I've made no secret of the fact that I am a reluctant member of the military industrial complex and I regard my military ID with extreme ambivalence. It doesn't help that I'm defined as a "dependent" and Luis is my "sponsor." Even the benefits that accrue to me as a result of being a peripheral participant in the military fill me with conflicted feelings. One of the benefits is access to the low low prices of the commissary and the PX, or as I used to call them, the grocery store and not the grocery store.
There are a number of commissaries on Oahu and I have access to all of them with my magic military dependent card. A gallon of milk is about $4.50 at a commissary and it ranges from $6.00 to $8.00 at a local grocery store so the savings at the commissary are not insignificant. Despite the better prices, I have only been to a commissary about half a dozen times since we moved here. I generally shop at the Safeway in Kapolei because, other than the baffling array of Asian foods available, it seems more familiar. See, the commissary looks like a regular grocery store but has just enough weird differences that I feel off kilter when I go there.
The differences start in the first aisle which is reserved for specials but I can never seem to remember that. I always see a few different kinds of cereal or one brand of soy sauce and think, "why is the selection so limited?" and make a compromised choice accordingly. That's not a big deal though and I do think, in general, that the commissaries have a pretty good selection of things. Because of the selection and low prices, a lot of people shop at the commissary. If you time it badly and go near a military pay day, you can't even get a cart down an aisle. That's what happened one of the times I went to the Pearl Harbor navy commissary and I just abandoned my cart and went home.
The real differences between a commissary and a grocery store appear at checkout. First, instead of having a line at each register like a normal store, there is one main line that is roped off like the line to check in at the airport. When you get to the front of the line, there may be a person standing there yelling at you to go to this cash register or that, "FIVE!," or "GO TO THIRTEEN!" Some commissaries have an automated system in which the cashiers secretly signal when they can take another customer and the robot voice in the loud speaker at the end of the main line announces, "NEXT PLEASE!" Sometimes it just goes off repeatedly, "NEXT PLEASE NEXT PLEASE NEXT PLEASE!" I don't know what that means or where I'm supposed to go.
At some point in the transaction with the cashier, he or she will ask to see the magical ID that entitles me to that $2.00 savings on a gallon of milk. Some like to ask before ringing up and others during the payment process and most seem to have the attitude that I should have shown it to them already. It doesn't help that I feel like a big crazy faker when I flash a military ID.
Most normal grocery stores have employees who load your groceries in bags and put it in the cart so you can wheel it out to your car. Not the commissaries though. Instead they have unpaid third world nationals, usually women, who will bag and load your groceries into their own cart and take it to your car for you. There are many signs up that say baggers work for tips only. I want to hand them a business card for a labor lawyer with a tip to give him or her a call.
If you don't want the bagger to bag your groceries and take them to your car, you have to speak up and say so but I can never figure out when or how to do that. It reminds me of the stage fright I would get in the high school lunch line on chili dog day trying to time when to lean forward and tell the lunch lady, "no chili on mine please!"
I've been lucky enough so far that I've had a few dollars on hand to tip once they unloaded the groceries into my car. I dread the day when I don't. It's one thing to oppress someone indirectly by buying a $5.00 sweatshop t-shirt at the Gap. It's an entirely different thing to oppress someone to their face.
4 comments:
Ugh - I hate the weird bagging system they have, and this arrangement has existed at every commissary I have ever been to for as long as I can remember (and remember, I am an Air Force brat, so this is a decently long period of commissary history). I have no idea how it's legal - no salary, presumably no workers' comp or any other safeguards for injury or abuse.
And I almost never carry cash, so having to tip a bagger is always an issue for me.
I'm with you - I avoid going unless I am already on base for some other reason, which is rare.
I looked it up on the internet and apparently the baggers are independent contractors. I don't think the legal concept of independent contractors was devised with grocery store baggers in mind.
I'm not a sanctioned commissary user (no ID, so I have to tag along with my sweetheart), but I've discovered that if you use a debit card, you can ask the cashier to tack on a couple of bucks to the total, which you can then get in cash and assuage your guilt. :-)
That's good information to know. Thanks!
Post a Comment