More intolerance toward innocent bystanders

I used to work in a grocery store. I used to bag groceries. Consequently, I CARE about how groceries are bagged. When I see superior bagging techniques I applaud them, and put them into use if I ever have cause to bag my own groceries. Laying a half-gallon milk carton sideways in the bottom of a bag, for example. This, in my opinion, brilliant, even though I didn't think of it myself. Also, even though individual eggs are delicate, egg cartons do a good job of protecting them. Putting them at the top of the bag just increases the risk they will fall out and break. They're safer at the bottom, as long as you're not putting something extra heavy, like several large cans of tomatoes, on top of them.

The downside, of course, is that incompetent bagging irritates me. And here is the one that tops the charts for me, aggravation-wise. It is the bagger who should be able to clearly see that all the groceries are not going to fit into one bag, but still continues to fill up the first bag as full as they can, then opens up another full-size bag into which they delicately place a carton of eggs and a bag of frozen peas. And then I'm supposed to walk out into the night with these wildly imbalanced bags. It's hard on me figuring out how to carry them properly, and then the overloaded one is virtually guaranteed to tip over in the car.

When this happened tonight, I asked the bagger to please balance out the bags a little. Judging by the look he gave me, my voice was a little sharper than I intended it to be. I tried to make up for it by thanking him again as nicely as I could, but the damage was done.

I also don't like the people at Safeway whose idea of bagging is one item per double plastic bag (sloppy, inefficient, and lazy, or so it seems to me). Fortunately I don't shop there enough to make an issue out of it.