<godwin>
It also helped Hitler rise to power!!!111
</godwin>
Now, if Netscape 6 was referring to my OP, there was no diaper involved in that case - and even if there was one, I’d have stuck it in the diaper pail I keep in the car when I babysit.
Honestly, it depends on the store or the time of day. Sometimes they’re busy and don’t have baggers and I just hop in and do it myself. Or we’re buying lots of stuff and I figure we’ll get out faster if I do it myself. [sarcasm]I know I’m lowering myself by stooping down and working beside The Help, but I figure that’s a sacrifice I can make. [/sarcasm]
I do bag my own groceries at the store, when possible. Often, the managers get panicky when they see me bagging my own groceries and rush over, either bringing a bagger or even bagging the groceries themselves so that I don’t have to. I don’t mind, as I like the way I pack the groceries better.
It’s a service provided to the customers at grocery stores in America. I don’t see anything wrong with that. But I see no reason to make people’s jobs harder by not putting buggys back into the corrals that are located all over the parking lots. It’s laziness, plain and simple.
My arguement was not that we could save money by doing away with the jobs of cart pushers. I don’t think such a job was ever intended by the grocery industry. I am not in favor of firing all the baggers to save a penny or two in my grocery basket. I think that it’s a good thing that we provide jobs that don’t require a great deal of skill or knowledge to perform.
My point is merely that we shouldn’t make things worse for the people who are already doing a crummy job for substandard pay.
~J
Dunno how it’s done, but it is fairly common in the U.K. also.
Put a pound coin in a trolley, trolley can then be detached from its herd of trolley-friends, and will move happily. BUT if the clever magic messes up (I presume when the thing does not believe it has been paid) the wheels of the trolley/shopping cart sort of lock so as to make it very very difficult to make it move in desired direction. No problem, because that rarely happens, and a chap can come along with a magic key to sort it out.
It is, of course, a pain, if I arrive at the sho wihtout the pound coin - ie perhaps only having larger amounts, or, more frustratinlyg, having a pound note but not a coin. However, this is not a problem either, as all shoppers hapily co-operate to sort out change etc for each other.
Strangely, I b]think one local stores (Tesco, if it mtters) has notcies warning that, not only do they nt want people to take trolley beyeond a certain point, but that the trolleys will, in fact cease to work properly beyond that point.
Things seem to have changed since I was a tiny young Celyn!
Oh what a lovely mess that post was.
Sorry, folks, my glasses fell apart yesterday and I am peering at the screen in a very Mr. MGoo sort of way. (And as for the world more that 5 or 6 feet ahead of my nose…
)
I’ve seen some of these people. In a certain neighborhood (Pentagon City), there’s like an unofficial “place all carts here” spot two blocks from the stores. The most common cart herders I’ve encountered simply tie all the carts together, no matter what store they belong to, and wheel them back to where they belong. Some of these herders load their quarry onto a truck first, then go to the stores.
I once was a part-timer at a grocery store, one of the guys who helped customers put groceries into their vehicles, collected handbaskets from around the registers and carts from our lot. Earth to Bill Door, there’s more to the job than just gathering carts!
It was the only job I could get at the time and I ran into my share of assholes. Like the guy who tried to pick a fight with me when I accidently elbowed him while helping a customer. Or the guy who said I was making too much noise with the carts. I never encountered anyone who said they were helping ensure I had a job, not even a store manager.
Not disputing you, but just curious. How on earth do you manage to carry a tiny baby in its carrier, a toddler, a purse on your shoulder, AND keep hold of two small children TOO, clear across a parking lot from the cart korral to the car?
My gosh, your arms must be killing you by the time you get to your car.
Personally, I return the cart, 9 times out of 10, if I can’t find the cart korral, if not, I will at least put the cart up on the little sidewalk thingie between the two rows of cars, or near the front of the row, so it won’t roll into a car.
The only times I’ve NOT returned the cart were when I was still in Alaska this past winter, and the store had refused to plow the lot for several days. It’s hard enough to push the cart through all the ruts and ice with a recovering broken leg, if they’re not going to maintain the lot, they can come get the damn cart themselves (PS this was Fred Meyer, I never had that problem with “Carrs” Alaska’s chain grocery, but Fred Meyer was closer to home).
I’d like to point out that the big difference here is that there isn’t a sign in your hotel room asking you nicely to make your own bed, and there isn’t a sign at the restaurant asking you nicely to bus your own table. There is a nice sign on all the cart corrals saying “please return the cart here”.
The restaurant example is, in fact, spot on target. In fast food places (and some slightly-higher scale places) there are garbage cans in prominant locations and food is served on trays, making it easy for you to take your trash to the garbage can, and it’s expected that you do so, as part of the cheapness of the price you paid for you meal comes from the fact that they don’t need to hire bussers.
But in a higher-priced restaurant, you pay more, and they don’t expect you to bus your own tables. At a local grocery store that my wife frequents when she has the kid by herself, the checker takes your groceries out of the cart as they get scanned, then the bagger pushes your cart out to your car, unloads the groceries for you, and then pushes the cart back to the store. Food prices there are significantly higher than at the grocery store where you have to bag your own groceries.
And complaining about ATMs is about the stupidest thing I’ve heard all day. Yes, I loved “the good old days” when you were SOL if you didn’t remember on Friday to go across town to the bank to pick up money for the weekend. An ATM does it’s job of dispensing cash better and more efficiently than a teller, and that’s the bottom line.
-lv
That’s a pretty big generalisation don’t you think? What do you do, stand around doing your own little poll when you go shopping. Look at that lazy devil getting help with their groceries, oh no, it’s an elderly person, that’s ok then.
Perhaps you ought to feel like a plum more often, especially as the queue behind you builds up while you ensure your system is not" buggered up"
I prefer to bag my own groceries but when the shop provides the facility and there’s a load of people behind me at the check out I prefer to have help to reduce their waiting time. Try it sometime, and as you get used to it, you will feel less like a plum.
V
The grocery store where I do the majority of my shopping has a bagger at each checkout. I place my canvas bags on the belt first and by the time I have finished paying, the order is completely bagged. In the express lane each item goes across the scanner and is placed directly into a bag by the clerk. So I never bag my own groceries there. I shop occasionally at a discount place (like Save-a-Lot) and always bag my own. The checker usually has the order all rung up when I’m halfway done, I hand over my payment and finish up bagging while he or she completes the transaction.
On a busy Saturday during the Christmas shopping season, I did some shopping at this huge discount gift store–a chain here in the Northeast called the Christmas Tree Shop. The place was mobbed (and I should pit myself for being idiotic enough to even go there in the first place) with lines of customers at each checkout. In order to speed at least my own progress through the transaction, I grabbed the items the young woman had scanned and started to put them in bags which were right there. She stopped me and told me I was not allowed to bag. I stopped bagging but asked her why. The cashier said it was store policy and was for insurance reasons. Anyone else ever had a store refuse to let you bag your own?
Man, I had no idea this was such a hotly contested issue.
Like CanvasShoes, I return my cart to the corral 9 out of 10 times. I figure if they provide so many of them throughout the lot, they obviously would like their customers to use them.
OTOH, if it’s really horrific weather, or if I parked a good distance from the nearest corral and am in a rush, I’ll push the cart onto the nearest curb so it doesn’t blow away and isn’t clogging up a parking space, and not really think anything of it. I honestly didn’t think it was that huge of a deal, certainly not on par with…
gasp! not bagging your own groceries when the store provides the service! gasp! :eek:
Speaking of which, I had never bagged my own grocieries before, never really thought about it. After the latest thread on the subject, I started bagging my own stuff and got a mixed response. Sometimes the cashier will say thanks and smile, other times they’ll glare at me like I’m honing in on their turf.
Basically, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no right or wrong way to do your grocery shopping, other than waiting until the last possible minute to get your money out, of course. That should be punished by death. Not bagging your own groceries is not going to make the store’s operations come to a screetching halt, neither is failing to bring your cart to the corral.
Get a little perspective people. Sure, these are things you should aim to do. But failing to do them when circumstances would pose it to be inconvienent is hardly something to get so worked up about. After all, if you shop at a store that provides a bagger and/or someone to collect carts (yes, oftentimes it’s both) I’d probably say the store isn’t going to pitch too much of a fit if you opt to actually use some of these services when circumstances make it more convienent than doing it yourself. Otherwise, what’s the point in paying for them? I might as well just shop at Pak N Save.
It really is impossible to make a jokey, sweeping statement on the SDMB without getting pulled up about it isn’t it? Obviousley I don’t poll people, yes I have no idea whether they are old or lazy, I just meant that it isn’t common here and you effectivley have to request the service. My system works very well and is quick (I have been shopping for a while) and it also means that particular items are packed so as to avoid breakage, judging from previous posts hired baggers generally don’t take much care. Also by the time someone has been obtained to bag for me I would be halfway through it.
Then why do you take the cart out of the store at all? In fact, why did you respond to this thread?
As for me, I always return the cart to a designated point. And I would never bag my own groceries, because my bagger is so HOT! I often return 4 or 5 times a day just so she can repeatedly bag me…
Oh my, that’s just wrong on so many levels…
Never mind…
I don’t buy that Bill believes he isn’t supposed to return his cart to a corral. If a person selects a cart, it’s common sense to put it back. I’m pretty sure the store employees know where the carts belong, so I very much doubt the big signs saying “cart return” or the other variations, is for an employee’s benefit. Because an employee will clean up after a customer, does not give one a license to be lazy.
[QUOTE=CanvasShoes]
Not disputing you, but just curious. How on earth do you manage to carry a tiny baby in its carrier, a toddler, a purse on your shoulder, AND keep hold of two small children TOO, clear across a parking lot from the cart korral to the car?
My gosh, your arms must be killing you by the time you get to your car.
[QUOTE]
Baby is in his carrier on the cart, toddler is in the cart, kids are walking next to the cart. We return the cart. Then I’m carrying the carrier, and the 3 kids who are walking hold hand and we walk back to the car.
It’s really not that hard. It’s the exact same way we do it wen we first arrive at the store, just in reverse.
Sorry, almost forgot to comment on the OP.
If I see you juggling severl kids, I’ll offer to take the cart back for you. Being nice doesn’t really require much effort. My wife likes that about me.
Another system I have seen in the UK to prevent carts straying too far is one employed by Waitrose. Here the carts have grooves in the wheels and all the exits of the car-park have a sort of cattle grid with the slots running vertically instead of horizontally. If you try and push the cart over the grid it just stops and the wheels refuse to turn. Of course you could always lift the cart over the grid but , with a full cart , it is a two person job and so probably discourages most people from taking the cart too far.
At a grocery store in southern Spain, we had to bag our own grocies and deposit a Euro in a slot on the cart. Guess what! There were no baggers.
[indent] [sup]Damn Capitalists[/sup][/indent]
This is common , I cannot think of any country in Europe that has baggers. Even in the UK some supermarkets will bag your groceries if you request it,but even then the vast majority of people pack their own stuff.
You call that an answer? I call it bullshit. Why aren’t they comparable? Why are we expected to return carts, but not expected to bag our own groceries? “That’s the way we always do it” is not a valid answer. It never is, no matter what the question.
And since when is this supposed to be “common courtesy”? I’ve lived in the US for twenty-eight years now, I’m generally pretty polite (Pit threads not withstanding) and this thread is the first I’ve ever heard that I’m under some kind of obligation to return carts.
Did you miss the part where both me and Bill Door said we make sure to secure our carts so they don’t blow around the parking lot? Is any of this getting through?