There have been several threads on this issue. Lemme raise one point. Last week, I was babysitting for a married couple that I’m friendly with. One of my duties was to go shopping for the family. When I brought the groceries back to the car, I left the cart in that space next to me.
Before you call me an ass, remember that I had two children with me, one infant and one toddler. There is no way in Hell I’m gonna risk them being kidnapped just to return a cart (yes, kids do get kidnapped that way). I know my role as a babysitter is to watch the children, not leave them alone in public.
If I have to choose between neglecting my babysitting duties and ruining a parking spot…that spot is getting ruined. Deal with it. Some would say that one can park next to a cart corral. Not always possible, especially when the lot is full to overflowing and the only available space is a few hundred yards away from the nearest corral.
Yeah, return the cart when you can. Just remember that SOME cart leavers have good excuses.
A few years agoone possible solution for that was introduced here, although as far as I have heard many Americans don’t like the idea too much. In virtually all stores with a parking lot you only get a cart for a deposit, usually one euro. This way most people return them and if you feel you have a good reason not to do so you just sacrifice the coin. You leave the cart and within seconds some kid or economical person will be happy to return it.
I could see that as being a valid reason for not returning the cart, if the weather were inclement. However, you can bring 2 kids into the store with no cart, why not put the groceries in the car, lock it, wheel the cart, and kids to the corral, then bring them back to the car? If it’s a grocery store, why not get a bagger to push the groceries out to the car, if that is a service the store offers? It should be a rare event, there usually are ways to return the cart.
Who gives a rats ass if it’s hard or not, it’s not my job. I don’t expect to have to stock the shelves in the store, mop the floor, weigh the produce, or do any of the other jobs that are properly done by store employees, why the fuck should I have to return my cart to the designated area? If they make it worth my while, as when they require a coin to acquire the cart then I might, otherwise I just leave it where it lays. Why should I make it easier for the stores to eliminate the jobs of cart pushers?
Lemme guess. You’re one of those fucking assholes who refuses to pick up an item that you knock off a shelf because it’s someone else’s job to do that? Fuck you, prick.
Ah, but it IS your job as a productive member of society not to cause too much trouble for others, that being the essence of the idea behind returning carts to the corral. If the wind causes a cart to ding a person’s car, guess who ends up paying? ALL of us, in the form of higher insurance rates at the very least.
Why the hell DON’T you clean up your own mess? If I knock something off a rack or shelf, I usually pick it up and put it back. Unless it’s something glass, then I quickly contact someone so they can get people to clean it up, because I geniunely care about other members of society, and don’t want some poor kid to slip and cut themselves etc. Lazy asshole! Didn’t your mom make you pick up your messes at home? Or, did she cater to you hand and foot? You sir, are not a productive member of society however much you may puke and mewl that you are!
Bill Door - Voted Most Likely to Bitch and Moan if a Stray Cart Scratches His Car Because Those Damn Store Employees Didn’t Put It Away Post-Haste, It’s Their Job, Dammit!
When I’m in the situation described by the OP (having a small child with me), I park right next to a cart corral. This way, I can put my baby in her car seat, and put the cart in the corral, and keep within arm’s length of the car.
Bill Door, if more people thought the way you did, then the stores would operate the way they did when I lived in Glen Burnie (a suburb of Baltimore); in that town, you weren’t allowed to take your cart to your car. You had to leave the cart just outside of the store, full of your groceries if you had too much to carry, and drive your car to where your groceries were, and load them from there.
Oh, one of the stores in Glen Burnie did this. The carts were all chained into one another. You could unchain one by depositing a quarter into a little drawer; then when you chained it back into another cart, the drawer would pop out and you could take your quarter back. I thought it was really clever. Also, I could almost always make about a buck, returning carts that no one else had.
Of course they are under no obligation to provide me with a cart, just as I am under no obligation to shop there. Why does their providing a cart burden me with some kind of an obligation? They provide lots of things, climate control in the store, lighting in the parking lot, coolers for the frozen food. I’m not expected to make these things easier on them, am I? They should put sufficient margin on their prices to pay for all of those thaings, and someone to round up the carts.
It’s like when the gate agents at the airport try to get you to use the kiosks instead of a human being. I always ask. "Do you have someone to fly the plane, or will I be expected to pitch in there too?. Most of them are honest enough to admit that they hate the kiosks too, but the company, to lay off more people, require them to encourage their use.
Let me guess, you never hold open the door for someone with their hands full, either? After all, it’s not your job.
Because you are inconveniencing your fellow customers by not doing so? Because you are blocking otherwise empty parking spaces and putting the carts in a position where they can be blown by the wind into other cars, causing minor damage?
You’re not expected to stock the shelves, but you should put any items that you may knock off the shelves back where they belong.
You’re not expected to mop the floor, but you should do your best to either deal with (or inform the proper store personnel about) anything that you spill on the floor.
Likewise, you’re not expected to take your cart back into the store, but you should return it to the nearest designated area to increase cart-gathering efficiency and reduce on minor dings to other cars (and your own) caused by loose carts.
Returning carts to their designated areas will not eliminate jobs. It will make the job more efficient, meaning that the store will always be well stocked with carts rather than having the employees spend all their time rounding up carts that assholes like you have left free to be blown by the wind to the four corners of the parking lot.
One of my hundreds and hundreds of pet peeves . . .
All around my local Shop-Rite are signs saying, “Do Not Remove Carts from Property.” We’re not taking about leaving them around the bloody parking lot–the damn things are scattered all over town.
I have a collapsable “little old lady cart” I use to do my marketing. Cost about $20. But for some reason, people seem to think they can just steal the carts from the Shop-Rite and leave them lying on streets, sidewalks, lawns, for the (overworked and underpaid) Shop-Rite employees to work late and gather back.
Bastards. Thieves. Litterers. Whenever I see someone wheeling their groceries home in a Shop-Rite cart, I innocently ask, “Oh, you can buy those? Where can I get one?” They invariably say, “No, they don’t mind if you take them,” and I answer that “gee, all the signs around the store say that stealing them is a felony.”
I knew homeless people stole carts (and them I could almost kinda excuse since they’re desperate, often mentally ill and need some way to transport their belongings- one of those “ain’t saying it’s right, but I understand” things), but I had no idea that “homed” people stole them. That’s just sickening. (Hell, why pay for the groceries? The store’s just going to throw them out if nobody buys them anyway- load up the cart and head out the door.)
Okay, I can admit when I got my ass kicked. Next time I babysit, the kids come with me to the cart corral, then I bring them all back to the car with me.
Thanks, I needed that. Seriously, it’s appreciated.
Your youngest is six weeks, eh? Congrats on the new addition to your family.
Heh. Try living in Vegas. Stealing shopping carts from stores is a way of life here. On any given day, if you wander through the parking lots of any given apartment complex, you will see at leas a dozen of them salted away in strategic areas where they can be easily grabbed for the next shopping trip. I even see the occasional Wal-Mart cart, even though they have those wheels that lock if you take them out of the parking lot.
When I was working at Wal-Mart, I was forever aghast at the number of people who would come to the register pushing carts they had taken from the Lowe’s next door.
Oh, don’t get me started! There’s a supermarket right down the street from me (really, you can see it from my front porch); I love this when we get those nasty snow storms, but there’s a ridiculous number of shopping carts around the neighborhood. Once, someone put one in my freakin’ yard, so I called the store. The conversation, unbelievably, went something like this:
Male voice: “Thank you fol calling Martin’s. May I help you?”
Me: “Yes, I wanted to let you know that, I live up on Spring Street, and someone has put one of your shopping carts in my yard. Does someone from the store want to come get it?”
Male voice: “Is it in your way?”
Me: “Well, not exactly, but aren’t those things expensive? I thought you might want to send someone to get it. I’m only two blocks away”
Male voice: “Uh, no, we don’t really do that. But, if, uh, you don’t want it in your yard, you could always, uh, put it in your neighbors’ yard or something”
Jesus freakin’ Christ! A store employee recommending I put it in a neighbors’ yard if it’s in my way??? WTF is that??
