Bagger

Bagger, Packer, sacker or bag boy, is an unofficial title given to a courtesy clerk at a supermarket.^[1] The primary duties of a bagger revolve around putting groceries into a shopping bag and then into a shopping cart. Upon requests, baggers may take the groceries out to a customer's motor vehicle or supply other forms of service. Some baggers in stores will do this unless the customer refuses and wishes to bring his own groceries out.^[2]

Depending on the store, other duties may include cleaning the store, cleaning the bathrooms, collecting carts, sweeping the store, fixing and maintaining the bottle recycling machines, giving customer assistance, putting items customers initially intended to purchase but changed their mind about at the register back on the shelf (usually called "back shop", "returns", "go backs", "shop backs", "orphans", "perishable returns", "reshop" or even "call backs"), and reorganizing products on aisles to make a neater appearance (commonly called "breaking down", "blocking", "facing", or "conditioning"). Some courtesy clerks can perform maintenance in the stores, such as minor plumbing, electrical, landscaping, child care, elderly assistance, and many more jobs. The duties vary vastly depending on the store and union regulations, and some of previous duties, in fact, are actually prohibited from being done at some stores by a courtesy clerk due to union contracts. The title of bagger is the result of an extensive evolution of the position of "courtesy clerk". The title "bag boy" was adopted for some time, until it was finally shortened to "bagger".

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