Sunday, May 10

Post from the past: What? No Bag?

Originally posted in Nov but worth another read.

This weekend my daughter and I were out running errands & stopped at a drive-through for a pseudo lunch (just a little something to get us through the rest of the errands). I asked the young lady at the drive-up window to please hand me my items and not to put them in a plastic bag.
Here is the conversation that followed that request.

What? You don’t want a bag?

No thank you?

I guess we can do that but we always put things into bags.

I know you do but I am just going to immediately take them out of the bag so why waste a bag.

She looked at me kind of funny but did not say anything else.

Another girl brought my remaining items to the window and proceeded to put them in a bag. I asked her to please just hand me the items and not put them in a bag.

Really?

Yes, really. I am just going to immediately take them out of the bag so why waste a bag.

OK. If you say so.

Thank you.

She them proceeded to hand me about 12 napkins. I asked her to give me just 1 please.

Just one?

Yes, we don’t need any more than that and I don’t want to take them if I don’t need them.

OK. If you say so.

Thank you.

I can only imagine the conversation those two girls had about me after I drove away.

I guess I should have done a better job at explaining the “green” reasons for my actions but I didn’t think it would appropriate to do so while my car was idling in the front of a line of other idling cars all of which contained hungry drivers…..

2 comments:

Ami said...

Funny experience. For a while I was getting similar responses at the grocery and discount stores when i brought my own tote bags. "You want this in there? You want me to fill it up?" Now that stores are selling their own non-plastic totes, cashiers are getting used to bagging items in something other than a plastic bag, but it's still a challenge sometimes. It's amazing how hard it is to get employees to change their behavior. I have to hope that with more and more people making requests like that we'll see a change in the response.

By the way, I tagged you!

Over Coffee - the green edition said...

Thanks for the comment and the tag. I will go and read it right now.