In the UK you have to put a £1 coin in to unlock it. Whenever you return the trolley back, it gives you the coin back
If you scatter carts in random places the supermarket has to employ someone to collect them. So you are a job creatorTM. This is why I never return my cart, and also why I jump on cartons of milk in the dairy aisle and take a dump in the broccoli.
People who actually think this are using it as an excuse for their bad manners.
The person employed by the supermarket to gather carts is not employed to return your cart to the cart return near your vehicle. They are employed to gather the carts from the cart return near your vehicle and bring them back to the store building’s cart return.
By doing this, you do not create more jobs (as the cart return employee position already exists whether you return your cart or not), you create more work for an already probably underpaid employee and you also increase everyone’s autoinsurance because when the wind blows the carts damage other people’s vehicles.
OK, you got me, I actually always return my cart and seldom shit in the broccoli.
But there’s only a certain amount of labor a fixed number of employees can absorb. Imagine a scenario where everyone everywhere agrees to stop returning shopping carts - grocery store employees would be forced to spend their entire shift just corralling them, and then they wouldn’t be able to man the cash registers or stock the shelves or whatever else, thus forcing the store to hire another employee on each shift to be the dedicated shopping cart return person.
Logically, every store everywhere tries to run with the minimum number of people possible to keep costs down. The idea is to create a situation where that minimum number of people is increased.
I definitely have the unpopular opinion of disagreeing. As much as I’d like to employ manners with my grocery store, if there’s no corral within a 30 second walk from me, I don’t put the cart back. Most of my purchases are under 8 items and I usually don’t use a cart so I just carry everything by hand in the store and out.
My grocery store doesn’t care about manners on their end. It treats me like an economic unit and even makes self checkout the most reasonable option. They’d have me clean the floors as part of the checkout if they could. From a utilitarian perspective, it makes more sense for one person to gather all the carts in a batch rather than each individual going back for their individual cart.
The insurance rates thing is a legitimate point ( insurance is a racket, though. Fuck those guys too)
“They don’t have good manners, so I won’t have good manners” is a terrible way of thinking and living. If everyone did this, it would only take one person to completely eradicate good manners from humanity forever.
From a utilitarian perspective
Pretty sure that’s not what utilitarianism means lol
Except that loose carts roll away and get blown by the wind scratching other people’s cars. Carts put up on curbs and in gravel etc. ruins the wheels making everyone’s experience worse. Carts left in the parking lot block spaces so people can’t park in lots that already sometimes are overfilled.
You’re not ‘sticking it to the man,’ the store owner or corporate shareholders who make the rules and set the prices don’t care, you’re making life worse for your fellow shoppers.
That explains Elon Musk. He’s a job creator, right? Destroyer of everything.
I actually use this rationale for why I don’t use the self-checkout lanes. Why should I do the work for the grocery store that they should be paying somebody else to do?
My local supermarket added 8 self checkout machines, and removed almost all the cashier lanes.
For a year, they pushed everyone towards the self checkout. Every… Body. Old people were clogging up the Customer Service section because they want a human. The machines constantly failed to scan, and people would just shrug and pretend like it did.
The deviants started to realize it’s super easy to steal, as they can just pay for 1/10 of their groceries and “forget” to scan a lot of things. They started to lock up a lot of merchandise, and you need a human to unlock it.
So now they have hired security guards to then scan receipts, as well as follow people in the parking lots.
The whole supermarket is kind of a shit show. I counted 5 security guards to 2 workers when I was last there. I also do my shopping elsewhere.
The anger over this always amuses me (I put my cart back in the corral btw). But there was a time in the very recent past, where there was no such thing as a cart corral. You simply left your cart in the lot and an employee was paid to fetch them (I also used to do this job as a kid - it was a great job).
You return your cart because it’s the right thing to do
I return my cart because it gives me a sense of superiority
We are not the same
You return your cart because it’s the right thing to do
I return my cart to get my euro back that I put in to unlock it
Mr fancy pants here with full euro coins.
I treasure my red plastic €0.50 coin replica more than my life.
You guys can use €0.50 coins?! Over here in Australia it’s either a $1 or $2 coin. I wish I could chuck a 50¢ piece in the trolley.
what I don’t get is when there’s multiple rows of carts, people often put their cart in the row that is already the longest, instead of putting it in the shortest one to balance it out
No one will punish you for not returning the cart
My opinion on this is reason number 8735 why I will never, and should never, be in charge of a country.
I too have thousands of reasons why I shouldn’t be in charge of a country, however I do have one good pitch.
My appointment to dictatorship would be guided solely by autism. I guarantee my powers will only be focused upon my two fixations that deal with the general public, trains and healthcare.
If made supreme leader I will not only make the trains run on time, there will be more trains, more hospitals, we would even have trains that can take you to your job at the hospital. I would shape the perfect world for me, and vicariously a more efficient and safer world for you.
Demand Me for dictator 2024
Why not put the hospital in the train? Instead of taking the train to the hospital, the hospital comes to you
Tbh, I would love to see it. But our railway infrastructure is dog shit atm, and we wouldn’t be able to expand the network fast enough to accommodate something as luxurious as a railway hospital until much later.
My first goal would be to expand the network to the point where cars are unnecessary for the vast majority of my citizens. This would both increase rail traffic to acceptable levels and help alleviate the unnecessary healthcare cost and harm of motor vehicle accidents.
Become my peon, every peon gets healthcare and can apply to drive an electric train. Me -2024
Because that is essentially what an ambulance currently is, and it conveniently comes right to your house, park, or business where you are dying. There are very few immediate life-saving measures that can be done at the hospital and not in the ambulance. Ambulances with paramedics are referred to as MICUs for a reason.
Don’t be a lazybones folks!
I hate this guy. Call people out, sure, but keep your stupid magnets off my car.
The stores don’t give a shit. The customers don’t give a shit. The only one that gives a shit is this guy and his followers. Also, he’s a fucking creep. Watch his video where he went to Australia and followed a pair of women to their house to shame them for walking their cart to the house.
It’s telling that you side with (what is almost always) the giant billions-dollar corporation and don’t even mention the worker who is probably already being exploited. That’s who cares. That’s who gets extra work, especially out in the cold/rain/wind/snow/hail, with no extra pay.
In line with the original post you’re right: no one will fight for them and no one will fine or arrest you, but don’t pretend people’s selfish laziness impacts no one…
How am I siding with a corporation? The only people involved are the guy harassing people for YouTube views and the people he’s harassing.
The stores aren’t involved in the altercations at all, other than to say “we don’t give a shit if you leave your cart out. If we did, we would do something about it.”
If a disabled person used a cart all through the store, and to their car, their disability should therefore not impede their ability to return the cart.
If someone is using the mobility scooter, that’s a different story.
Edit for clarity, if it does impede the ability, it does. That’s the end of the story, and the meme.
If you need to use the scooter, then you’re not using a cart. You just have to be able to hobble between the store itself and your car. And sometimes you can hand it to someone to drive back to the store.
As someone who has recently needed it for several very different temporary medical issues in the past 4 or so years (better now tho- it’s been a very weird time for me lol), I’ve seen that a lot of randos in the parking lot will even enjoy riding it back for you lol. Kids love it.
I am pro-“cart abandoners deserve the gulag”, but we’ve also gotta recognize that some disabled people may need the cart for balance, and if they return it, they now have to walk across the parking lot without that crutch. Maybe the right answer is to put cart returns next to disabled spots?
I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. Disabilities are really diverse and the US at least has shit healthcare. I can totally imagine someone using the last of their strength or energy to get back into their car. I wish everyone returned their carts, too, but I have empathy for people who just hit the end of their rope.
There should be a requirement for cart return spots next to the handicap parking. In places where there is a return 10 feet from the spots I still see a ton of carts in the parking spots.
I get that it can be hard, but it seems way too frequent that they could do the whole store but just couldn’t make that last 10 feet. Like sure, occasionally that is inderstandable.
So I will judge them while also grabbing the cart and either using it or putting it away because that is the right thing to do.
So the reason you don’t do this is because cart returns create a cluster of obstacles. Many people just go cart curling, aiming generally for the return and walk off, which can make an insurmountable obstacle for the handicaped person. Also handicapped spots are at the entrance to the store - if someone is going to return their cart, they’ll go the extra 50’ to do it. If they’re a fuckin asshole that doesnt return their carts, its better not to give them a target around which to cluster their assholeness.
I take it from the downvotes that this is not a place for discussion, this is a place for confirming your biases. Carry on.
They’re getting downvotes because they’re implying that people with a disability can’t return their carts, which is ableist as fuck. People without a disability might not know this, but you can just ask for assistance at the check-out, and someone from the store will typically help you to your car and bring the cart back for you.
I know this isn’t the way it’s supposed to work “per the rules”, but I think downvotes are an incredible tool for discussion. It’s a way to simply and clearly make your opinion known without taking the time to write a comment. But because Spez and co. decided that downvotes “aren’t supposed to work that way” 20 years ago, the worst people on the internet will scold you for using the voting system just like everyone else does.
