Commissary Tipping

I believe commissary employees are civil service employees; they receive pay based on their civil service pay grade (not baggers).

This is incorrect, these are not Civil Service employees. They are paid from what is called "non-appropriated funds". The employees at the Exchange, MWR, etc., are all the same. Non-appropriated funds means just that. These operations do not function using tax dollars but must be self supporting. Under this program there is no pay structure like the Civil Service has. They do not have the job protection that Civil Service offers but are "at-will" employees, just like Wal-Mart. That is why you see so many military dependents working in these jobs. Often times these are the only jobs military spouses can get since they are subject to moving around every time PCS orders come in. Many of these jobs are minimum wage jobs.

My final job before becoming completely retired was with the Oklahoma State Employment Service/Unemployment Insurance Section. I was the Operations Manager of the statewide call center for the filing of UI benefits. When taking a claim against a federal agency we always had to distinguish between regular government employees and non-appropriated funds employees. The NPF employees always made considerably less than Civil Service.

Whichever way this falls out -- and I'll try to find out for sure about the "people pay" at the commissary -- the 5% is in some way connected to the operation of the commissary.

The issue here anyway, is the tips and bags, and tips tied to number of bags can get way too high, especially when we get "half-full" bags -- if the baggers know that the "tip per bag" is the norm, how many bags do you think we'd get -- maybe eventually one or two items per bag ???

Newguy here,first post.I have to disagree with some posts here.The baggers that I have run across
have been mostly regular American type folks. That,I know,by asking, are GIs trying to supplement their income,some retirees doing the same. I usualy tip $2,3 depending on how many bags we have.
It's not like a get rich easy job.
Safe and Happy travels to all

Newguy here,first post.I have to disagree with some posts here.The baggers that I have run across
have been mostly regular American type folks. That,I know,by asking, are GIs trying to supplement their income,some retirees doing the same. I usualy tip $2,3 depending on how many bags we have.
It's not like a get rich easy job.
Safe and Happy travels to all

No problem with a disagreement. My wife does it to me all the time.

Welcome to the forum.

I usually tip from $2.00 to $4.00 depending on how much I spend at the commisary.

Actually the baggers are not paid employees at all. They only work for tips. That is their only pay. Ask them and they will tell you. I did. Some of them have been doing bagging all of their life. They don't do too bad at it.

After reading post about having to be ethnic to get a job as a commissary bagger, I started doing a little research and looked back at some commissaries we've been the past month. We been in 5 and I didn't see the ethnic thing as other member did. I think some people have problems with people that don't look like them and when they see a couple of these folks it gives them alarm.