The Bagging Habit Trader Joe's Employees Wish Shoppers Would Stop

Employees at Trader Joe's — which has been selling reusable shopping bags for longer than you may expect — wish customers would stop handing them dirty bags to bag their groceries — and when they say dirty, they're not talking about crumbs and stains, but spiders, bed bugs, and cockroaches. A discussion on pet peeves on a subReddit for Trader Joe's past, present, and future employees sparked wild, often disgusting stories about the state of some customers' reusable bags. 

"Probably about a month ago, I was at the register and using a reusable bag that a customer brought," one Redditor posted. "As I opened it up to use, a pile of dead bed bugs spilled out of their bag and all over the register." Then there was this little anecdote from another employee. "One time, I was bagging a man's groceries with his reusable bags and a cockroach crawled out," they wrote. A third person posted about live spiders in bags on at least two occasions.

The worst part is that bedbugs and cockroaches weren't even the most offensive items found by Trader Joe's employees in reusable bags brought in by customers; the list also includes used diapers and smelly workout clothes. Bugs start feeling reasonable in comparison. Founder Joe Coulombe has said that the employees' high pay is the factor that makes Trader Joe's special — but it seems like higher pay is the least some of them deserve!

Among the many employee pet peeves shared on the Reddit thread, there are two more related to bags and bagging. The first is customers who refuse to help bag their own groceries — specifically those who have shopped in bulk, as mentioned in Tasting Table's roundup of Trader Joe's etiquette mistakes. In this case, the cashier has to switch between scanning and bagging each time the counter starts overflowing. One employee shared an anecdote of a customer who shopped $700 dollars of groceries, and then stood watching a movie on her phone while they struggled to scan-and-bag. 

The other pet peeve is people who carry or buy Trader Joe's iconic tote bags — which have evolved over the years — with them, but refuse to actually bag their groceries in them. "I have two big pet peeves. The first is, there are at least a couple people that frequent my store that keep their purse in a trader Joe's reusable bag/use one as a purse," one employee wrote. "The second is people who buy bags and then won't use them because they're gifts. I realize this is perfectly reasonable, but the petty part of me thinks 'no one is gonna notice if I bag your dip and spinach in this bag ONCE.'"

With some limited-time Trader Joe's bags selling for three times the retail price on eBay, it's understandable why you'd want to keep yours in pristine condition or even use it as a fashion statement. Just know that, when you bring it to TJ's and refuse to use it, you may get under the employee's skin.