The Sport of Bagging for Bragging Rights
Don’t squish the bread!
I held a slew of odd jobs in high school and in college but I will never forget my first job. I was hired as a grocery bagger at Shopper’s Food Warehouse in Centreville, Virginia. I remember seeing the ad in the paper that they were hiring and my mom driving me down to have an in person interview with the store manager. There was a certain sense of pride when I got the job as well as a bit of fear and uncertainty when I got my schedule and realized bagging meant rain or shine helping lift grocery bags often into people's cars. The breaks were short and the lines never seemed to dissipate but at the end of the day, I loved the people I stood guard with during my 6 hour shifts.
It came full circle this week when I was asked to host the National Grocer’s Association’s Best Bagger Competition. I love a good game show and watching the contestants bag random PepsiCo grocery items in their bags for time, accuracy and other criteria was not only highly entertaining, it was a lesson in science and art. Talk about performance under pressure. One teenager's cardboard sleeve of soda busted open and toppled on the floor. He held his cool and finished the bagging like a pro but these were kids! Teens and early 20 somethings competing for a $10,000 dollar check. And that meant something big. A new car, payment for an upcoming wedding, healthcare bills for a mom with dementia. The stakes were high for these contestants from independent grocers all over the country.
But the biggest takeaway for me was the support. Each of these 16 contestants showed up to Las Vegas (for many of them the first time there) with an entourage of fans. Mentors from their grocery stores and co-workers, work family and biological family dressed in light up necklaces, lumberjack shirts with fake beards and a California crew with champion wrestling belts. They screamed and cheered on their young co-workers even when they were struggling to get their pickles squarely in the middle of their grocery bags. Every single contestant talked about the importance of the team that got them there.
Part of my job was to interview each contestant after each round. One contestant almost had me in tears when he thanked his boss in the crowd who “gave me a chance when no one else would hire me.” Another shared he waited a year for this opportunity because last hear he competed and accidentally left a pack of mentos “unbagged” at his station and therefore lost the competition. He said it haunted him for a year.
When I asked them about strategy, more than one of them said “it’s like Tetris”. It’s the art (or science) of fitting the items together. Each of these young baggers sees it differently, one young woman from Utah said she just sees “shapes” when she looks at the items strategically placed by the judges on the makeshift conveyor belt. She also said she entered the contest because her store was giving away free pizza to anyone who did. That free slice turned into a victory in a competition that landed her in another winning competition that landed her on a plane to Las Vegas. That same girl, Madison, is getting married in June and ended up taking home the check as the “best bagger champion of 2024”.
Maybe Madison will choose to move up the ranks at her store or maybe not but regardless, from Wisconsin to Iowa to Alabama and Massachusetts, being a part of this event showed me the same lesson applies wherever you bag or whatever you do for work. It’s really about the folks you spend your time with, about leaning on your elders for support and guidance and about having a little fun together when you can. And also, never put the eggs on the bottom of your bag!