Elderly baggers at grocery stores

Yesterday while I was shopping for my ingredients for my wonderful meal, I went to two stores. One was Soriana in Chapala and other Super Lake in San Antonio. Considering that I am coming from the Greater Toronto Area, saying that I am going from town to another, seems so funny considering the actual distance that I am traveling.

Anyway, while I was at Soriana, which is a large grocery store that carries, electronics, clothing, drugs and household products as well - very comparible to Walmart - I noticed something when checking out that made me think I should discuss it here.

I ran my groceries through the cashier and gave her $400 pesos for $342 peso order. She took a $100 peso bill out of her cash and sat it down on the bagging area, indicated for me to wait and she ran the next order through.

I waited the entire time that the following gentleman was completing his sale and finally the cashier gave the $100 note to the next cashier who gave her change. As I was reading this mornings webboard for the area, someone else noted that it was happening all day yesterday. Makes me wonder why there was such a shortage of small bigs in the cash this day. Inquiring minds want to know.

Baggers in the grocery stores here are usually children or the elderly and they are usually given tips. You see their pile of coins in front of them as they bag and it always seems like there is such a small amount considering the time of day. I always wondered if it was part of their marketing paln to only keep a certain amount showing.

What really stood out in my experience for that visit was a Soriana bagger employee with a Coke jumped in front of me in line showing me her pop. I waved her through as she was on a break and said go ahead. She gave the cashier a Soriana plastic grocery bag rolled up to pay for her drink. The cashier had to weed through the coins to figure out which was the correct change for her drink.

My thoughts were:
1. Did she know how to count?
2. If not, that would explain her job as a bagger but then again what a great opportunity for an uneducated woman to get employment enough to purchase a Coke as an extravagance.
3. Just how poor were these baggers who collected our coins and appeared either elderly or uneducated? I wondered what their houses were like and how they lived.

This area is generally very well off for the Mexicans. The ones who have vacation homes from Guadalajara definitely have more disposable income than I do and drive amazing vehicles with all the toys.

But exactly how poor are the poor in this area and what is the percentage. It makes me wonder.