On a side note, my grandmother is always thankful when someone leaves a shopping cart by the parking space, because she leans on them to help her walk, and it’s often hard for her to walk the distance from the car to the stall.
Generally though, yes, return your cart psycho
The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing. To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate thing to do. To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart. Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it. No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you or kill you for not returning the shopping cart, you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart. You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do. Because it is correct.
A person who is unable to do this is no better than an animal, an absolute savage who can only be made to do what is right by threatening them with a law and the force that stands behind it. The Shopping Cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society.
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Ladies and gentlemen, exhibit A
Your misguided attempt at rebellion against capitalism in reality only hurts the grunt that has to pick up after your inconsiderate ass. You think your behavior actually costs the company anything? You think they hire an extra person because of people like you? No. You just make some poor sap at the bottom of the pecking order that much more miserable
Congratulations on making yourself feel righteous at the expense of your fellow plebs
No, it’s a job and you’re an entitled prick who thinks it magically happens. Supermarkets where I live make billions. They can definitely afford to pay low skilled workers, of which there are plenty, to do this work.
you’re entirely correct, but what people are also missing is: if the weather’s nice, getting outside and pushing carts is a welcome break to the fluorescent lights and other drudgery of the store…
anyone who’s ever actually worked a retail job will tell you that going outside every once in a while is pretty nice.
picking up trash in the rain sucks, but pushing a cart is leisurely compared to whatever else they’ll have you do.We’re definitely on the same side. What many people see as an inconvenience is a job for many. I once had a boss who’s first company was a trolley collection company, he started from nothing, worked hard and sold it for $1m in Australia.
Instructions unclear, nailed shopping cart to the wall
Schau wie sie dieses ausgestopfte Gittertier zugerichtet haben D:
I don’t see a stuffed animal?
There is a bit of German internet lore here. Shopping carts are called Gittertiere (grille animals). And there’s also a community Gittertiere on feddit.de where we post grille animals in the wild, living their natural lives (abandoned shopping carts).
This grille animal was “stuffed”, more accurately translated to taxidermied, which I expressed my sadness about.
Gotcha, thanks for the explanation. That’s pretty funny :)
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Grumbling this to myself for the thousandth time in a Costco parking lot, I looked out at the sea of parked cars and realized that the majority of people probably DO put their carts away responsibly, otherwise the dozen carts I saw askew would’ve been a hundred-fold.
Interestingly, there was a time not too long ago where there was no such thing as returning your carts. No place to put them, and store employees fetched them. I always return my cart so it doesn’t blow away and smash into someone’s car - but I bet a lot of boomers think nothing of leaving it wherever - because that’s kind of what you did.
I’m sorry but there’s No way even boomers get a pass. It’s been expected to return your cart to the stall for longer at least 30 years. In some places you even had to put $1 into the cart to use it and got it back when you returned it ($1 was also a lot more 25 years ago).
There’s really no excuse for not returning the cart today and anyone who fails at this simple task of self-governance is no better than animal.
But who expects you to return it? The company that owns the store? What if I don’t return it in protest of their corporate greed? Who are they to make me do manual labor for free after I just paid them‽ Back in my day they would load your car for you. Lazy company CEOs are too busy counting money to keep their parking lots in order! lol
When I worked at a store we had two sizes of shipping cart and they couldn’t interlock but people would force it anyway or back them in to engage the coin latch. The cart sheds became a total mess and the store was too understaffed and the manager often ended up doing the cars, badly, in favor of pulling people off indoors cleaning or w.e. I often left the cart over a parking separator brick so it can’t roll into cars, but doesn’t add to the jumbled mess in the shed.
we had two sizes of shipping cart… and the store was too understaffed
That’s the store’s own damn fault.
More head office but yeah. They also changed the checkouts from Linux to windows and decided self checkouts could only have one human attendant.
Hypothetical: do you leave your triplet infants in the unsupervised car to return the cart a minute away as to not be deemed an animal by people that didnt see your kids, or do you return the cart then try to carry three infats back and put them in the car? Not everything is black and white.
Buckle your kids in lock your doors. Walk it to the nearest secure spot (where it won’t roll). Return to car.
I agree with this. Safe spot is nearest pothole/planter not in the way of other cars. The whole idea that if you don’t return them to the corral makes you subhuman, my horse ain’t that high folks.
Don’t go shopping with your fucking triplets
If the amount of children you have spawned gives you reason to act as a lesser human being, you need to question your motives, not society.
Parenting can be pretty fucking hard and people should be more gracious or at least understanding with parents for it. Not justifying asshole behavior but just know that they may not be as able to be their best self in that moment.
I used to work bringing in carts at a store and it was the best part of my job. I see this as just a cost of doing business for these giant stores that need carts to begin with, although I always put my cart back. I can understand if the thing is way far away though. Who cares? Let them pay someone a fair wage to keep track of them. We know that will never happen though so you need to bring it back to be considerate to other shoppers. Giving the store free labor lol
Thanks for saying this. Folks that get enraged at the cart thing have something else going on emotionally they need to deal with. Like, the world is out of their control and it’s going to shit so their mind goes to exerting any sort of control it possibly can in order to compensate for their general powerlessness. What we need to do is think hard how to affect what change we can and do that and learn to let go of stuff outside our influence.
Same! I loved just putting on headphones and walking around the parking lot collecting carts.
I don’t put the carts back because it was fun for me and I am giving that me an additional 2 minutes out of the building to just not listen to a Karen complaining at checkout.
I’m curious? Do you also do this at Costco? The one I usually go only has two corrals and they are on the extreme sides of the parking lot, everybody leaves the carts between parking spaces. Abby other store I definitely put the cart in it’s place
I return my cart if they have returns conveniently placed near where I am parked, but otherwise my feelings are well summed up by Zorg.
Zorg was an asshole, and his story about the broken glass is a fallacy. (Look up: ‘parable of the broken window’)
If it’s too inconvenient to return the cart after borrowing it from the store, then don’t borrow it.
I didn’t borrow it, it was provided to me as a service for consideration. The consideration is the not-insignificant markup on all the food I bought from them.
The practical reality is you will never get 100% participation in cart returning and the store will therefore always need people to run the parking lot. They know this, I know this, everybody knows this. Since this is the reality, you pay for the employee to return your carts whether you politely return them or not. Or did you imagine that the grocery store provides carts for everyone out of their deep-seated sense of altruism?
fuck cars
Found the city dweller with a wicked transit system.
Found the person who doesn’t believe in change or will only talk about how it doesn’t apply to rural America!
Found the person who think that only America have rural areas with terrible transit.
What change do you expect to happen in America on this front in, say, the next 10 years?
Not just America. There are non-urban places everywhere.
Rural areas all over face the issue of public transit being infeasible either because distances and/or cost. It’s an actual issue.
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lol - these comments…
What the fuck rocks….
Hey buddy, when I go to a waffle house bathroom and find a discarded needle I don’t make a huge fuss.
I think what I’m trying to say it comes with the territory.