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.
Okay, at the risk of down votes, I’ll take the bait.
My first job was more than 3 years of collecting carts. In that time it’s easy to see patterns like where carts often end up. Some are left out in the open, near a slope where the slightest breeze will animate it. Others pushed up on the sidewalk to the side of the store where there’s not much traffic and they just pile up. And others still will be left along a common walking path, not blocking the path, secure but not stuck.
Those last ones often take care of themselves because so many people walk along that path, it’s trivial to grab it on your way in, and it’s faster than pulling a cart backwards out of the entryway where they’re stored.
Years later, I’m picking up something for my nephew’s birthday party. I park the car. There’s a cart in the position mentioned above: on my way, not blocking anyone, secure but easy to grab. So I grab it, walk inside, do my shopping, come out, unload it. Nearest return is back inside the store, or I can put it back where I found it securely, along the way, but out of the way. I choose the latter. Before I even get in my car someone has grabbed the cart on their way in.
I fail to see the problem. However, the person who grabbed the cart was talking loudly to her grandchild so I could hear, “his legs must be broken since he can’t put the cart back” 😤
TL;DR In a post about returning your carts, a job which I had for over 3 years, the most obnoxious person I encountered was not someone who put their cart in the wrong place, but a passive-aggressive, self-righteous, loudmouth who was so narrow minded they couldn’t see there are spots carts can be left that save both parties time and create no additional work, even as she benefitted.
While the moment mentioned doesn’t present any immediate problems, it opens up the “well since he put the cart wherever he wanted I can do the same” mindset, we humans learn by example, not all people will stop and acknowledge where and why they are leaving the cart there, they will just do by convenience, we are built this way.
Putting the cart in the correct place is a social agreement, that forgo the convenience of a few to give it to the most.
Imagime if literally all carts were everywhere on the parking lot (an extreme), it would be utter chaos and make massive inconveniences (like people having to remove it from a parking spot to park their car).
The silver lining is, not all conveniences work in all scales.
First of all, thank you for replying. There’s probably many on the subject who would down vote a counter point without even reading, let alone replying.
it opens up the “well since he put the cart wherever he wanted I can do the same” mindset
This seems to make multiple incorrect assumptions:
- there’s not already multiple carts that could inspire that mindset. There’s usually many out of place for much longer. This cart was literally there for less than 15 seconds.
- people are biased towards replicating negative behavior. As I said, I grabbed the cart on my way in, but that won’t inspiring order the way leaving it inspires chaos?
- most people are unable to differentiate between where a cart is easy to grab and where it’s just going to linger or get in the way. I know I’m not the only one grabbing carts on my way in. It doesn’t take years of cart collecting to notice.
I feel depressed when I see assumptions that seem to view people as really dumb and requiring hard-line, no-exceptions rules. It gets uncomfortably close to an authoritarian worldview. I wrote my previous reply because, while I believe people should put their carts back, and model that behavior myself, I also believe things are rarely black and white and it’s valuable to interrogate when that might be.
Edit: add opening thanks
I was also a cart pusher for 3 or 4 years. It wasn’t my only task most of the time I was actually in the store bagging groceries. I loved cart pickup. It meant I could walk around the store parking lot, grab some fresh air and listen to some music. It was a cool little escape from the monotonous in store work and no one was really keeping an eye on me out there so I could take a little extra time.
I’m not weighing in on whether people should leave their carts out just adding some perspective that gathering them up wasn’t like this huge added labor, quite the opposite. If I wasn’t gathering carts I would’ve just been assigned to something much less enjoyable.
Fucking SAME! It is the best part of the job. I hated people putting the carts back. Take it! Take it as far as you can! I will milk that hunt for another 5/10 minutes of not being inside bagging groceries.
Brother in carts 💪
All the people here saying “you’re creating work over overworked employees” has clearly never worked in a grocery. You’re creating breaks. The only exception is people who left them out at close time when you’re all going home. Those people can burn.
I’m with y’all there. On top of dealing with customers, it was pretty gross work: dumping the sticky bins when the bottle return was full; Mopping up messes; Emptying trash and throwing it in the compactor. Weather permitting, carts were definitely the easiest.
Going for stray carts at the outer edges = quiet walk without any customers or managers.
Honestly for me it’s about was the lot designed by an idiot. Large stores like Walmart and home depot are the worst offenders. If I need to park in the far out of reaches of the lot there’s never any fucking cart returns there.
All of them are grouped up right near the fucking front of the store where it’s least needed, and then there’s nothing at the outer edges. I make sure my cart is somewhere it will not move even in strong wind, but the designers of the parking lot can go fuck themselves for not putting a cart return stall at the outer edges where it makes sense in those massive lots.
Other stores like WinCo and costco seem to have this figured out. Cart returns at regular intervals across the entire parking lot. So no excuse not to return there
Or using disabled people as a shield for their (able bodied) poor behavior
For me it was literally the top comment
If you scatter carts in random places the supermarket has to employ someone to collect them. So you are a job creatorTM. 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”.
deleted by creator
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.
From a utilitarian perspective
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.
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.
That explains Elon Musk. He’s a job creator, right? Destroyer of everything.
He’s single-handedly keeping loads of nannies and Ketamine dealers in a job so there’s that.
he only creates jobs by firing entire departments at once
Jean-Baptiste
Emmanuel
Zorg
Reminds me of teens saying that janitors are paid to clean so what’s the issue with throwing trash on the floor?
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?
how do they get out of their cars, they can’t open the doors
The second one is especially triggering since the parking lot seems otherwise empty. Like they just did it as a weird flex or something.
Now we know where all the carts should go
How did they get out of the car?
Trunk maybe?
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.
I like the idea that there’s some shift that’s just getting carts all day.
“Sorry, Johnson, people haven’t left enough carts out lately. We’re letting you go.”
As far as I’m aware, that is the case for some of the crews at different stores. Mainly the ones based in larger malls or shopping centres that have their carts spread out over a large area. Those are the ones you would see using the ride-on vehicle with the trolley trailer hitched.
For the most part though, at least here in Aus, the trolley collectors are also responsible for cleaning the stores.
Places I worked when I was younger, it was just one of the jobs of the courtesy clerks, along with bagging and filling some things to the shelf. Even in a really busy store, I think there’d be a ton of wasted time if someone was doing only carts.
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 got white tees! White tees!
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.
Aldi is the only grocery store around here that does that, and it’s a German chain so…
Really? Does it work?
Not sure on the stats on cart returnable at ALDI but I assume most people return their carts there.
And if you don’t, someone else will do it for you on your dime.
Quarter, technically :)
I’m glad we aren’t incentivized. It allows for this ultimate litmus to take place. I will literally go shopping with dates to figure this out.
This is a genius idea
Murca has invented these little devices that trick the machine so you don’t have to put in a quarter.
They’ll do anything to avoid being decent lol
Some US stores use quarters.
It can lead to people freaking out about their quarter though
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.
50 eurocent coins are actually about the same size as 1 and 2 euro coins, so that’s why
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?
You guys still do that?
I straighten them because they annoy me lol.
what I don’t get is when there’s multiple rows of carts, people often put their cart in the row that is already the longest, instead of putting it in the shortest one to balance it out
Sheep mentality, another way in which the shopping cart is the mirror of our society
I knew I wasn’t the only one.
I take other people’s trolleys back on my way because I’m not a piece of shit.
I’m always torn with things like that. While i have quite literally never seen a random cart around because people put them back over here like 99.9% of the time. But i live in a small town with only 800 people, it’s nice, quiet and clean. But there is (presumably) one guy who throws out his McDonald’s trash out of the car window every other day. It’s like the most beautiful scenic route up to the village and just like the grosses food in the grossest brown bag by an absolute douche bag laying around. I often think i should just take it home and throw it away. But then he drives by the next morning it’s gone and you become the private garbage collector to the biggest scumbag in town.
Lmao. “I’m a nice emphatic person, because I’m not scum like others.”
Do it for you man, don’t do things to throw shade on others
They already do every time they put back the cart, this is just one of the few places where it is okay to brag about it.
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??
You hold onto both handles, pivot in the direction of cart return four miles away, and then you run at full blast for 6 seconds, releasing at your apex speed and finally stand there with your hand shielding you from the setting sun as that little cart trundles off towards freedom, inevitably to be picked up by another good samaritan two miles away who will repeat the process, as is custom. If fireworks should bloom and the sunset is a nice shade of red white and blue, then a tear may drip slowly down your cheek as you remember that you’re in the greatest country in the world and that you wouldn’t have it any other way.
there are no cart returns anywhere
This is on the grocery store.
I also have an emergency that I need to get to NOW!
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.
Germany are good at this. Not great, mind you, but good.
I wonder what Japanese movie theatre’s are like
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.”
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.
No one will punish you for not returning the cart
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
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
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.
I’d vote for you.
What if you take them home to burn leaves in?
You are a man with a plan. Green flag
I uh, avoid taking a cart, because I have a big ass reusable shopping bag. I’m not sure where that leaves me.
Wait, so you’re putting your unpaid items in the bag? I know there’s nothing inherently wrong with that but I’d be worried that someone would stop me or say something so I just hold on to mine until I check out.
Most places allow reusable bags and have self-checkout. These businesses have to factor in additional theft as being worthwhile compared to the savings on labor.
I use my own bag a lot of the time because my usual grocery store (ShopRite) doesn’t put out baskets anymore. I don’t want a cart or need a cart, I want a basket, but they’re never out anymore. Like, they’re just gone…
So either put the baskets back out, or accept we’re going to use our reusable bags as baskets. Granted, I flip mine upside down in front of the self checkout camera to show I’m not stealing, but ffs… Just put the baskets back. 😭
Sure, but it doesn’t mean they’re not going to think you’re stealing and follow you around and/or give you shit.
I’m sure there are a ton of factors at play here, including the general area where the store is, and the person’s skin color.
Current laws in america mean all they can do is document any instances of theft.
Most the time noone looks at anyone specifically until a serious and repeated pattern is made, and even after that its likely nothing happens.
If I’m doing a small shop I’ll take a bag in, fill it up as I go, then everything goes out at the checkout and ends up back in the bag. I’ve never had anyone care about this and I’ve been doing it for a few years now (ever since the old plastic bags got banned in my area).
White privilege baby.
They have hand held scanners where I shop, so I do this also.
I have been shopping this way ever since the start of covid and only use self check out. It is a lot easier to get around the store. If I need to buy a bunch of heavy stuff or there is a sign asking me not to, I will of course use a small cart or hand basket. I am not going to piss off the Trader Joe gods when I visit it occasionally, who have a sign about it.
I have never been stopped, asked not to, or have been given any looks from the staff for doing it at my main grocery store.
Lots of stores prohibit this because they’re afraid it might make stealing easier. But not all of them!
I do the same, and yeah I just put everything in the bag, and I empty it at checkout,I usually don’t have that much stuff anyway. Never had an issue with that at the store
Don’t be a lazybones folks!
🚨🚨🚨Woo, woo, woo! Skit-do-skiddly-deet!🚨🚨🚨
That’s not where the carts go
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.
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 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.)
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.
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.
I take it from the downvotes that this is not a place for discussion, this is a place for confirming your biases. Carry on.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Put your trolley away and he won’t magnet your car
