If you scatter carts in random places the supermarket has to employ someone to collect them. So you are a job creator^TM^. This is why I never return my cart, and also why I jump on cartons of milk in the dairy aisle and take a dump in the broccoli.
People who actually think this are using it as an excuse for their bad manners.
The person employed by the supermarket to gather carts is not employed to return your cart to the cart return near your vehicle. They are employed to gather the carts from the cart return near your vehicle and bring them back to the store building's cart return.
By doing this, you do not create more jobs (as the cart return employee position already exists whether you return your cart or not), you create more work for an already probably underpaid employee and you also increase everyone's autoinsurance because when the wind blows the carts damage other people's vehicles.
I definitely have the unpopular opinion of disagreeing. As much as I'd like to employ manners with my grocery store, if there's no corral within a 30 second walk from me, I don't put the cart back. Most of my purchases are under 8 items and I usually don't use a cart so I just carry everything by hand in the store and out.
My grocery store doesn't care about manners on their end. It treats me like an economic unit and even makes self checkout the most reasonable option. They'd have me clean the floors as part of the checkout if they could. From a utilitarian perspective, it makes more sense for one person to gather all the carts in a batch rather than each individual going back for their individual cart.
The insurance rates thing is a legitimate point ( insurance is a racket, though. Fuck those guys too)
"They don't have good manners, so I won't have good manners" is a terrible way of thinking and living. If everyone did this, it would only take one person to completely eradicate good manners from humanity forever.
Yeah I see your point and I've got amazing manners with human beings. It's a view I personally reserve for companies. And the larger they are, the less I respect them enough to have 'manners' towards them.
Perhaps it's the inability for people to treat corporations the way corporations treat people that leads to such a power differential.
The "utility" of utilitarianism isn't that type of utility. IIRC it generally refers to the idea of maximizing happiness and minimizing harm, with a focus on outcomes of the whole, rather than the individual. Efficiency of labor doesn't explicitly factor into it.
Personally, I think you're just rationalizing being lazy and potentially causing harm to others, which isn't utilitarian at all.
Except that loose carts roll away and get blown by the wind scratching other people's cars. Carts put up on curbs and in gravel etc. ruins the wheels making everyone's experience worse. Carts left in the parking lot block spaces so people can't park in lots that already sometimes are overfilled.
You're not 'sticking it to the man,' the store owner or corporate shareholders who make the rules and set the prices don't care, you're making life worse for your fellow shoppers.
Nice thing about working class parents.. when you're a kid and think "but it's someone's job, they get paid to do it," they will teach you that it has nothing to do with making more work for someone.
The anger over this always amuses me (I put my cart back in the corral btw). But there was a time in the very recent past, where there was no such thing as a cart corral. You simply left your cart in the lot and an employee was paid to fetch them (I also used to do this job as a kid - it was a great job).
I actually use this rationale for why I don’t use the self-checkout lanes. Why should I do the work for the grocery store that they should be paying somebody else to do?
My local supermarket added 8 self checkout machines, and removed almost all the cashier lanes.
For a year, they pushed everyone towards the self checkout. Every... Body. Old people were clogging up the Customer Service section because they want a human. The machines constantly failed to scan, and people would just shrug and pretend like it did.
The deviants started to realize it's super easy to steal, as they can just pay for 1/10 of their groceries and "forget" to scan a lot of things. They started to lock up a lot of merchandise, and you need a human to unlock it.
So now they have hired security guards to then scan receipts, as well as follow people in the parking lots.
The whole supermarket is kind of a shit show. I counted 5 security guards to 2 workers when I was last there. I also do my shopping elsewhere.
Eh, 'cause otherwise people will have to exchange money for coins, sometimes people don't have notes to exchange, etc... Seems like retaining the token is incentive enough to return the cart....
I'll also go fetch a couple on the way if I see some hanging out. It's not because I'm trying to make the cart wrangler's job easier, but because it's not orderly and it bothers me. I have to consciously limit myself or I'd end up patrolling the whole lot.
Blows my mind how some people actually manage to walk their cart to the corral, and then decide they're going to abandon any semblance of order in putting the carts away, you've already done the hard part by walking over, it takes less than a second to just not be an idiot when you push your cart in there.
Big carts in one line, small carts in the other, seems easy but they all put the square peg in the round hole.
And at least try to line them up. I don't care if you push them all the way in, just try to line them up so that they can be pushed together.
I too have thousands of reasons why I shouldn't be in charge of a country, however I do have one good pitch.
My appointment to dictatorship would be guided solely by autism. I guarantee my powers will only be focused upon my two fixations that deal with the general public, trains and healthcare.
If made supreme leader I will not only make the trains run on time, there will be more trains, more hospitals, we would even have trains that can take you to your job at the hospital. I would shape the perfect world for me, and vicariously a more efficient and safer world for you.
Imagine if there was a train to the hospital that also did triage.
So you get on the hospital line and a nurse determines if you need urgent care. They could take you to a less crowded hospital further down the line or dispatch paramedics to next stop.
Tbh, I would love to see it. But our railway infrastructure is dog shit atm, and we wouldn't be able to expand the network fast enough to accommodate something as luxurious as a railway hospital until much later.
My first goal would be to expand the network to the point where cars are unnecessary for the vast majority of my citizens. This would both increase rail traffic to acceptable levels and help alleviate the unnecessary healthcare cost and harm of motor vehicle accidents.
Become my peon, every peon gets healthcare and can apply to drive an electric train. Me -2024
Because that is essentially what an ambulance currently is, and it conveniently comes right to your house, park, or business where you are dying. There are very few immediate life-saving measures that can be done at the hospital and not in the ambulance. Ambulances with paramedics are referred to as MICUs for a reason.
I hate this guy. Call people out, sure, but keep your stupid magnets off my car.
The stores don't give a shit. The customers don't give a shit. The only one that gives a shit is this guy and his followers. Also, he's a fucking creep. Watch his video where he went to Australia and followed a pair of women to their house to shame them for walking their cart to the house.
It's telling that you side with (what is almost always) the giant billions-dollar corporation and don't even mention the worker who is probably already being exploited. That's who cares. That's who gets extra work, especially out in the cold/rain/wind/snow/hail, with no extra pay.
In line with the original post you're right: no one will fight for them and no one will fine or arrest you, but don't pretend people's selfish laziness impacts no one...
How am I siding with a corporation? The only people involved are the guy harassing people for YouTube views and the people he's harassing.
The stores aren't involved in the altercations at all, other than to say "we don't give a shit if you leave your cart out. If we did, we would do something about it."
If a disabled person used a cart all through the store, and to their car, their disability should therefore not impede their ability to return the cart.
If someone is using the mobility scooter, that's a different story.
Edit for clarity, if it does impede the ability, it does. That's the end of the story, and the meme.
If you need to use the scooter, then you're not using a cart. You just have to be able to hobble between the store itself and your car. And sometimes you can hand it to someone to drive back to the store.
As someone who has recently needed it for several very different temporary medical issues in the past 4 or so years (better now tho- it's been a very weird time for me lol), I've seen that a lot of randos in the parking lot will even enjoy riding it back for you lol. Kids love it.
I am pro-"cart abandoners deserve the gulag", but we've also gotta recognize that some disabled people may need the cart for balance, and if they return it, they now have to walk across the parking lot without that crutch. Maybe the right answer is to put cart returns next to disabled spots?
So what actual disabled people do is just to talk to the cashier, who will say "oh let me flag down one of the Noble Cart Lads" or "oh just leave it, we'll have someone out in a couple minutes anyways". It's standard to have someone on staff that helps mobility impared (or otherwise disabled) people load their car. If a place has mobility scooters, they absolutely have one of these people too.
What you're doing here is advocating for accommodation on a largely solved problem, without just asking the people you're advocating for about the problem, and trying to signal your virtue while doing it. Stop it.
(The reason for no cart returns next to disabled spaces is that many people will just sorta fling their carts at the returns, creating a whole lot of obstacles right where you least want them.)
If only there was a device they could use to place their walking aid in (assuming they don't need a full on walker) to carry it while their hands are full of shopping cart
If my friend with a CASTED LEG could manage to return their cart then it'd take a disability that means you probably shouldn't be out and about on your own to not return it
I don't think you know what you're talking about. Disabilities are really diverse and the US at least has shit healthcare. I can totally imagine someone using the last of their strength or energy to get back into their car. I wish everyone returned their carts, too, but I have empathy for people who just hit the end of their rope.
Obviously every disability is different. It's a meme, I'm not writing comprehensive policy here
Edit the point is if you normally navigate the grocery errand, make it to your car without issue, are not incapable of returning the cart, but choose.to.just ditch it because you are lazy, then the meme is talking about you.
If you aren't able to move the cart any further, ideally park near the return spot, or tell the staff, or get the accomodations you need.
It's a meme, I'm not writing comprehensive policy here
I'm responding to your comment, not the post. This part:
If a disabled person ... their disability should therefore ....
You really can't make generalizations about disabilities like this.
Lots of people think disabilities are visible and easy to categorize. They're not, and this attitude leads to scenarios like random people harassing actually disabled people for using a handicapped parking spot.
My point is, like, mind your own business and don't make judgy proclamations about what disabled people can do.
There should be a requirement for cart return spots next to the handicap parking. In places where there is a return 10 feet from the spots I still see a ton of carts in the parking spots.
I get that it can be hard, but it seems way too frequent that they could do the whole store but just couldn't make that last 10 feet. Like sure, occasionally that is inderstandable.
So I will judge them while also grabbing the cart and either using it or putting it away because that is the right thing to do.
So the reason you don't do this is because cart returns create a cluster of obstacles. Many people just go cart curling, aiming generally for the return and walk off, which can make an insurmountable obstacle for the handicaped person. Also handicapped spots are at the entrance to the store - if someone is going to return their cart, they'll go the extra 50' to do it. If they're a fuckin asshole that doesnt return their carts, its better not to give them a target around which to cluster their assholeness.
They're getting downvotes because they're implying that people with a disability can't return their carts, which is ableist as fuck. People without a disability might not know this, but you can just ask for assistance at the check-out, and someone from the store will typically help you to your car and bring the cart back for you.
I know this isn't the way it's supposed to work "per the rules", but I think downvotes are an incredible tool for discussion. It's a way to simply and clearly make your opinion known without taking the time to write a comment. But because Spez and co. decided that downvotes "aren't supposed to work that way" 20 years ago, the worst people on the internet will scold you for using the voting system just like everyone else does.
Flawed. Here, you must insert a coin (or if you have it, a token with the shape of the coin) that will only be returned after you put the cart in the correct place.
So you actually lose something if you don't return the cart.
It also means that the people who do leave the shopping cart in places without the deposit are the kind of cheapskates who can be bought for a euro.
They're only neutral evil.
True chaotic evil assholes would pay the deposit on several carts only to leave them.
"Cart returner" is not a job. It's a thing regular employees have to do because some folks choose to be lazy. If everybody would return their carts, these employees would simply work on other shit in the store like cleaning or re-arranging misplaced items. Leaving the cart does not create jobs, it makes existing jobs more tedious.
That means there were enough bad people that businesses wanted to purchase a lock token system at the expense of convenience of customers and overhead costs of their businesses
Mhm. That said, only a few places around where I live have "coin operated" carts. I guess the places that do have them got tired of the selfish, inconsiderate sobs who didn't return the carts.
To me it feels so utterly strange to just dump a cart in the middle of a parking lot and, seemingly, think nothing of it.
In the US Aldi requires a quarter. Depending on the area, there are absolutely people who will give up their 25 cents to not walk their lazy ass to return the cart.
Florida is full of inconsiderate selfish assholes.
Flawed. Here, you must insert a coin (or if you have it, a token with the shape of the coin) that will only be returned after you put the cart in the correct place.
Yep. I kinda dislike the idea of paid carts and am for pirating... But there it's paying or putting extra effort to make other people deal with your cart.
I have seen supermarkets with even stricter systems. I have seen carts with automated brakes/clamps. If you try to leave the supermarket with the cart, the wheels block. So you are forced to put your groceries in bags and carry the bags to the car.
Where I shop there is the token system but you just have to ask the security agent to get a free token.
So there is no need to return your cart because you can get a free token each time you got to the store.
Yeah, I'd just not shop there. I never have change with me, and I'm not bringing change just because the store requires it. It might not be the first trip or the third, but over time, I'd shop there less and less because convenience matters.
Then you'll either start bringing change, get a token that you can use, or starve. No supermarket here has "free" carts. The baskets are free, but they are smaller.
I used to see threads like this on reddit where people would defend the act by claiming it keeps people employed. Anyone who has worked in retail knows otherwise, but it doesn't stop these neanderthals from existing and making their bullshit toxic arguments.
And knowing how corporate works in these sorts of places, they ain't gonna hire/roster more people to deal with the extra work, just push the existing staff even harder so they don't have to pay out extra hours.
The worst shit is when I see someone dumping a cart, they see me, smile and nod at me and then walk off like they haven't just been caught being shitty.
I've always told my family I like to build up "cart karma." You get karma by bringing a cart in with you from the parking lot, or returning the one you use after. You lose karma by leaving your cart in the parking lot. Even if I'm going in for a single item, I'll take a cart in from the parking lot with me and leave it in the rack by the store.
I don't really care about cart karma, it's just a way of saying that it seems like the nice thing to do.
All sins and virtues get converted to cart return equivalent.
"14 carts positive, plus those 4 times you helped old ladies cross the street adds 12 more carts, minus 8 carts for the time you tried to help one but ended up punching her instead (it would have been 10 but it's reduced by 2 because Dionysus was watching that one and said even he would have had trouble holding his temper and he's a pretty chill dude). You're up 18 carts overall, congrats!"
"update, your next of kin bought 2 model golden shopping carts from the temple and put them by your gravestone, getting you to a nice round 20. here's your all-access pass to the Garden of Delights"
Not all return situations are equal either. There is a difficulty factor. I've returned carts every time in my life except once. I was about 50 car rows deep in a massive crowded lot and I realized there were no cart corrals at all. At the back of the massive lot and much, much closer to me was a bunch of carts. I pushed a few together and added mine. The difference in this scenario was not me.
See this is an exception that proves the rule. The fact that there was no way for you to return the cart to a cart corral means that it was a noticeable and memorable event, a deviation from what should normally be the correct way of doing things. If you had been a person who'd never returned carts, this would have just been a day ending with the letter "y."
No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you or kill you for not returning the shopping cart, you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart.
Cart Narcs. Those guys are fucking crazy. They were doing their thing in Texas. I've read stories of idiots pulling out guns for less.
BUT! What if the parking lot is four miles long and there are no cart returns anywhere and you're tired because you've been working 20 hour days with no time off and it's 140 degrees outside and the grocery store is exploiting their workers and you haven't eaten in days and you have a disability and the carts are coin operated and this is literally the only way to solve the unemployment crisis? WHAT THEN??
I would add scooping dog shit is another test. There are people out there who will bag the shit and then leave the bag on the ground for the poop to steam in for a few days before they put another bag right next to it to keep it company.
Not defending this, but some people intend to pick up the bag on their return, presumably as they are headed away from a trashcan and will return to one on the way back. They don't want to carry it the whole time.
They should just carry it the whole time, or return to the start then and there to drop it
some people intend to pick up the bag on their return
If that's the case and they don't forget, then I am firmly on their side. Literally no one is impacted if the bagged poo sits there another 30-60 minutes...
Sometimes people walking dogs plan on walking past the same spot on the return trip, so they leave the bag. Sometimes they forget to pick it back up, or forget that they dropped it there and take a different route home. Sometimes bag number two is the next day, or some other person's bag. Generally, if someone's going to pull a shit and split, they're not bagging.
Which is worse, the ones that leave a bag (perhaps unintentionally) or the ones that just don't bother with the responsibility at all? When I had a dog I not only would clean up behind him, I would leave the bag untied until the end to capture what I could of the inevitable left piles I would run across. I'm sure cart return, dog poop, fast food containers, and the old cigarette butts are all under some human psychology grouping of ego superiority.
I think leaving the bag is worse. When it is just poop, maybe the dog ran out of sight or was loose or the walker ran out of bags or whatever. When it is bagged, a human made a decision to scoop it and then leave it on purpose.
Murica, fucked up because of shopping carts. In germany you have to put money in the cart, and get it back while bringing the cart back to where it is from. Problem solved.
i once visited Lewiston, Maine and none of the carts had been returned to the proper spot. more than a dozen carts were just scattered around the parking lot. as soon as i found somewhere to park, i got out and collected every cart in the lot. the boy i was dating at the time looked at me with concern in his eyes
A lot of countries use coin operated cart releases, which give you a coin back on return. This is very uncommon in the US. Generally there are just metal "corrals" with guardrails you return a cart to in the parking lot.
The only store that I know of that uses coin returns is Aldi, but that's still regional in the US.
Here in the UK, you can see how decent an area is using this method.
Go to the nearest Tesco Extra. If they have the coin traps on the trolleys, probably a dodgy area. If they don't, not so dodgy area.
In both cases, you're going to find the trolleys are generally not left lying around. Read into it what you will.
I only use Tesco extra as an example because from my experience other supermarkets either have the coin traps, or don't. It seems only Tesco (correct me if I'm wrong) vary the behaviour by area.
UK here, no coins in any shop's trolleys.
I'm outraged at the number of people leaving carts everywhere.
Do they have other people wiping their butt for them too? I don't understand.
Yeah, both are uncommon here. Aldi is regional in the US. Trader Joe's is generally in the other regions, which is owned by the Aldi nord part of the family.
I don't think the lack of overlap is that intentional, it's just a big nation and Aldi/trader joes just haven't really tried to expand in the areas where the other setup first.
I've gone out of my way multiple times to put up multiple cats that were blocking parking spaces, including handicap spaces. While the handicap ones make it seem like the person is an extra asshole, I wonder if it's the handicap person that leaves it there and it just moves into the space. There's are very few stores that put a corral by handicap spaces.
Interesting idea... Is human morality (in situations where no punishment exists) a result of the societies we live in and our societal expectations, our upbringing, or is there some inherent morality (guilt from doing something bad, or satisfaction from doing the right thing) within most people?
Whilst I do live somewhere that has trolleys with coins, sometimes you get one that is damaged and doesn't require a coin. Yet I still return those ones, because why wouldn't I? It only takes a minute.
Well yeah, but also a bit more than that - even after growing up, does society itself have some impact? Even if someone was raised really well, I feel like they could change over time depending on what society tells them is appropriate.
Typically "nurture" includes those things. You're right though - it isn't just our parents and childhood, it's everybody through our whole lives. We only stop changing when we die.
I was concerned this was going to be a comment about what I put in my shopping cart.
But I can tell I'm an individual of extreme self-discipline because after I filled my shopping cart with chocolate and vodka I return it to the carousel.
But is creating those jobs actually something we want? How much does someone get paid for collecting carts? How much does that increase prices for basic necessities? Do we have a labor surplus such that any job is a good job?
The answer to all of those is "no." I don't know about you, but I'd much rather keep my office job than go collect carts, so I put my cart away so the person would would have that job can get a better job.
So my personal take on shopping cart theory is that it assumes putting away shopping carts is not a fun job.
I have worked at whole foods for 2 years, and the thing I hated the most was how it felt like Bezos's watchful eye was always on you. The supervisors could be super persnickety about your breaks. Compared to my new life as a self employed musician, it was like prison, but that's retail for ya.
I personally loved cart duty. It was a time when I could go outside, get some fresh air, and not be under the surveillance of that god awful company*.
So now if it is a nice day out, I will go out of my way to put the cart in left field. I call it a chaotic good move.
That said the "it keeps jobs" is BS. If cart duty wasn't a thing, the person would still be filling baskets and cleaning windows.
*Note: the Halstead location in Chicago was actually really great. Maybe it was the Stockholm syndrome of working retail during pandemic, maybe it was Midwestern kindness, but that team actually seemed to care about each other's wellbeing and we'd even hang out. I lean towards Midwestern kindness though, I moved here from Seattle and while I miss the mountains, I CERTAINLY do not miss the social scene. Despite what the news tries to tell you, Chicago takes care of its own. Even when I was a stranger in a strange land, and then homeless during polar vortex, the people took me in. Every. Night.
Not sure if I'd visit, but I'd definitely live here.
Sorry for the Chicago tangent, I'm a few handshakes deep and I get emotional about this fuckin' place.
Littering has environmental impact, and looks bad. Carts being put back by the company or the customer doesn't hurt the environment. If it looks bad the company creates a job to ensure the customer keeps coming.
Yeah but like I said elsewhere in this thread I have been to grocery stores (5 Krogers a Publix, and a Food Lion) 80 times in the past couple weeks working instacart at nights to pay off some bills I didn't want to pile up. No carts have been seen by me moving around, everyone puts them in the cart returns that take up many of the parking spaces. Seems like a lot of made up concern. Not to mention the force it would take to dent/scratch a car by a cart. I've watched multiple cops over the years push cars when they have broken down in the road, the paint/bumbers are a lot more sturdy than many think. Aftermarket paint jobs might be an issue if they are cheap paint if you are pushing the car, but a shopping cart would need to be going fast to do anything real.
The cart carrier's job will still be there regardless. I take my cart to the stall, they take it to the store, and nobody has to deal with loose carts. My social responsibility is not impacting anyone's job in this case.
yeah I figured you were, but it seemed like some people were actually engaging with it. As if make-work somehow made the line go up.
There's a fun joke:
2 economists are out walking. The first economist sees a pile of dog shit and says to the other, "I'll pay you $50 to eat that dog shit." So he does and gets paid $50. Later on, the second economist sees a pile of dog shit and says to the first, "I'll pay you $50 to eat that pile of dog shit." So he does and gets paid $50.
The first economist says, "I can't help but feel we just ate dog shit for nothing." "Nonsense," says the second economist, "We just contributed $100 to the economy."
Of course actual economists aren't this terrible, but the popular perception of economics/monetary theory is about this braindead.
In Germany, shopping carts typically have a deposit system, where you have to insert an Euro into the cart to use it, which you get back when you return it. So that is basically a build in fine for not returning it.
In Spain we used to have the same system. However it's been a while since I've seen it, most carts still have the euro slot, but they are not chained, so you don't need to insert a coin.
In Spain a lot of stors disabled the system during covid, for highiene reasons. Some have returned and some still have tbe coin system disabled. Most people return them anyway. There is always the occasional asshole.
There's a store chain, Costco or Aldi's maybe? In America here that dies this but it's only a quarter. Which is next to nothing. For reference, a load of laundry is between $1-2 in just a normal machine, plus dry time, (so 4-8 quarters). So just to wash and dry a single load of laundry for me, for example, is 12 quarters, $1.50 each of l for washing and drying.
So that cart deposit thing could use some improvement. Regardless I've never shopped at that store, but I do just return my cart like a civilized person.
The past year or two I've found several stores where they are abandoning it. I presume because people carrying cash, especially coins, is becoming rarer and they don't want to inconvenience their customers?
Strangely enough, carts still get returned even at these stores.
The wind howls through the empty parking lot as the dim streetlights flicker above interrupted by the faint screech of an unreturned cart, left abandoned in the cold silence, rolling aimlessly across the asphalt. A masked man steps out of the shadows...
"You think it's nothing. A small act of carelessness, a moment of laziness. But that cart, left adrift, has a price. A price in scraped cars, twisted ankles, in the chaos that spreads like rot in the hearts of men. You see, I don't care about your excuses. I don't care if it's raining, if you're in a hurry. Order is what keeps us human. And you... you spit on it with every cart left behind."
Knuckles crack in the darkness
"I’m the reckoning you never see coming. You think no one’s watching when you shove it into the next spot, but I’m always watching. Every cart out of place, every rule ignored, it leads to something darker, something worse. And that’s where I come in—to stop the small sins before they become something more."
The masked man takes a step forward, his voice low and gravelly.
"I am Cart Noir, the last line of defense between order and chaos. You think it's just a cart? It's never just a cart."
In Germany (and other parts.od Europe as well to be fair) carts need you to put a coin in them to unchain them from their bay, which you get back when you chain them back up - so yeah, kinda, if you don't put it back you loose your euro
That's considered a security concern in most grocery stores where I live. There are signs telling you not to place any items in your shopping bags until you've paid for them. You must use a cart or waste several minutes hunting around the entrance or registers trying to find where they hid one of their 10 shopping baskets.
Wow, what kind of dystopia do you live in? In my town, they're just happy you went to their store, and I presume cracking down on what little shoplifting there is would drive away more business than it saves.
New Jersey, as I said in another reply it's not a bad area but they have high traffic. I haven't seen the signs in the upper class neighborhoods grocery stores though.
Admittedly, in the upper class neighborhood grocery stores I don't see those signs. The areas I see them aren't shitty though they are fairly high traffic compared to what I assume would be a typical store.
I looked for but couldn't find a photo of such a sign on DDG. I'll take a picture of one next time I need to get groceries.
I like shoplifting laws in the common law system because they're, like all theft laws, based on intent. They need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you intended to take and deprive them of whatever they're accusing you of stealing. If someone conceals something in an elaborate or strange way, you can nail them without them leaving the store. If they put it in their hoodie pocket or shopping bag and have a good excuse for doing so (this is all I had, I wanted to carry more), to "hold" it however, and "forgot" to scan it, you need to actually show that it's a pattern of several times if you want any hope of actually prosecuting them. At least with this policy I guess the stores can ban you even if they can't legally do anything against you. Don't take this comment as encouraging the policy though, you can steal whatever you like from corporations as far as I'm concerned.
I think it's similar to weights in a gym. Leaving them on the barbell is a jerk move. Returning them to their correct staging location is the ethically correct thing to do. Whenever I see them left on the barbell, I imagine a fantasy where the person has a team of horn players follow them around and play for them to announce their superiority.
TIL I'm mostly a good person but sometimes I am also no better than an animal and an absolute savage who will only do right when threatened. Interesting. Another thing is that I'm grateful for other savages who don't put their carts back cause I don't have to walk so far to get a cart.
slight flaw in this theory, I always return the cart and will often return other carts as well. despite this, I am terrible at self governing to the point of nearly failing out of college. that being said return your carts you bastards
Depends on your beliefs. There are people who believe in being judged for every action by an almighty force or being, so it's probably not absolutely perfect. I might be smitten in my next life for it.
Typically parking lots are filled with cars, and I need to drive between the parked cars. If a cart is in the way it makes it harder for me to leave, just saying
Ive been to ~7 grocery stores ~80 times in the past couple weeks. Was driving instacart at night to get some bills paid I was worried about. Not once did I come across carts that were just in the parking spots/street, they always are in the cart holders that take up parking spots. I standardly pull my cart from one of those and wheel it into the store which leaves it at a net 0 move when I put it back.... That said, with the number of people who are hunting for jobs right now that I know, this may be the first time I would say the store hiring someone to return carts is another employed person. Kroger really isn't going to go bankrupt supporting the local populace with 1 extra job. Publix on the other hand has employees actively asking to take my cart before I can close the trunk. Had been pretty impressed by it. One day I went to 4 different Krogers, it is a bit interesting to see the difference in the stores based upon the people/house cost that live in the areas.
Yes you are a savage. Putting it back where you found it is not the correct way to do things. It might have been in the 1970s, I don't know when cart corrals first showed up because people were too lazy to take it back to the front of the store.
I don't think they put it back where they found it. It's not worded well but I'm pretty sure they put it up (aka "returns") in the property place when they're done with it.
It doesn't make you an animal or a savage, it makes you at best willfully ignorant.
If your mother taught you that 2+2=3 but later in life ample evidence shows you that 2+2=4, do you change you mind or still insist that your mother knew best?
Your mother's mindset regarding the returning of carts is called "lowest common denominator", someone else doing something wrong doesn't make it OK for you to do.
Lawful good is returning the cart to the in store area (or wherever people generally get their carts from). Or returning more than just your cart to the corals in the lot. Might return a row of carts to the store while they grab theirs from the coral.
Neutral good is gathering some carts from the lot and making sure they aren't taking up parking spots, though not necessarily returning them to the coral or store.
Chaotic good is grabbing one of ones randomly left out there and giving it to others who are going in to the store and grabbing another one for yourself. Cart may or may not be left in the coral after, though it's at least left where it won't be in the way.
Lawful neutral returns their cart and maybe others if they aren't out of the way. Might freak out on someone who doesn't return their cart.
True neutral sometimes returns it, sometimes doesn't, sometimes grabs a loose cart, sometimes grabs one from the store area. Overall doesn't make things better or worse, but individual episodes can do so.
Chaotic neutral picks a random (to us, they might have their reasons) cart in the middle of a row, pulling the other carts out enough to access that cart. May or may not return those other carts to the row. May or may not push their cart towards a coral when they leave. Most likely to be seen pushing a cart while driving their car, either with the cart at the front of the car or holding it through an open window (which might not even be the usual driver's window). I'd call Mr Bean chaotic neutral, so anything he is capable of.
Lawful evil returns the carts to the coral but stacks incompatible carts with each other or might put it in backwards. Follows the rules in a way that makes you wish they hadn't. Might stick a tack in one of the wheels so it won't turn properly.
Neutral evil scatters carts to cause the most inconvenience. Doesn't just block parking spots but might block car paths or entrances and exits to the store. Might overturn their cart. Might ram it into someone's car. Might fight employees that try to gather carts.
Chaotic evil super glues wheels so they won't turn or glues carts to each other and in the coral or to the door. Or might take one of those carts that are tethered such that they seize the brakes from one store and leave it in another store's lot. Or might figure out how to trigger that without the cart leaving (the other evils might also do this one). Or might just burn down the store after returning their cart to the in store area, letting any observers briefly think they had changed. Might turn the parking lot into a crash up derby and refer to pedestrians as bonus points.
I agree that people should put the carts where they go, but this whole "I'm a better human because I put carts back" thing just reeks of unredeemable people scouring their existence for a single redeeming property.
Another possibility is that people that don't return the cart may not be having their needs met. A person who is tired after walking across the hot parking lot may not return it out of a desire to maintain a modicum of health. Or, perhaps, they may not think about it because their cognition is temporarily hindered by hunger, exhaustion, or some other carnal need.
On Maslow's hierarchy, I'd say if a person meets all of their physiological and safety needs they are more likely to return the cart than those who do not.
If they're so tired after walking around the shop and walking back to their car that they can't do that tiny bit more and return the cart to the corral, maybe they should be seeing a doctor to see if they are eligible for disability (sounds like a severe case of lazybonesitis) and use a handicapped spot. Or you know, stop being so fucking lazy and making excuses.
hmm no this seems wrong. If the parking lot is a mile long and there are no cart returns it makes me a bad person if I rack the carts in a line with all the others in the boonies? If you are getting abandoned carts its probably because you don't have enough cart returns, not because people are bad
I’ve seen abandoned carts within 10 feet of the cart return. Numerous times. I’ve seen people leave their cart behind the parked car next to them and drive off. Some people are animals.
Ok granted I was being too kind for a generalization there. The core of it is that I think that there is still a line that this absolute judgement skirts around precisely because there are so many extreme bad examples. When does the walk back become unreasonable? If costco eliminated all cart returns would you walk your cart to the door or rack it on the curb and become an animal?
right yes but that's avoiding the question by contextualizing it within your own experience. When does it become unreasonable? Your answer seems to be never. Does that remove any moral obligation on the part of the store to provide cart returns? Why do they exist?
I don't know what you're driving at, but I have never encountered a scenario in my almost 50 years of life where returning something to the place I borrowed it from was so onerous that I left it for someone else to clean up.
If you're consolidating abandoned carts in the fringes, that makes you just as good, since you are creating a new cart return area that others might also contribute to. But when there are multiple cart returns that are partially used and still carts left on the way in various places in spaces, on the curb, and even right near the entry, those people are at a minimum lazy. My example is a Walmart that never fails this, so perhaps that skews things a bit.
It's the ones left almost at the store that get me...you could have gone a bit farther. Why did you stop?
Well the discussion started off ok before ending in a rabies infested rant against humanity! Talk about going off the rails!
Anyhow, many people return the trolley so they don't look bad/feel guilty. That doesn't necessarily make them 'good' or 'civilised' and therefore fit into the 'being forced' category through peer pressure. Does that make them 'animals' and 'savages' too?
Costco is the only place I don't always return carts, since around here the cart returns can get very far away, but curbs you can tuck them away on are everywhere. That, and they have staff just for gathering carts constantly.
An estimated one out of every 500 Americans is homeless
Unarmed noncombatant civilian women and children are being bombed, shot, and starved to death.
There has been a nearly 70% reduction in wild vertebrates worldwide since 1970
The leading cause of death among children and teens in america is firearms
Privileged westerners could do something about these things, but they are sipping their pumpkin spice lattes and congratulating each other for putting their shopping carts back because, you know, it's the ultimate test of moral righteousness. Ugh.
No, I want to argue the point that you think it's a job worth creating, but that I also get the impression that it's a job you wouldn't want to be doing yourself.
But I also get the impression that engaging you in debate is going to be a waste of my time.
Hey, I have asthma and there have been days where I've barely had enough energy to make it back to my car let alone put a cart back. Not everybody is having the same day you are.
Stop giving away free labour to large grocery stores! They want to merge and jack up prices and somehow we are bad if we don't bring the carts in so they don't need to hire someone to do it?
Work in a grocery store for a month and tell us again how we should all be jerks in a way that will never impact their corporate bottom line but will absolutely make the workers' lives harder.
Wrong. The correct act is to put the cart out of the way of others, but not in the corral.
You then help provide a job to a person that capitalism wants to take away. They want your free labor. And then they provide less and less corals to save those extra pennies, knowing that you'll walk. Fuck them.
Look man, you can occasionally be selfish or lazy without immediately being an absolute drain on society. Is not putting the cart back ultimately a dick move? Yeah, but its also an incredibly minor dick move, and maybe I've already used up all of my fucks for the day.
Edit: Ok, yall have convinced me. I'm going to start wheeling shopping carts into the most inconvenient places in the parking lot on purpose now. It's really funny how much it ruins all of your days, thank you for giving me a mew source of joy. I wouldnt be surprised if I tipped and treated service staff a hell of a lot better than most of you considering how much you're all itching to feel superior to others over extremely minor things
nah fuck that shit. there are staff paid to do it and if the store can't afford that staff they are fucking lying. they have earned this with the price fixing and gouging and I'm not giving them any more of my time than absolutely necessary.
in addititon when I had that job myself, more often than not people put them away wrong and I had to redo everything. I've gotten called to the office more than once because shoppers that put the carts away didn't lock them somewhere along the stack and the whole thing rolled across the lot and smashed in to someone's car. Collecting lose carts is way easier than pulling them alll apart and putting them back after finding the two near the middle beginning of the chain and not being able to get them back together without doing it one by one in the stupidly hilly lot.
If you scatter carts in random places the supermarket has to employ someone to collect them. So you are a job creator^TM^. This is why I never return my cart, and also why I jump on cartons of milk in the dairy aisle and take a dump in the broccoli.
People who actually think this are using it as an excuse for their bad manners.
The person employed by the supermarket to gather carts is not employed to return your cart to the cart return near your vehicle. They are employed to gather the carts from the cart return near your vehicle and bring them back to the store building's cart return.
By doing this, you do not create more jobs (as the cart return employee position already exists whether you return your cart or not), you create more work for an already probably underpaid employee and you also increase everyone's autoinsurance because when the wind blows the carts damage other people's vehicles.
OK, you got me, I actually always return my cart and seldom shit in the broccoli.
... But what about the milk?
That information is classified. But you'll know it when you see/smell it.
It's the same person that makes a mess and thinks "it's the janitor's job".
I definitely have the unpopular opinion of disagreeing. As much as I'd like to employ manners with my grocery store, if there's no corral within a 30 second walk from me, I don't put the cart back. Most of my purchases are under 8 items and I usually don't use a cart so I just carry everything by hand in the store and out.
My grocery store doesn't care about manners on their end. It treats me like an economic unit and even makes self checkout the most reasonable option. They'd have me clean the floors as part of the checkout if they could. From a utilitarian perspective, it makes more sense for one person to gather all the carts in a batch rather than each individual going back for their individual cart.
The insurance rates thing is a legitimate point ( insurance is a racket, though. Fuck those guys too)
"They don't have good manners, so I won't have good manners" is a terrible way of thinking and living. If everyone did this, it would only take one person to completely eradicate good manners from humanity forever.
Yeah I see your point and I've got amazing manners with human beings. It's a view I personally reserve for companies. And the larger they are, the less I respect them enough to have 'manners' towards them.
Perhaps it's the inability for people to treat corporations the way corporations treat people that leads to such a power differential.
Pretty sure that's not what utilitarianism means lol
Maximizing the utility of labor? I'm alluding to using the components of the scenario in the most efficient way.
How would you express it?
The "utility" of utilitarianism isn't that type of utility. IIRC it generally refers to the idea of maximizing happiness and minimizing harm, with a focus on outcomes of the whole, rather than the individual. Efficiency of labor doesn't explicitly factor into it.
Personally, I think you're just rationalizing being lazy and potentially causing harm to others, which isn't utilitarian at all.
Except that loose carts roll away and get blown by the wind scratching other people's cars. Carts put up on curbs and in gravel etc. ruins the wheels making everyone's experience worse. Carts left in the parking lot block spaces so people can't park in lots that already sometimes are overfilled.
You're not 'sticking it to the man,' the store owner or corporate shareholders who make the rules and set the prices don't care, you're making life worse for your fellow shoppers.
That explains Elon Musk. He's a job creator, right? Destroyer of everything.
Jean-Baptiste
Emmanuel
Zorg
A. Cherry.
He’s single-handedly keeping loads of nannies and Ketamine dealers in a job so there’s that.
Reminds me of teens saying that janitors are paid to clean so what's the issue with throwing trash on the floor?
I can't wait for Google's AI to ingest your comment.
Nice thing about working class parents.. when you're a kid and think "but it's someone's job, they get paid to do it," they will teach you that it has nothing to do with making more work for someone.
Whenever I return to my vehicle, if I do not have a shopping cart with me, I'll find one someone didn't return and return it for them.
Fear me, I am your antithesis
The anger over this always amuses me (I put my cart back in the corral btw). But there was a time in the very recent past, where there was no such thing as a cart corral. You simply left your cart in the lot and an employee was paid to fetch them (I also used to do this job as a kid - it was a great job).
I did this as a kid at a place with cart corrals. Because, y'know, someone still needs to move them from the corrals to the front.
I actually use this rationale for why I don’t use the self-checkout lanes. Why should I do the work for the grocery store that they should be paying somebody else to do?
My local supermarket added 8 self checkout machines, and removed almost all the cashier lanes.
For a year, they pushed everyone towards the self checkout. Every... Body. Old people were clogging up the Customer Service section because they want a human. The machines constantly failed to scan, and people would just shrug and pretend like it did.
The deviants started to realize it's super easy to steal, as they can just pay for 1/10 of their groceries and "forget" to scan a lot of things. They started to lock up a lot of merchandise, and you need a human to unlock it.
So now they have hired security guards to then scan receipts, as well as follow people in the parking lots.
The whole supermarket is kind of a shit show. I counted 5 security guards to 2 workers when I was last there. I also do my shopping elsewhere.
Because it's faster?
So based.
I immediately thought of the scene in The 5th Element. Lol
You return your cart because it's the right thing to do
I return my cart because it gives me a sense of superiority
We are not the same
You return your cart because it's the right thing to do
I return my cart to get my euro back that I put in to unlock it
Mr fancy pants here with full euro coins.
I treasure my red plastic €0.50 coin replica more than my life.
I put in a 2€ and look down on other shoppers
You guys can use €0.50 coins?! Over here in Australia it’s either a $1 or $2 coin. I wish I could chuck a 50¢ piece in the trolley.
Why not just 3D print a few more?
Why 3d print them when the same supermarket gives them out for free?
Wait, they do? Why would they do that?
Eh, 'cause otherwise people will have to exchange money for coins, sometimes people don't have notes to exchange, etc... Seems like retaining the token is incentive enough to return the cart....
Why not just ask for another one?
I straighten them because they annoy me lol.
Sheep mentality, another way in which the shopping cart is the mirror of our society
I knew I wasn't the only one.
I'll also go fetch a couple on the way if I see some hanging out. It's not because I'm trying to make the cart wrangler's job easier, but because it's not orderly and it bothers me. I have to consciously limit myself or I'd end up patrolling the whole lot.
I'm also a cart-straightener
Blows my mind how some people actually manage to walk their cart to the corral, and then decide they're going to abandon any semblance of order in putting the carts away, you've already done the hard part by walking over, it takes less than a second to just not be an idiot when you push your cart in there.
Big carts in one line, small carts in the other, seems easy but they all put the square peg in the round hole.
And at least try to line them up. I don't care if you push them all the way in, just try to line them up so that they can be pushed together.
My opinion on this is reason number 8735 why I will never, and should never, be in charge of a country.
I too have thousands of reasons why I shouldn't be in charge of a country, however I do have one good pitch.
My appointment to dictatorship would be guided solely by autism. I guarantee my powers will only be focused upon my two fixations that deal with the general public, trains and healthcare.
If made supreme leader I will not only make the trains run on time, there will be more trains, more hospitals, we would even have trains that can take you to your job at the hospital. I would shape the perfect world for me, and vicariously a more efficient and safer world for you.
Demand Me for dictator 2024
Why not put the hospital in the train? Instead of taking the train to the hospital, the hospital comes to you
Imagine if there was a train to the hospital that also did triage.
So you get on the hospital line and a nurse determines if you need urgent care. They could take you to a less crowded hospital further down the line or dispatch paramedics to next stop.
Tbh, I would love to see it. But our railway infrastructure is dog shit atm, and we wouldn't be able to expand the network fast enough to accommodate something as luxurious as a railway hospital until much later.
My first goal would be to expand the network to the point where cars are unnecessary for the vast majority of my citizens. This would both increase rail traffic to acceptable levels and help alleviate the unnecessary healthcare cost and harm of motor vehicle accidents.
Become my peon, every peon gets healthcare and can apply to drive an electric train. Me -2024
Because that is essentially what an ambulance currently is, and it conveniently comes right to your house, park, or business where you are dying. There are very few immediate life-saving measures that can be done at the hospital and not in the ambulance. Ambulances with paramedics are referred to as MICUs for a reason.
I just wanted to say "Demand Me for dictator 2024" made me chuckle and you have my pledge
I'd vote for you.
I often think about how much better the world/ my local area would be if I was allowed to taser people at will for things like that. 😀
Don’t be a lazybones folks!
🚨🚨🚨Woo, woo, woo! Skit-do-skiddly-deet!🚨🚨🚨
That’s not where the carts go
I hate this guy. Call people out, sure, but keep your stupid magnets off my car.
The stores don't give a shit. The customers don't give a shit. The only one that gives a shit is this guy and his followers. Also, he's a fucking creep. Watch his video where he went to Australia and followed a pair of women to their house to shame them for walking their cart to the house.
He's fucking hilarious and you're a suspected lazybones.
It's telling that you side with (what is almost always) the giant billions-dollar corporation and don't even mention the worker who is probably already being exploited. That's who cares. That's who gets extra work, especially out in the cold/rain/wind/snow/hail, with no extra pay.
In line with the original post you're right: no one will fight for them and no one will fine or arrest you, but don't pretend people's selfish laziness impacts no one...
How am I siding with a corporation? The only people involved are the guy harassing people for YouTube views and the people he's harassing.
The stores aren't involved in the altercations at all, other than to say "we don't give a shit if you leave your cart out. If we did, we would do something about it."
Like build conveniently placed cart returns with "please return your cart" written on them?
Put your trolley away and he won't magnet your car
Or have a disability!
If a disabled person used a cart all through the store, and to their car, their disability should therefore not impede their ability to return the cart.
If someone is using the mobility scooter, that's a different story.
Edit for clarity, if it does impede the ability, it does. That's the end of the story, and the meme.
If you need to use the scooter, then you're not using a cart. You just have to be able to hobble between the store itself and your car. And sometimes you can hand it to someone to drive back to the store.
As someone who has recently needed it for several very different temporary medical issues in the past 4 or so years (better now tho- it's been a very weird time for me lol), I've seen that a lot of randos in the parking lot will even enjoy riding it back for you lol. Kids love it.
I am pro-"cart abandoners deserve the gulag", but we've also gotta recognize that some disabled people may need the cart for balance, and if they return it, they now have to walk across the parking lot without that crutch. Maybe the right answer is to put cart returns next to disabled spots?
I think it's fair to assume the target of this meme is not that scenario.
Edit also generally agree
So they were able to get to the cart station before their shopping unassisted, but are unable to return the cart because the walk back is unassisted?
I don't buy it.
So what actual disabled people do is just to talk to the cashier, who will say "oh let me flag down one of the Noble Cart Lads" or "oh just leave it, we'll have someone out in a couple minutes anyways". It's standard to have someone on staff that helps mobility impared (or otherwise disabled) people load their car. If a place has mobility scooters, they absolutely have one of these people too.
What you're doing here is advocating for accommodation on a largely solved problem, without just asking the people you're advocating for about the problem, and trying to signal your virtue while doing it. Stop it.
(The reason for no cart returns next to disabled spaces is that many people will just sorta fling their carts at the returns, creating a whole lot of obstacles right where you least want them.)
"Imperious tone" my foot, this is a "deeply annoyed" tone.
Meh I deleted. "Deeply annoyed" is all the same
If only there was a device they could use to place their walking aid in (assuming they don't need a full on walker) to carry it while their hands are full of shopping cart
If my friend with a CASTED LEG could manage to return their cart then it'd take a disability that means you probably shouldn't be out and about on your own to not return it
I don't think you know what you're talking about. Disabilities are really diverse and the US at least has shit healthcare. I can totally imagine someone using the last of their strength or energy to get back into their car. I wish everyone returned their carts, too, but I have empathy for people who just hit the end of their rope.
Obviously every disability is different. It's a meme, I'm not writing comprehensive policy here
Edit the point is if you normally navigate the grocery errand, make it to your car without issue, are not incapable of returning the cart, but choose.to.just ditch it because you are lazy, then the meme is talking about you.
If you aren't able to move the cart any further, ideally park near the return spot, or tell the staff, or get the accomodations you need.
I'm responding to your comment, not the post. This part:
You really can't make generalizations about disabilities like this.
Lots of people think disabilities are visible and easy to categorize. They're not, and this attitude leads to scenarios like random people harassing actually disabled people for using a handicapped parking spot.
My point is, like, mind your own business and don't make judgy proclamations about what disabled people can do.
Return your cart if you can. Don't if you can't.
It's simple shit.
If you can't, the meme isn't about you.
It is however reasonable to suggest a journey that is 99% over and has been completed successfully, can be completed to 100%.
But if not, refer to the beginning.
That's it.
Edit if you leave it anywhere because you are lazy, not incapable, then the meme is about you.
You didn't quote or seemingly read that line.
The disability here is almost always selfishness or lack of consideration for their fellow man.
Nobody is judging based on carts left by handicapped spaces.
Let's not make a twitter out of lemmy, that's not at all what they meant.
There should be a requirement for cart return spots next to the handicap parking. In places where there is a return 10 feet from the spots I still see a ton of carts in the parking spots.
I get that it can be hard, but it seems way too frequent that they could do the whole store but just couldn't make that last 10 feet. Like sure, occasionally that is inderstandable.
So I will judge them while also grabbing the cart and either using it or putting it away because that is the right thing to do.
So the reason you don't do this is because cart returns create a cluster of obstacles. Many people just go cart curling, aiming generally for the return and walk off, which can make an insurmountable obstacle for the handicaped person. Also handicapped spots are at the entrance to the store - if someone is going to return their cart, they'll go the extra 50' to do it. If they're a fuckin asshole that doesnt return their carts, its better not to give them a target around which to cluster their assholeness.
I take it from the downvotes that this is not a place for discussion, this is a place for confirming your biases. Carry on.
They're getting downvotes because they're implying that people with a disability can't return their carts, which is ableist as fuck. People without a disability might not know this, but you can just ask for assistance at the check-out, and someone from the store will typically help you to your car and bring the cart back for you.
I know this isn't the way it's supposed to work "per the rules", but I think downvotes are an incredible tool for discussion. It's a way to simply and clearly make your opinion known without taking the time to write a comment. But because Spez and co. decided that downvotes "aren't supposed to work that way" 20 years ago, the worst people on the internet will scold you for using the voting system just like everyone else does.
My favorite part about when this gets posted is that there is always someone trying to justify not putting the shopping cart back.
Edit: didn't even have to scroll half a screen length lmao.
Flawed. Here, you must insert a coin (or if you have it, a token with the shape of the coin) that will only be returned after you put the cart in the correct place.
So you actually lose something if you don't return the cart.
That doesn't mean the concept is flawed; it just means those businesses were smart enough to put in countermeasures against bad people.
It also means that the people who do leave the shopping cart in places without the deposit are the kind of cheapskates who can be bought for a euro. They're only neutral evil.
True chaotic evil assholes would pay the deposit on several carts only to leave them.
That actually sounds like a hilarious way to spend 10$, especially when Aldi in the states still only requires a quarter
Then sit back and film the people returning the carts for the quarter. Put it on YouTube and profit.
They do this so they don't have to pay staff to return carts, one of many reasons Aldi is so cheap.
"Cart returner" is not a job. It's a thing regular employees have to do because some folks choose to be lazy. If everybody would return their carts, these employees would simply work on other shit in the store like cleaning or re-arranging misplaced items. Leaving the cart does not create jobs, it makes existing jobs more tedious.
That means there were enough bad people that businesses wanted to purchase a lock token system at the expense of convenience of customers and overhead costs of their businesses
Mhm. That said, only a few places around where I live have "coin operated" carts. I guess the places that do have them got tired of the selfish, inconsiderate sobs who didn't return the carts.
To me it feels so utterly strange to just dump a cart in the middle of a parking lot and, seemingly, think nothing of it.
In the US Aldi requires a quarter. Depending on the area, there are absolutely people who will give up their 25 cents to not walk their lazy ass to return the cart.
Florida is full of inconsiderate selfish assholes.
I present you mankinds greatest invention:
What, you gonna knock back some brews?
In case you weren't joking:
Look at the bottom part of it. You can insert it into the coin "slot" to unlock the cart and pull it out right after.
No more losing a tiny little plastic chip or searching for the right coin - especially if you prefer to pay without cash.
(Also, I do return my carts.)
on some carts there's a sliding door to insert the coin, and this wouldn't work
stock image because I couldn't find another one
I refuse to shop at those places.
Also, then this: https://dormi.zone/comment/6560360
So basically this:
I could bend myself to say it is robotkinds greates invention.
Seeing guides and fake coins to trick it was pretty depressing.
That sounds like more work than just putting the cart back...
Yep. I kinda dislike the idea of paid carts and am for pirating... But there it's paying or putting extra effort to make other people deal with your cart.
I have seen supermarkets with even stricter systems. I have seen carts with automated brakes/clamps. If you try to leave the supermarket with the cart, the wheels block. So you are forced to put your groceries in bags and carry the bags to the car.
My local has these but they only stop you from leaving through the entrance. If you leave through the checkout area you can take the trolly out
The supermarket? Damn. I've seen that around the parking lot so that they can't be taken off the property, but outside of the building itself? Wow.
Where I shop there is the token system but you just have to ask the security agent to get a free token. So there is no need to return your cart because you can get a free token each time you got to the store.
That’s common in England, but a lot of larger shops don’t bother with that system.
It's the opposite here in Sweden, in some larger supermarkets you did need a coin but in no smaller shops
Anyways that's all gone now since no one carries coins anymore
We don't do that here, that's mall-level bullshit.
Yeah, I'd just not shop there. I never have change with me, and I'm not bringing change just because the store requires it. It might not be the first trip or the third, but over time, I'd shop there less and less because convenience matters.
Then you'll either start bringing change, get a token that you can use, or starve. No supermarket here has "free" carts. The baskets are free, but they are smaller.
I'd probably just use a basket then, and buy less.
As a combination cart pusher and cleaner for a supermarket, absolutely fuck anyone that doesn't return their cart or worse, throws it into a gardenbed
I used to see threads like this on reddit where people would defend the act by claiming it keeps people employed. Anyone who has worked in retail knows otherwise, but it doesn't stop these neanderthals from existing and making their bullshit toxic arguments.
100%
And knowing how corporate works in these sorts of places, they ain't gonna hire/roster more people to deal with the extra work, just push the existing staff even harder so they don't have to pay out extra hours.
The worst shit is when I see someone dumping a cart, they see me, smile and nod at me and then walk off like they haven't just been caught being shitty.
At least when they do, you can pretend you're Bubbles for a little bit?
I've always told my family I like to build up "cart karma." You get karma by bringing a cart in with you from the parking lot, or returning the one you use after. You lose karma by leaving your cart in the parking lot. Even if I'm going in for a single item, I'll take a cart in from the parking lot with me and leave it in the rack by the store.
I don't really care about cart karma, it's just a way of saying that it seems like the nice thing to do.
st peter at the pearly gates: "yup, looks like you're up 14 carts overall. welcome to heaven."
All sins and virtues get converted to cart return equivalent.
"14 carts positive, plus those 4 times you helped old ladies cross the street adds 12 more carts, minus 8 carts for the time you tried to help one but ended up punching her instead (it would have been 10 but it's reduced by 2 because Dionysus was watching that one and said even he would have had trouble holding his temper and he's a pretty chill dude). You're up 18 carts overall, congrats!"
"update, your next of kin bought 2 model golden shopping carts from the temple and put them by your gravestone, getting you to a nice round 20. here's your all-access pass to the Garden of Delights"
I do this by necessity because the medium-sized carts are most popular and they're usually only available in the parking lot anyway.
That goes for everything you can return but don't have to. You can throw your trash away after the movie, you don't have to leave it in the theatre.
Not all return situations are equal either. There is a difficulty factor. I've returned carts every time in my life except once. I was about 50 car rows deep in a massive crowded lot and I realized there were no cart corrals at all. At the back of the massive lot and much, much closer to me was a bunch of carts. I pushed a few together and added mine. The difference in this scenario was not me.
See this is an exception that proves the rule. The fact that there was no way for you to return the cart to a cart corral means that it was a noticeable and memorable event, a deviation from what should normally be the correct way of doing things. If you had been a person who'd never returned carts, this would have just been a day ending with the letter "y."
Germany are good at this. Not great, mind you, but good.
I wonder what Japanese movie theatre's are like
Cart Narcs. Those guys are fucking crazy. They were doing their thing in Texas. I've read stories of idiots pulling out guns for less.
He's had guns pulled on him
Imagine living in a country where some people have egos so fragile that they threaten to kill you because you told them they are lazy.
I take other people's trolleys back on my way because I'm not a piece of shit.
I'll do you one further. It is morally correct to take a cart from the parking lot to use in the store rather than grab one from inside the store.
BUT! What if the parking lot is four miles long and there are no cart returns anywhere and you're tired because you've been working 20 hour days with no time off and it's 140 degrees outside and the grocery store is exploiting their workers and you haven't eaten in days and you have a disability and the carts are coin operated and this is literally the only way to solve the unemployment crisis? WHAT THEN??
I would add scooping dog shit is another test. There are people out there who will bag the shit and then leave the bag on the ground for the poop to steam in for a few days before they put another bag right next to it to keep it company.
Why do people do that? I mean, if they intend to abandon the dog poop, why would they bag it first?
Not defending this, but some people intend to pick up the bag on their return, presumably as they are headed away from a trashcan and will return to one on the way back. They don't want to carry it the whole time.
They should just carry it the whole time, or return to the start then and there to drop it
If that's the case and they don't forget, then I am firmly on their side. Literally no one is impacted if the bagged poo sits there another 30-60 minutes...
Generally agree, the issue is when they forget
Sometimes people walking dogs plan on walking past the same spot on the return trip, so they leave the bag. Sometimes they forget to pick it back up, or forget that they dropped it there and take a different route home. Sometimes bag number two is the next day, or some other person's bag. Generally, if someone's going to pull a shit and split, they're not bagging.
Don't waste your time trying to analyze the decision making of an animal.
Which is worse, the ones that leave a bag (perhaps unintentionally) or the ones that just don't bother with the responsibility at all? When I had a dog I not only would clean up behind him, I would leave the bag untied until the end to capture what I could of the inevitable left piles I would run across. I'm sure cart return, dog poop, fast food containers, and the old cigarette butts are all under some human psychology grouping of ego superiority.
I think leaving the bag is worse. When it is just poop, maybe the dog ran out of sight or was loose or the walker ran out of bags or whatever. When it is bagged, a human made a decision to scoop it and then leave it on purpose.
Both are bad but bagged shows intention.
Murica, fucked up because of shopping carts. In germany you have to put money in the cart, and get it back while bringing the cart back to where it is from. Problem solved.
To shop is human. To return is divine.
Don't know about you people, but here in Hungary (Eastern-Europe) I haven't ever seen a cart not returned at least as far as I remember.
i once visited Lewiston, Maine and none of the carts had been returned to the proper spot. more than a dozen carts were just scattered around the parking lot. as soon as i found somewhere to park, i got out and collected every cart in the lot. the boy i was dating at the time looked at me with concern in his eyes
A lot of countries use coin operated cart releases, which give you a coin back on return. This is very uncommon in the US. Generally there are just metal "corrals" with guardrails you return a cart to in the parking lot.
The only store that I know of that uses coin returns is Aldi, but that's still regional in the US.
Now I'll upset some people here, I'm sure but...
Here in the UK, you can see how decent an area is using this method.
Go to the nearest Tesco Extra. If they have the coin traps on the trolleys, probably a dodgy area. If they don't, not so dodgy area.
In both cases, you're going to find the trolleys are generally not left lying around. Read into it what you will.
I only use Tesco extra as an example because from my experience other supermarkets either have the coin traps, or don't. It seems only Tesco (correct me if I'm wrong) vary the behaviour by area.
This is accurate is my city with no coin traps. Nicer areas have no carts laying around. "Lower class" areas have lots of carts around.
Funny thing is in the high class area I never see an employee doing cart return, but in the lower class area they'll be 2 or 3 doing it.
So it's not a matter of staffing. It's the people not having good cart etiquette.
UK here, no coins in any shop's trolleys.
I'm outraged at the number of people leaving carts everywhere. Do they have other people wiping their butt for them too? I don't understand.
Do some houses in areas that are struggling have barred windows? Are grocery stores likely to put laundry detergent and liquor behind plexiglass?
And a German company no less.
Yeah, every store has those here. Also Aldi is nationwide.
Yeah, both are uncommon here. Aldi is regional in the US. Trader Joe's is generally in the other regions, which is owned by the Aldi nord part of the family.
I don't think the lack of overlap is that intentional, it's just a big nation and Aldi/trader joes just haven't really tried to expand in the areas where the other setup first.
I've gone out of my way multiple times to put up multiple cats that were blocking parking spaces, including handicap spaces. While the handicap ones make it seem like the person is an extra asshole, I wonder if it's the handicap person that leaves it there and it just moves into the space. There's are very few stores that put a corral by handicap spaces.
I uh, avoid taking a cart, because I have a big ass reusable shopping bag. I'm not sure where that leaves me.
Interesting idea... Is human morality (in situations where no punishment exists) a result of the societies we live in and our societal expectations, our upbringing, or is there some inherent morality (guilt from doing something bad, or satisfaction from doing the right thing) within most people?
Whilst I do live somewhere that has trolleys with coins, sometimes you get one that is damaged and doesn't require a coin. Yet I still return those ones, because why wouldn't I? It only takes a minute.
Yes.
But what if nature and nurture were casting a shadow on the wall of a cavernous trolley station??
Well, in that case, wait for the trolley to come, and if they haven't returned the cart by then you can push them in front.
Does the trolley run Linux?
It runs on hannah montana, the best kind of linux.
In that case it should be fine. Just eat the rich, fuck cars, and let the trolley run its course.
Well yeah, but also a bit more than that - even after growing up, does society itself have some impact? Even if someone was raised really well, I feel like they could change over time depending on what society tells them is appropriate.
Typically "nurture" includes those things. You're right though - it isn't just our parents and childhood, it's everybody through our whole lives. We only stop changing when we die.
I was concerned this was going to be a comment about what I put in my shopping cart.
But I can tell I'm an individual of extreme self-discipline because after I filled my shopping cart with chocolate and vodka I return it to the carousel.
Everyone praised me.
But is creating those jobs actually something we want? How much does someone get paid for collecting carts? How much does that increase prices for basic necessities? Do we have a labor surplus such that any job is a good job?
The answer to all of those is "no." I don't know about you, but I'd much rather keep my office job than go collect carts, so I put my cart away so the person would would have that job can get a better job.
So my personal take on shopping cart theory is that it assumes putting away shopping carts is not a fun job.
I have worked at whole foods for 2 years, and the thing I hated the most was how it felt like Bezos's watchful eye was always on you. The supervisors could be super persnickety about your breaks. Compared to my new life as a self employed musician, it was like prison, but that's retail for ya.
I personally loved cart duty. It was a time when I could go outside, get some fresh air, and not be under the surveillance of that god awful company*.
So now if it is a nice day out, I will go out of my way to put the cart in left field. I call it a chaotic good move.
That said the "it keeps jobs" is BS. If cart duty wasn't a thing, the person would still be filling baskets and cleaning windows.
*Note: the Halstead location in Chicago was actually really great. Maybe it was the Stockholm syndrome of working retail during pandemic, maybe it was Midwestern kindness, but that team actually seemed to care about each other's wellbeing and we'd even hang out. I lean towards Midwestern kindness though, I moved here from Seattle and while I miss the mountains, I CERTAINLY do not miss the social scene. Despite what the news tries to tell you, Chicago takes care of its own. Even when I was a stranger in a strange land, and then homeless during polar vortex, the people took me in. Every. Night.
Not sure if I'd visit, but I'd definitely live here.
Sorry for the Chicago tangent, I'm a few handshakes deep and I get emotional about this fuckin' place.
The problem isn't that it's not a fun job. It's that the pay is shit.
So I should do it for free because the store isn't willing to pay their employees?
This is just "littering is fine because it's someone's job to pick it up" with extra steps.
Littering has environmental impact, and looks bad. Carts being put back by the company or the customer doesn't hurt the environment. If it looks bad the company creates a job to ensure the customer keeps coming.
Yeah but like I said elsewhere in this thread I have been to grocery stores (5 Krogers a Publix, and a Food Lion) 80 times in the past couple weeks working instacart at nights to pay off some bills I didn't want to pile up. No carts have been seen by me moving around, everyone puts them in the cart returns that take up many of the parking spaces. Seems like a lot of made up concern. Not to mention the force it would take to dent/scratch a car by a cart. I've watched multiple cops over the years push cars when they have broken down in the road, the paint/bumbers are a lot more sturdy than many think. Aftermarket paint jobs might be an issue if they are cheap paint if you are pushing the car, but a shopping cart would need to be going fast to do anything real.
Gee pal, that sure is a lot of assumptions youre making!
The cart carrier's job will still be there regardless. I take my cart to the stall, they take it to the store, and nobody has to deal with loose carts. My social responsibility is not impacting anyone's job in this case.
Yarp, that agrees with everything I said and what most people do.
You can't think of a job more productive than cleaning up after lazy cunts?
something something glaziers fallacy.
Obviously this is a joke, but if it even sounded remotely plausible to anyone reading fix yourself.
yeah I figured you were, but it seemed like some people were actually engaging with it. As if make-work somehow made the line go up.
There's a fun joke:
2 economists are out walking. The first economist sees a pile of dog shit and says to the other, "I'll pay you $50 to eat that dog shit." So he does and gets paid $50. Later on, the second economist sees a pile of dog shit and says to the first, "I'll pay you $50 to eat that pile of dog shit." So he does and gets paid $50.
The first economist says, "I can't help but feel we just ate dog shit for nothing." "Nonsense," says the second economist, "We just contributed $100 to the economy."
Of course actual economists aren't this terrible, but the popular perception of economics/monetary theory is about this braindead.
Show us one example literally anywhere that actually did that. Philosophy is not an excuse for being a lazy jerk.
Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg everyone.
This is why I dig ditches. I create labour because someone has to pay to fill them in.
We should hire someone to wipe our arses for us too!
I mean they still gotta put em up after that so...
Around here there are definitely consequences in the form of pesky looks and headshakes. Well at least coming from me.
I've even helped by putting my nose in the air and saying, "that's ok, I'll put it away for you"
They are ok with that.
What if you take them home to burn leaves in?
Seems legit
"No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you or kill you for not returning the shopping cart..."
Hmmmm, I wonder if this is always true. Maybe somewhere there is someone who does not let such things stand.
In Germany, shopping carts typically have a deposit system, where you have to insert an Euro into the cart to use it, which you get back when you return it. So that is basically a build in fine for not returning it.
They've started doing it in some places in America with quarters and it works. Turns out the price of laziness is less than 25¢ haha.
In Spain we used to have the same system. However it's been a while since I've seen it, most carts still have the euro slot, but they are not chained, so you don't need to insert a coin.
In Spain a lot of stors disabled the system during covid, for highiene reasons. Some have returned and some still have tbe coin system disabled. Most people return them anyway. There is always the occasional asshole.
This is how it works in all of Europe
There's a store chain, Costco or Aldi's maybe? In America here that dies this but it's only a quarter. Which is next to nothing. For reference, a load of laundry is between $1-2 in just a normal machine, plus dry time, (so 4-8 quarters). So just to wash and dry a single load of laundry for me, for example, is 12 quarters, $1.50 each of l for washing and drying.
So that cart deposit thing could use some improvement. Regardless I've never shopped at that store, but I do just return my cart like a civilized person.
The past year or two I've found several stores where they are abandoning it. I presume because people carrying cash, especially coins, is becoming rarer and they don't want to inconvenience their customers?
Strangely enough, carts still get returned even at these stores.
Yes, me too. This only seems to be a problem across the pond.
Some people go as far as to use a tool similar to the one mounted on the front cart to extract their money and still not return the cart they took.
The wind howls through the empty parking lot as the dim streetlights flicker above interrupted by the faint screech of an unreturned cart, left abandoned in the cold silence, rolling aimlessly across the asphalt. A masked man steps out of the shadows...
"You think it's nothing. A small act of carelessness, a moment of laziness. But that cart, left adrift, has a price. A price in scraped cars, twisted ankles, in the chaos that spreads like rot in the hearts of men. You see, I don't care about your excuses. I don't care if it's raining, if you're in a hurry. Order is what keeps us human. And you... you spit on it with every cart left behind."
Knuckles crack in the darkness
"I’m the reckoning you never see coming. You think no one’s watching when you shove it into the next spot, but I’m always watching. Every cart out of place, every rule ignored, it leads to something darker, something worse. And that’s where I come in—to stop the small sins before they become something more."
The masked man takes a step forward, his voice low and gravelly.
"I am Cart Noir, the last line of defense between order and chaos. You think it's just a cart? It's never just a cart."
In Germany (and other parts.od Europe as well to be fair) carts need you to put a coin in them to unchain them from their bay, which you get back when you chain them back up - so yeah, kinda, if you don't put it back you loose your euro
Same in Canada, (I hate that I need a loonie to shop with dignity).
Even so, people still leave their carts around. And really that is even worse.
Same in the Netherlands, and I pretty much never see stray shopping trolleys anywhere around here. Seems to work really well.
Yeah check out the Cart Narcs on YouTube. Absolutely hilarious content.
Cart Narcs
Plot twist: I don't use a shopping cart. (I always use the textile shopping bag that I bring from home.)
That's considered a security concern in most grocery stores where I live. There are signs telling you not to place any items in your shopping bags until you've paid for them. You must use a cart or waste several minutes hunting around the entrance or registers trying to find where they hid one of their 10 shopping baskets.
Wow, what kind of dystopia do you live in? In my town, they're just happy you went to their store, and I presume cracking down on what little shoplifting there is would drive away more business than it saves.
New Jersey, as I said in another reply it's not a bad area but they have high traffic. I haven't seen the signs in the upper class neighborhoods grocery stores though.
Ew, I guess that's another reason to never live in NJ...
I have never seen that even in shitty areas.
Admittedly, in the upper class neighborhood grocery stores I don't see those signs. The areas I see them aren't shitty though they are fairly high traffic compared to what I assume would be a typical store.
I looked for but couldn't find a photo of such a sign on DDG. I'll take a picture of one next time I need to get groceries.
I like shoplifting laws in the common law system because they're, like all theft laws, based on intent. They need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you intended to take and deprive them of whatever they're accusing you of stealing. If someone conceals something in an elaborate or strange way, you can nail them without them leaving the store. If they put it in their hoodie pocket or shopping bag and have a good excuse for doing so (this is all I had, I wanted to carry more), to "hold" it however, and "forgot" to scan it, you need to actually show that it's a pattern of several times if you want any hope of actually prosecuting them. At least with this policy I guess the stores can ban you even if they can't legally do anything against you. Don't take this comment as encouraging the policy though, you can steal whatever you like from corporations as far as I'm concerned.
Animals are far better than people.
Yass and when I'm walking into the store I always offer to take a cart for someone walking theirs back, if such a person is within hailing distance.
I think it's similar to weights in a gym. Leaving them on the barbell is a jerk move. Returning them to their correct staging location is the ethically correct thing to do. Whenever I see them left on the barbell, I imagine a fantasy where the person has a team of horn players follow them around and play for them to announce their superiority.
Except for the absolute synchronized event where the person in front of you is done, and their weight is exactly what you planned on doing.
I'm going to start recording people not putting their carts away. Endless content for my future channel.
In the UK you have to put a £1 coin in to unlock it. Whenever you return the trolley back, it gives you the coin back
TIL I'm mostly a good person but sometimes I am also no better than an animal and an absolute savage who will only do right when threatened. Interesting. Another thing is that I'm grateful for other savages who don't put their carts back cause I don't have to walk so far to get a cart.
Yay, I'm good!
It's interesting to read the comments, as there are people who are like
But then they behave like a dick in the comments; showing involuntarily that the test is a good metric.
So I think even a post about this test works like the test on a more meta level.
society made me like this
slight flaw in this theory, I always return the cart and will often return other carts as well. despite this, I am terrible at self governing to the point of nearly failing out of college. that being said return your carts you bastards
Depends on your beliefs. There are people who believe in being judged for every action by an almighty force or being, so it's probably not absolutely perfect. I might be smitten in my next life for it.
I return mine because its an opportunity to get more steps in.
After taking it outside boundaries so a wheel locks up.
Look at tge people returning them in the lot, mostly fat and/or wealthy.
We have now this in Migros and Coop:
Place it in the stack at the checkout where you unload it and go. Kinda breaks that test. And a headache less for the clerks.
Typically parking lots are filled with cars, and I need to drive between the parked cars. If a cart is in the way it makes it harder for me to leave, just saying
Ive been to ~7 grocery stores ~80 times in the past couple weeks. Was driving instacart at night to get some bills paid I was worried about. Not once did I come across carts that were just in the parking spots/street, they always are in the cart holders that take up parking spots. I standardly pull my cart from one of those and wheel it into the store which leaves it at a net 0 move when I put it back.... That said, with the number of people who are hunting for jobs right now that I know, this may be the first time I would say the store hiring someone to return carts is another employed person. Kroger really isn't going to go bankrupt supporting the local populace with 1 extra job. Publix on the other hand has employees actively asking to take my cart before I can close the trunk. Had been pretty impressed by it. One day I went to 4 different Krogers, it is a bit interesting to see the difference in the stores based upon the people/house cost that live in the areas.
I don't know where you are, but the Krogers by me are all way understaffed.
Third option. I park out by an abandoned cart take it inside and use it. Then, like my mother taught me I put it back where I found it.
Am I an animal? An absolute savage? If I then returned the cart after finding it abandoned, then using it, does that make me double good?
Yes you are a savage. Putting it back where you found it is not the correct way to do things. It might have been in the 1970s, I don't know when cart corrals first showed up because people were too lazy to take it back to the front of the store.
I don't think they put it back where they found it. It's not worded well but I'm pretty sure they put it up (aka "returns") in the property place when they're done with it.
Lawful evil
It doesn't make you an animal or a savage, it makes you at best willfully ignorant.
If your mother taught you that 2+2=3 but later in life ample evidence shows you that 2+2=4, do you change you mind or still insist that your mother knew best?
Your mother's mindset regarding the returning of carts is called "lowest common denominator", someone else doing something wrong doesn't make it OK for you to do.
Still an animal.
In my country we have dedicated people in the parking who literally follow you, can even push and collect the cart from you.
This got me thinking, what is a "true neutral" position.
Finding another cart which isn't returned, and adding yours to it.
True neutral is carrying everything in your hands and avoiding the issue entirely.
Chaotic neutral is using a hand basket and putting it into an abandoned cart when you're done.
Lawful good is returning the cart to the in store area (or wherever people generally get their carts from). Or returning more than just your cart to the corals in the lot. Might return a row of carts to the store while they grab theirs from the coral.
Neutral good is gathering some carts from the lot and making sure they aren't taking up parking spots, though not necessarily returning them to the coral or store.
Chaotic good is grabbing one of ones randomly left out there and giving it to others who are going in to the store and grabbing another one for yourself. Cart may or may not be left in the coral after, though it's at least left where it won't be in the way.
Lawful neutral returns their cart and maybe others if they aren't out of the way. Might freak out on someone who doesn't return their cart.
True neutral sometimes returns it, sometimes doesn't, sometimes grabs a loose cart, sometimes grabs one from the store area. Overall doesn't make things better or worse, but individual episodes can do so.
Chaotic neutral picks a random (to us, they might have their reasons) cart in the middle of a row, pulling the other carts out enough to access that cart. May or may not return those other carts to the row. May or may not push their cart towards a coral when they leave. Most likely to be seen pushing a cart while driving their car, either with the cart at the front of the car or holding it through an open window (which might not even be the usual driver's window). I'd call Mr Bean chaotic neutral, so anything he is capable of.
Lawful evil returns the carts to the coral but stacks incompatible carts with each other or might put it in backwards. Follows the rules in a way that makes you wish they hadn't. Might stick a tack in one of the wheels so it won't turn properly.
Neutral evil scatters carts to cause the most inconvenience. Doesn't just block parking spots but might block car paths or entrances and exits to the store. Might overturn their cart. Might ram it into someone's car. Might fight employees that try to gather carts.
Chaotic evil super glues wheels so they won't turn or glues carts to each other and in the coral or to the door. Or might take one of those carts that are tethered such that they seize the brakes from one store and leave it in another store's lot. Or might figure out how to trigger that without the cart leaving (the other evils might also do this one). Or might just burn down the store after returning their cart to the in store area, letting any observers briefly think they had changed. Might turn the parking lot into a crash up derby and refer to pedestrians as bonus points.
I agree that people should put the carts where they go, but this whole "I'm a better human because I put carts back" thing just reeks of unredeemable people scouring their existence for a single redeeming property.
Another possibility is that people that don't return the cart may not be having their needs met. A person who is tired after walking across the hot parking lot may not return it out of a desire to maintain a modicum of health. Or, perhaps, they may not think about it because their cognition is temporarily hindered by hunger, exhaustion, or some other carnal need.
On Maslow's hierarchy, I'd say if a person meets all of their physiological and safety needs they are more likely to return the cart than those who do not.
I think this matches the "no better than an animal" from the OP pretty well
If they're so tired after walking around the shop and walking back to their car that they can't do that tiny bit more and return the cart to the corral, maybe they should be seeing a doctor to see if they are eligible for disability (sounds like a severe case of lazybonesitis) and use a handicapped spot. Or you know, stop being so fucking lazy and making excuses.
This is only true in the US. In Europe if you don't return the cart you can be sure people will give you looks and think about you as an asshole
People in the US give you a look and think you're an asshole too.
But America bad.
hmm no this seems wrong. If the parking lot is a mile long and there are no cart returns it makes me a bad person if I rack the carts in a line with all the others in the boonies? If you are getting abandoned carts its probably because you don't have enough cart returns, not because people are bad
I’ve seen abandoned carts within 10 feet of the cart return. Numerous times. I’ve seen people leave their cart behind the parked car next to them and drive off. Some people are animals.
Ok granted I was being too kind for a generalization there. The core of it is that I think that there is still a line that this absolute judgement skirts around precisely because there are so many extreme bad examples. When does the walk back become unreasonable? If costco eliminated all cart returns would you walk your cart to the door or rack it on the curb and become an animal?
I have shopped at places without cart returns. I bring it back inside. Always. It takes 1 minute.
right yes but that's avoiding the question by contextualizing it within your own experience. When does it become unreasonable? Your answer seems to be never. Does that remove any moral obligation on the part of the store to provide cart returns? Why do they exist?
I don't know what you're driving at, but I have never encountered a scenario in my almost 50 years of life where returning something to the place I borrowed it from was so onerous that I left it for someone else to clean up.
Fair enough, thanks for humoring me on this I appreciate the replies
If you're consolidating abandoned carts in the fringes, that makes you just as good, since you are creating a new cart return area that others might also contribute to. But when there are multiple cart returns that are partially used and still carts left on the way in various places in spaces, on the curb, and even right near the entry, those people are at a minimum lazy. My example is a Walmart that never fails this, so perhaps that skews things a bit.
It's the ones left almost at the store that get me...you could have gone a bit farther. Why did you stop?
If you piss on the toilet seat, do you clean it up (free labour as you call it) or hire a cleaner?
Imagine how dense you have to be to think this way.
Well the discussion started off ok before ending in a rabies infested rant against humanity! Talk about going off the rails!
Anyhow, many people return the trolley so they don't look bad/feel guilty. That doesn't necessarily make them 'good' or 'civilised' and therefore fit into the 'being forced' category through peer pressure. Does that make them 'animals' and 'savages' too?
Likewise if you're a smoker - you should go directly to jail.
Costco is the only place I don't always return carts, since around here the cart returns can get very far away, but curbs you can tuck them away on are everywhere. That, and they have staff just for gathering carts constantly.
Curbing carts bends the wheels. If you've even been annoyed by a cart with a bad wheel, congratulations you played yourself.
Nope, I don't buy it.
Privileged westerners could do something about these things, but they are sipping their pumpkin spice lattes and congratulating each other for putting their shopping carts back because, you know, it's the ultimate test of moral righteousness. Ugh.
Are you a trolley returning person on minimum wage, or are you just saying it's a good job for someone else?
I'm not asking if you return your cart, I'm asking if you're employed to return the carts of other people.
No, I want to argue the point that you think it's a job worth creating, but that I also get the impression that it's a job you wouldn't want to be doing yourself.
But I also get the impression that engaging you in debate is going to be a waste of my time.
Hey, I have asthma and there have been days where I've barely had enough energy to make it back to my car let alone put a cart back. Not everybody is having the same day you are.
Stop giving away free labour to large grocery stores! They want to merge and jack up prices and somehow we are bad if we don't bring the carts in so they don't need to hire someone to do it?
No one said to bring it in. They have corrals in the parking lot where you put them.
This had to be a bad joke. Only a low level trash scum of our society could write something like that unironicly.
Work in a grocery store for a month and tell us again how we should all be jerks in a way that will never impact their corporate bottom line but will absolutely make the workers' lives harder.
I worked at a grocery store before and bringing in the carts is the best part of the job lol
Wrong. The correct act is to put the cart out of the way of others, but not in the corral.
You then help provide a job to a person that capitalism wants to take away. They want your free labor. And then they provide less and less corals to save those extra pennies, knowing that you'll walk. Fuck them.
counter argument: it is someone else's job to put the cart away.
It is someone’s job to collect them from the cart return, not the entire parking lot.
Uncorralled carts cause damage to other cars.
You are an inconsiderate savage.
sounds like their problem for having a damagable car
Counter argument: those people could be on a break instead of doing your job. But then we'd need to get rid of selfish people first.
if people have enough spare time to have a break, why are they employed?
What do you do for a living?
Look man, you can occasionally be selfish or lazy without immediately being an absolute drain on society. Is not putting the cart back ultimately a dick move? Yeah, but its also an incredibly minor dick move, and maybe I've already used up all of my fucks for the day.
Edit: Ok, yall have convinced me. I'm going to start wheeling shopping carts into the most inconvenient places in the parking lot on purpose now. It's really funny how much it ruins all of your days, thank you for giving me a mew source of joy. I wouldnt be surprised if I tipped and treated service staff a hell of a lot better than most of you considering how much you're all itching to feel superior to others over extremely minor things
nah fuck that shit. there are staff paid to do it and if the store can't afford that staff they are fucking lying. they have earned this with the price fixing and gouging and I'm not giving them any more of my time than absolutely necessary.
in addititon when I had that job myself, more often than not people put them away wrong and I had to redo everything. I've gotten called to the office more than once because shoppers that put the carts away didn't lock them somewhere along the stack and the whole thing rolled across the lot and smashed in to someone's car. Collecting lose carts is way easier than pulling them alll apart and putting them back after finding the two near the middle beginning of the chain and not being able to get them back together without doing it one by one in the stupidly hilly lot.