I pit shoppers who leave shit all over the stores.

The BBQ Pit
1

Because my wife is one of them.
She called me at work yesterday to tell me that she’s never shopping at this particular dollar store again.
I said, “Who should I send the thank-you card to?”
silent pause

“That old rag that works there got all bitchy with me.”

“Why, what’d you do?”

“Nothing!”

“Well, you must’ve done something to irritate her, no?”

“All I did was put something back on the wrong shelf.”

“Why’d you do that!?”

“Because I decided I didn’t want it anymore.”

“Oh…”

OK, not a big deal, but apparently the old rag (the clerk, not my wife) had had to pick up after my wife in the past and was on the watch while my wife was shopping. Sure enough, like clockwork, wifey picks up an item, throws it in the cart, and then decided two isles later that she doesn’t want the item and just places it randomly on any nearby surface.
Clerk sees this and walks directly to the item, snatches it up, and then makes some comment meant to be heard by the nearest other clerk on the other side of the store about customers leaving shit all over the store.
Now, I’m torn on this. I can see the frustration of the clerk. She has to pick up after lazy shoppers all the time, and in this case after the same shopper all the time.
I can also see my wife’s POV. She says that she’s the costumer and she feels that she should be able to change her mind seventeen times during a shopping trip and leave all manner of goods wherever her little heart desires (this makes it a pain for other shoppers and for the clerks at these stores for obvious reasons).
She will tell you that she’s the costumer and that even if the clerk was frustrated she should have kept it to her self. She’s the costumer and the clerks get paid to keep the store tidy.
Fine, but I hate it.

I do not like putting stuff back on the worng shelves, whereas the wife was even caught one time putting perishable foods back in a non-refridgerated part of the store. She only did that once.
I hope.
I don’t know if it’s the mildly OCD in me that wants things to be organised, or that I actually give two shits about making clerks go out of their way to keep their stores clean and organised. I don’t like shopping in unkept stores and I certainly don’t want to participate in making them so.

Also, as far as misplacing items, - I notice that many, many other shoppers do this too, my wife is by far not the worse, nor the only.
On the other hand, I seem to be the only shopper that will walk a few isles over to place an unwanted item exactly where it came from. I’ll even straighten items up if I see they’re about to fall off the shelf or off the pile onto the floor.

I dunno, I just think it stinks of laziness, pretentiousness, and possibly some other adjective that won’t come to mind at this point.

Sorry this ain’t the expletive laden piece that most of you are used to but I had to get this off my chest and I placed it in the pit 'cause I wanted to leave room for the potential for colorful debate.
There will be some of you who will blast me for not sticking up for my wife (who, I realise, was somewhat verbally assaulted in the store - not directly, but it made her uncomfortable) but me and her have been over this a million times. Put the shit back where you found it!
And some of you will take her side, if that’s possible. :wink:

And don’t feel you have to hold back just because she’s my wife, I fully understand the dellicacies of the situation, so let er rip.

2

Literally? Yeah, that’s pretty disgusting.
I am wholly on the side of the clerk. People like your wife are grade-B jerks*, who get bumped up to grade-A if they leave perishable food in places where it will thaw/spoil.

*by definition: They don’t consider how their actions affect others but only their own convenience

3

I’m with you. Pisses me right off to find the perishables in the non-refrigerated sections. It is ruining the food for other customers.

It also pisses me off, to a lesser extent, when other crap is stuffed haphazard back on any old shelf. Especially if it’s the last of it’s kind, there are no more in the appropriate spot, but I happen upon the item in question the next isle over, or wherever.

4

It stinks to me that your wife, even having been shown the error of her ways by you, and now a clerk, still has it in her head that it’s ok to do this. It isn’t ok. Not by a long shot.
“She’s the customer.” Um, yeah. The exact same kind of customer who is under the impression that they are right no matter what and goes out of their way to make things more difficult for the people on the other side of the counter, I’ll bet. Has she met The King Of The Universe? There’s a thread around here about that. I’ll have to find it. It’s funny.
Tell her to get over herself. What she’s doing is wrong. And ugly. And pretentious. And elitist. And self absorbed.
She doesn’t return shopping carts to their proper place, either, because, “They pay people to do that.” Right?
Snob.

5

I know someone who has to pick up all that shit left by other people and put it back where it belongs. I hear about it several times a week. I’m totally on your side.

What’s so difficult about, when you decide you don’t want something after all, either putting it back where it belongs or giving it to the clerk as you check out to replace in the proper spot? That saves them a LOT of agravation. Plus odds are likely they’re really not getting paid enough to have to clean up after slobs like your wife who really don’t care about anyone else, especially the store personnel.

The clerk shouldn’t have been so openly nasty. On the other hand, I can completely understand why she was so frustrated. If your wife does it to the point where she’s KNOWN for doing it, she’s an unmitigated ass and deserves a major talking-to.

6

Your wife has obviously never worked retail. It only takes one afternoon of refolding the on-sale sweaters 1000x to realize what a bitchy thing that is to do.

Someone else said your wife is a snob, and I agree. She thinks she is more important than the store clerk because she is the customer. Not so - of course the clerk is there to help her, but not to serve her like a slave. And the store clerk is a person, too.

7

It’s very frustrating for shoppers, too. Sometimes I miss the item I was looking for because there was some misplaced item in front of it. I’ve learned to look at the shelf tags closely.

I liken it to not putting shopping carts in the corrals once you’re finished with them. Nobody’s going to make you, you don’t deal with the consequences, but it’s inconsiderate of others. Plus the employees have to clean up after you, which surely affects their attitudes.

8

So. I’m mustering no sympathy for the lazy, inconsiderate wife.

And the store clerk loses any sympathy for dealing with the lazy, inconsiderate shopper by being a passive-aggressive jackass.

And then there’s this petty little gem of passive-aggression:

Which leaves my sympathies with… no one?

9

I swear, when it is busy at the Wal-Mart near us, it looks like a bomb went off. Stuff is just strewn EVERYWHERE. I just don’t understand the way of thinking that it’s ok not to pick up things you drop on the floor, or that its ok to just leave merchandise wherever.

The other day at a Super Target I saw a package of chicken sitting out on top of a shelf…IMO, that’s the same thing as stealing. There’s no way to know how long that chicken was sitting out, so now it will have to be thrown away (at least, hopefully it will be!) Really aggravated me.

10

Depending on the store, not returning the carts isn’t all that bad. I was a courtesy clerk (cart and handbasket retriever/grocery loader/window and sidewalk cleanup) in a store that was rarely very busy. Slamming the carts around was sort of fun, except when some doof complained that I was making too much noise.

11

Oh, gosh, I hate that. I won’t say I’ve never been guilty of it, but it’s only on the seriously rare occasion that I don’t really have time to go all the way back across the store to put something back. I’ve also given things to the clerk and told them I’d changed my mind about buying them. But I’m pretty considerate about returning items to wherever I’ve gotten them from.

12

nope, no sympathy for the wife. Got some sympathy for the clerk even w/the snippiness, since it seems that wife has done exactly this quite a bit at that store - enough anyhow for the clerk to remember who she was and track her. I thought the card joke was funny myself.

13

I thought to bring up this little gem of an argument while I was looking for that thread I mentioned that I now can’t find. My search capabilities are hopeless.

Anyway, what gets up my ass about the perishables thing, is that if you have a store clerk that is less than concientious, that perishable, unless really obviously rancid, is going back on the shelf, I’ll betcha. How 'bout that TV dinner that sat next to the cat food? Has it thawed completely, only to be re-frozen when someone notices it and puts it back where it belonged originally? In that case, the next poor sap who grabs that package is taking a serious food poisoning risk just by popping it in the microwave. Maybe that poor sap is elderly. Food poisoning could be lethal! Not that I really want to go down the slippery slope on this. I hate doing that. But I will say that the more I think about it, the more I’d like you to find a way to change this in her. Snobs piss me off.

14

I never considered that. I can see how someone could let off a little steam that way. But still, at Target during Christmas? Just rude.

15

I must be the lone ranger about the cart thing. I generally like it when there’s a cart right by where I’m parked (especially at the grocery store when I’m returning bottles).

16

Well, if it’s not perishables, then IMHO it’s just a minor Pet Peeve. But, damn it, if it’s perishables, you’re either stealing or running a risk of killing someone with bad food. And, yes, that is because sometimes the stock clerks are being lazy and as Faruiza and Sarahfeena pointed out- they may be restocking spoiled food.

So, if it’s a can of soup, then it’s a very very minor sin as long as you don’t do it all the time. But with perishables- at least fucking put them in an appropriate cooler/freezer, damnit. Seriously, you could be killing a child if you don’t. (Children are particularly susceptible to food poisoning and such) :mad:

In either case, if you change you mind- why not just do it at the checkstand, where they can run the perishables back NOW and dump the rest in a cart to be reshelved? :confused:

17

A basic lesson my wife and I have tried to teach our kids:

“Don’t make work for other people.”

18

When I get to be king every person will have to work in retail for at least 6 months before they are allowed to shop on their own.
Trust me, this would fix the problem pronto.
After working retail over 30 years ago, not only do I take the item back to the proper shelf, I have been known to move items that are close to where the belong back to the right place, or pull stock to the front when I pick an item for my cart.
Maybe that makes me a little Monkish, but I think I need all the good karma I can get.

19

Why not knock things over?

After all, it’s the clerk’s job to pick them up. :rolleyes:

20

I initially read this as “a package of CHILDREN” and thought, “Man, Tar-zhay really is more upscale than Wal-mart!”

And I’m sorry, but your wife was being a jerk. Most of us were taught in kindergarten that it’s very bad manners to deliberately make a mess, and if you accidentally make one you clean it up. What the hell short-circuits in people’s brains when they walk into a store that makes them believe that just because they’re spending a couple of bucks basic consideration can be tossed right out the window?