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Back in the early '60s, I worked part-time sacking groceries at the local Kroger store. I was paid fifty cents an hour, which was good money for a fourteen-year-old kid. On one of my first days of work, a young mother with three small children in tow purchased two full shopping carts of groceries. The other, more experienced grocery sackers had seen her coming and made sure that I was the only one free to help her with her order. So she pushed one cart and I the other to her car. It was the smallest car I had ever seen. A British Hillman, I think, which made a Nash Rambler look like a limousine. The lady filled each tiny seat with her kids, and then I placed about thirty sacks of groceries in every remaining space throughout the car. Even in the driver's lap. There was no way she could see anything other than through a small portion of the front windshield. She smiled at me and tried to wave with her one free hand as she steered toward the highway. Looking back at the moment, I doubt that her car even had an automatic transmission, so maybe she didn't try to wave.
A tip would have been appreciated, but I think the other sackers knew that wasn't going to happen.
P.S. The images online do not do justice to how small that car was when I started to unload those groceries.
Discussion (11)
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Murphy's Law must have a corollary that for any service job of metaphysically obscene proportions of effort, there will be an obscenely tiny tip. Or else no tip at all.
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It's amazing how quickly that you can develop the sense that no tip is forthcoming with that huge amount of groceries and begin to position yourself to work another aisle and cart.
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The Hillmans I found on line seem quite roomy. https://www.google.com/search?q=british+hillman+car&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS1178US1178&oq=british+hillman+car&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyCQgAEEUYORiABDIICAEQABgWGB4yDQgCEAAYhgMYgAQYigUyBwgDEAAY7wXSAQg0ODU1ajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
As one retired grocery bagger-turned-physician to another, you have my empathy on the tip. Perhaps she could not afford it.
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Nice story, thanks, Southern.
CarolJoy, your mention of this inappropriate failure to tip reminded me of my failing to tip the young lady who took my drive-up coffee order this morning.
She did nothing to deserve being stiffed. The young woman made an extremely enthusiastic effort to interact with me in the way she has been brought up and trained to think represents excellent customer service.
It’s just that I found her behavior grating and mindlessly disrespectful and insincere, even though it is normal by her mindfully grating, disrespectful, insincere generation’s standards. And didn’t feel like rewarding it or encouraging it with a gratuity.
For example this exchange:
”Would you like that black, or with cream?”
Cream, please.
“Perfect!!” “How many creams?”
One, please.
“Perfect!!”
(If we get a perfect score on all the questions, do we still have to pay? you may ask. The answer is “Yes”. ) (Now you are supposed to say, “Perfect!!”)
And this:
“I hope you-guys enjoy it.” (Referring to me and my wife).
And the implicit assumption that we are old friends meeting socially, rather than perfect strangers communication as servant and served, in a transactional setting.
Et cetera.
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Hillman Imp.
The first time I saw one, I didn't know whether to get in or strap one to each foot.
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