Seriously, I’ve never understood why people can’t take the 30 seconds, if they’re healthy adults, or if they have kids over 10 with them, to get the cart to a carrol. They’re all over the place.
And yet, places like ALDI’s with their $0.25 deposit for the cart never seem to have that problem, no matter how much of a hurry one might be in.
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I would like to point out that being Democrat or Republican is NOT a binary solution set.
And if you want to know why I’m not one or the other - Here’s an example.
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In general, my store doesn’t have “kids who are hiding out in the back room”. Grocery stores run on a very thin margin, and our scheduling is a nightmare.
We usually have one person clearing the lot of shopping carts from open til after close. Sometimes, when we get very, very busy, that one person is not enough, so we send out the stockers to help. Even so, there are points in the day when the cartwells are completely empty – usually a sudden rush of incoming traffic overwhelms the cart person while all the other baggers are busy bagging orders. This invariably leads to customers walking past carts in the parking lot, coming into the store, and screaming, “WHERE ARE ALL THE CARTS?!” It takes every bit of patience in me not to scream back, “ALL OVER THE LOT WHERE YOU JUST WALKED PAST THEM, YOU BITCH.”
Look, I know we pride ourselves on customer service, and I hate disappointing you when it is my job to be running the front end and providing that service, but all I ask is a little cooperation. Just grab a cart on your way in, dammit. And to head off anyone who starts with the “But it’s the store’s job to provide carts” schtick – I know. But in the same vein that I would ask customers not to throw garbage on my floor (with the logic that it’s the store’s job to clean up), I would like them to grab a cart on the way in if they need one. Just a bit of cooperation.
I used to have this problem with MY grocery store. (Kroger) I mean there were always carts in your f’n way every time you tried to park.
But rather than try to change the world; I just pent all my frunstrations on one guy. The store manager.
The first time I went up to him I was a little snooty but not too snooty, I just told him “Hey guy, you know your parking lot is always full of carts when I come here and it makes it a pain in the ass when I have to get out of my car to move the cart so I can park. Do you think you can get your baggers on the ball and have them more attentive to this?” He was like “oh yes sir. sorry for the inconvenience. I’ll have a talk with them.”
A week later I come back still the same problem. So I go back up to the desk talk to him again, only this time, I was being a little bit of an asshole. I told him “Hey guy rremember me? (he has a dumbfounded look on his face) your parking lot is still full of carts. what the hell is the deal? did you talk to your baggers?” -him- “Oh yes sir I did. They’re still not picking them up?” “Uh, no obviously not or I wouldn’t be talking to you right now.”
A week after that I went up there and still the same thing happened. At this point I had pretty much gave up on talking to the manager because he obvioiusly didn’'t give a shit. Which was admitably making me fume on the inside. I wasn’t going to say anything; except for this poor bastard just happened to walk by while I was standing in line for the cashier. At this point I just lost it and I started yelling at him as he walked by “Hey! dude! You know what? You’re a shitty fucking manager.” he was like “What? what I do?” I continued to chide him “Go out there and look at that parking lot…It’s full of fucking carts, I can’t ever park my damn car!” The people around me are trying to contain there laughter at my carzy ass but some of them still manage to give me support by saying “yeah he is right about the carts.”
Finaly, after him telling me to calm down. Which I did because I saw the security gaurd making his way over to us. He actually DID something about it, because it hasn’t been a problem since.
It’s gotten bad enough that many stores here in Baltimore don’t even allow you to bring your cart out to your car. They have big metal barricades along the edge of the sidewalk with gaps large enough to walk through but not push a cart through. Usually they have a gate for wheelchairs or have a wheelchair gap far away down the sidewalk (which I always thought would be a hassle for anyone having to use a wheelchair).
You have to leave your cart sitting unattended on the sidewalk while you go fetch your car then drive to the front of the store to load up your groceries. Once there, you usually have to wait or fight for a place to park.
Where I live (the Baltimore 'burbs), they’ve done away with that at nearly all the grocery stores and have installed the cart corrals. It used to be like that, and I hated it (leaving my full cart and having to go get my car), but now at just about every store around here, you can take the cart right out to the lot. It’s been like that for at least 10 years - they started doing it at Giant and the other stores all followed suit.
SHAKES, here’s the problem with that solution, other than that you have to behave like an asshole to implement it: You end up paying more for your groceries. As Bambi pointed out, most grocery stores run on very thin margins. If you increase the workload for the personnel to the point that they must put on another person, it ends up costing you more, because the store can’t afford to absorb that cost. Sure, you can have someone in the parking lot 24/7 to clean up the carts that people are too damned inconsiderate to return themselves, but you’re going to pay for that.
The only thing is that sometimes, there are cars lined up, one with their blinker on to get my spot.
I actually feel bad for the guy sitting there waiting while I stroll back to the return area and then stroll back to the car.
I’ll return them fully if there are no cars around, and usually even then (that guy waiting for my spot should understand).
Barring that, IF there is a corral, I’ll return them there.
Barring those two, often there is an impromptu gathering spot in the lot, which I’m making no worse by leaving my cart there.
I never would leave one where it would inconvenience another driver.
The poor design of the parking lot where I grocery shop is part of the problem. It has a “jug handle” of primo spots to the right as you pull in. But, if there are no spots there, you drive out of the jug handle, and park somewhere else. What happens is that 3 or 4 cars will be in the jug handle at the same time. So, if the first guy is waiting for my spot, there are cars lined up behind him who just want to drive OUT of the jug handle.
In that way, bringing the carts back inconveniences several people.
This would also be less of a problem if people didn’t drive SUVs, which extend further into the “lane” and are too wide to go around the people waiting for a spot. They complicate matters 2-fold.
Actually, it’s 1 €, not 1 Franc. And before the euro, it was a 10 FF coin, so more than a pound. Somehow, people came to think that a pound was worth putting back your cart in the rack.
If someone wants to sit and wait for a spot that’s not even empty yet, that’s not my problem. He can move on, or he can sit there while I return my cart, go to the liquor store, pick up a birthday card for my mother, and chat for a while with an ex-neighbor I’ve not seen in a while. Hope he’s patient.
It’s good to know Kroger is doing that, though. The local ShopRite also hires some mentally challenged folks as baggers and cart folks. But even with a tax write-off, I doubt they’re free of charge to the market.
