car whether it is in rain or Snow or Sunshine. Most of us Load your car so you can get your children settled and ready to leave. We sometimes have to Load groceries in trunks where there in t room for them or crawl across seats while you watch. I can guarantee you won t find this service in the states. Most of us Are working because we have our own Bills to pay not just for the exercise and fun of it. It is a Job for us. If you would rather not tip us for your own reasons we will gladly turn the Lane Over to you and you May bag your own groceries and take them out. Just notify us when you Start unloading your Gro Ceries. This is your Rich if you so choose. As far As the surcharge and Cost of the groceries is concerned you will More then Likely pay the same charge in the Stales and will definitely pay More for your groceries. There Are people who do appreciate this service we provide and let us know by the tips we receive. Becky Brett Shan Knepshield tried Dennl Ledla Lah Vogue a thy Hill Ingrid Grhim Angle Mccarty Susanne piter Sharon puh Veronica a. Lowe Wilborg Germany As you noted we Are not employees of the commis sary. We Are in essence Independent contractors. We arc free lancers of sorts providing a service that few would Likely want to do. Many of us who work on a permanent basis do so five to six Days a week six to eight hours a Day. I will add that we buy the same $ 100 Worth of groceries and pay the same surcharge and Benefit from the same services it supports As you do. Upon Reading the derogatory Tetter one of my co workers proposed hat you open your or your spouses pay envelope sometime and find a fistful of thank you s and smiles we re not paying in Cash for services rendered this month. Instead in an Effort to promote humility and Pride in your work we arc Shar ing the following words of incentive and appreciation keep up the Good work that would t pay the baby Sitter would in we Are housewives fathers is and students. We earn Only what , Public deigns to give us. It is that unrestricted monetary Reward which is our motivation. Ours is a very physically challenging Job. We Don t jul walk 25 feet to your car. We truck those carts to All Points of the parking lot to everyone s cars All Day Long in rain Snow and now the heat. The majority of us do take Pride in our work. How else could we continue it is your prerogative to pack and carry your own order. But do you want to do that when you have 15 bags on a Rainy Day and have of take a taxi in appreciation of our work we have been tipped generously by Many but by others we have received East German French and Canadian coins hard to spend in West Germany. I know one Man who received a half of a Dollar Bill yes torn in half it is no wonder we get cynical at the end of a Day especially a hectic payday when we Are Short staff and supplies. Stabej Keller Juanita Fulton Tony e. So Sandra f. Frankfurt i am a Bagger at a Small commissary. I pack every person s groceries that come Down my Tine As if 1 was packing my own family s groceries. I take Pride in my work and it is hard work. I make sure that your cans Are on the Bottom bread and eggs on top. I separate your chemicals and Check to see if you Are pregnant and require lighter bags. I Call str is haul water Cartons and wait patiently while you Clear out a space in your trunk. At the end of the Day i clean up customer generated trash and sweep the outside of the commissary. I spend from 10 to 15 minutes working for each customer doing a weekly food shopping trip from the time the first can conies Down the Belt to the time i return the cart to its customary place. All this for a salary that is decided upon by the customer. Expect a tip you bet i do when i come Home at night my Back is sore my arms ache and 1 have paper cuts and bruises. Whai makes the Job satisfying to me is the fact that i am getting exercise working the hours i want and i know almost everyone in my Community. There is where your problem lies. After a Short time working a Bagger begins to recognize who does and who does not tip. While no one deserves to be treated rudely i can understand Why the baggers arc not thrilled to see you coming. We must be Good sports. We cannot ask for a tip. We cannot refuse a meager tip and we definitely should not do a deliberately Sloppy picking Job because we know there will be no compensation for our efforts a Bagger should not receive a lip if he or she Dos a poor Job furthermore you should state that that is Why you Are not tipping. It will probably serve to make the Bagger More aware of the Quality of his her work. However if you have absolutely no intentions of paying a Bagger or you Are on a Light budget please inform he cashier that you do not wish a Bagger to pack and carry. To do anything less is in reality a theft of services. Believe me you will get a smile and a thank you anyway. Name and location withheld if in fact the writer Ever did work for tips she would realize How it feels to work hard for someone who can t even scratch up some change. I really find it hard to believe thai she can t afford to tip something. If she thinks the Altitude of this Bagger was rude then maybe she should consider mine. These kids and adults Are not there for a free service to serve her and put up with someone who is impossible to please. Even if the service was excellent i believe the lady would make up any excuse for not tipping. She needs to take a Long hard look at herself and ask if she s really been fair and honest. Paula bark nor Vicenza Italy i be noticed recently that there Are Many myths floating around concerning baggers at base Commisa Ries. The predominant ones Are that i. Baggers make a Dollar every five minutes 2. All baggers Ere drug addicts and spend All the Money they make fostering heir habit and 3. Of the Bagger does not spend All his Money on drugs then he definitely blow his Money in some immoral manner. As a Bagger at the Vogel Weh commissary i would like to assure my patrons that these myths arc false. To demonstrate the fallacy of the first myth is easy. Next Lime you go to the commissary and Are purchasing your groceries observe the baggers a the Back of the Register. You will find two of them. A few minutes later a third Bagger will ask one of the two original badgers whether one is if the third Bagger is in Luck the reply will be yes More than Likely the Bugger will say no and give the name of the Bagger who follows him. This will go on until the third Bagger finally finds a person who is last and whom he can follow thus becoming the last Benoit in line. Now comes the wait. For this third Bagger to make any Money whatsoever he must Wail in Tisall the bag Gers in front of him go outside with a customer before he can go outside himself. On the average it takes about seven to 10 minutes for each customer to be rung up by the cashier and gel All his or her groceries bagged. One can quickly see that it is going to Lake a while for our third Bagger to make any Money. In is not going to take five minutes. One also has to realize thai nol every Day is a sat urday or sunday. Tuesday through Friday Are Days we have to work too. On these Days business is extremely slow and you can find yourself waiting and wailing just to go outside with a customer and make a Dollar. As to he second and third myths that is just what they Are myths. I Don t know any baggers who Are drug addicts. They spend their Money in much the same Way As everyone else nost of the baggers live off of their Money. The Rusl of the people Are either like myself and work Here to save Money for College or Are High school kids who work to save for College and to also have a Little bit of spending Money. Bagging is not a great Job but in is not a bad Job either i just wanted people to understand us a Little better. Jack Ryan we try to do the Best we can but sometimes we do make mistakes. If you feel that we Are just taking a cheap shot at making Money you Are completely wrong. We Are doing a Job and we had to be on a waiting list for two years to get hat Job if you Don l like the Job we do Tell us so we can do in the Way you want it to be done. If you do not want to Tell us All you have to a is Call the manager at the commissary and he will pass the information Down to the head Bagger who will ill us and take the appropriate action. If you do happen to find a Bagger that you like you can request that he or she bag for you. You can also ask someone else to bag if you do nol want the person who is there. If you want to bag yourself fuel free to do so because there arc other people who also do that. I Hope that Neil Lime you will think of the Bagger As someone doing a Job and nol As a person who wants to rip your Money off for Juil bagging your groceries. Shirl a. Canard Karlsruhe Germany Pov inspectors who find defects lauded As Unsung heroes after wailing to Complete a privately owned vehicle Pov inspection and then to hear that the vehicle did not pass the necessary requirements i am sure Many individuals have thought Why me or can t you let this slide by this time we read about the service Mem a who was awarded a medial for saving a life or about a military policeman applying artificial respiration to another human being. Pen pals saving a life. To me a vehicle inspector is a Fine example of an All around hero because he is saving lives every Day by pointing Oul situations that could kill or injure. Imagine your loved ones without you because an inspector allowed something to slide by or urn cd his head to let you pass that inspection with a defective for. You could and up dead the vehicle inspectors who find defects in our pos Are using their professionalism. 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