Store managers have reduced the number of lines staffed by clerks. And a customer can, with occasional exceptions, forget about having anyone bag his or her groceries.
I guess this is because of price pressures from online competition as well as your typical corporate greed to reduce every penny that is paid to human beings who actually do the work. 
What is making things even worse from my perspective is that although stores have continued to increase the number of self-service kiosks, they haven't exactly gone out of their way to make them user friendly. In one store at any given time, including the "rush hour" on weekend mornings most of the self-service kiosks are non-functional while at a different store across town the managers have altered the kiosks to not accept cash, only debit or credit cards.
Well that's the exact sort of thing that would make me just stop shopping somewhere. Not only does the company want me to bag my own groceries for free, it's telling me HOW it wants me to pay? That's ridiculous.
Not having sufficient number of workers staffed to move customers efficiently in and out of the store on football Saturdays seems like a bad idea.
If the company is trying to convince me to spend money elsewhere they're doing a pretty good job of it. And having a clerk catch an attitude when someone wants to (gasp!!) pay with cash seems counterproductive. I'm not going to argue with someone about if I'm going to give them money.
That said though I still think there are more good people than bad in Southeast Michigan grocery stores. There have been a many times I've been in line with only a few items behind someone with a full cart only to have that person graciously offer to let me go ahead.
Unfortunately these sort of decent levelheaded people aren't the ones managing the grocery stores.
