Shopping Cart Craziness

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

One of my pet peeves is putting shopping carts away.  If you can't get them back into the store at least get them into a corral.  Apparently, the man shown in this video attacking a woman for asking him to move the shopping cart he had left behind her car is my opposite number:

http://www.wyff4.com/article/video-woman-thrown-to-ground-yanked-by-hair-after-asking-man-to-move-shopping-cart/22547280

[Larry of the Lawn]

Eh, not sure why we should be doing free labor.  I know there's a cost to have someone collecting them, but you can also look at leaving them all over the place as a job creator. 

As far as the video goes, not going to watch it, there are assholes all over the place and providing free labor for corporations isn't going to fix that.  

[Corvinus85]

It's called decency. Or call it cleaning up after yourself. If you can't move your ass to put the cart in a designated area, at least place it somewhere that's not going to impede car traffic.

[Buckwheat]

Don't the carts where you are come with this lock that demands a coin to be put in if you want to unlock it from other carts? Why would most people spare a dollar/half a dollar/however much money it demands every time they go shopping just to avoid another few steps?

I mean, I can imagine some people being that lazy and that rich that it does not make a difference for them, but I know most people here want their 50 cents / a euro back after they finish shopping. It is not even a lot of money, but just ... the principle.

 

I don't see putting your cart back where you got it as providing free labour, I see it as putting the thing you temporarily borrowed back to its owner.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

29 minutes ago, Buckwheat said:

Don't the carts where you are come with this lock that demands a coin to be put in if you want to unlock it from other carts? Why would most people spare a dollar/half a dollar/however much money it demands every time they go shopping just to avoid another few steps?

I mean, I can imagine some people being that lazy and that rich that it does not make a difference for them, but I know most people here want their 50 cents / a euro back after they finish shopping. It is not even a lot of money, but just ... the principle.

 

I don't see putting your cart back where you got it as providing free labour, I see it as putting the thing you temporarily borrowed back to its owner.

No you don’t need to pay to get a cart ar most groceries in the US.  

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Eh, not sure why we should be doing free labor.  I know there's a cost to have someone collecting them, but you can also look at leaving them all over the place as a job creator. 

As far as the video goes, not going to watch it, there are assholes all over the place and providing free labor for corporations isn't going to fix that.  

Putting your cart away instead of leaving behind a parked car is not providing free labor.  It is choosing not to be a lazy entitled asshole and cleaning up after yourself.

[BigFatCoward]

i recently had a row with someone over them leaving it across the customer walkway between the cars, literally 3m away from where the return point was.  i wanted to punch his face off. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

12 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

i recently had a row with someone over them leaving it across the customer walkway between the cars, literally 3m away from where the return point was.  i wanted to punch his face off. 

Come to America. Here being a cop affords you such desires of violence.

[BigFatCoward]

1 hour ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

Come to America. Here being a cop affords you such desires of violence.

This dude was white though!

[HexMachina]

Worse even than these trolley leavers are those who stop to chat in the middle of the aisle and block said aisle with their trolleys. This isn't the damn community centre, take it outside I'm trying to get the tea bags

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 hours ago, Scott de Montevideo! said:

Putting your cart away instead of leaving behind a parked car is not providing free labor.  It is choosing not to be a lazy entitled asshole and cleaning up after yourself.

I'm not advocating leaving it behind someone's car or in the middle of the sidewalk.  But if someone leaves one in an empty parking space?  I don't really care.  

 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

13 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

I'm not advocating leaving it behind someone's car or in the middle of the sidewalk.  But if someone leaves one in an empty parking space?  I don't really care.  

 

 

That sucks too because 90% of the time they leave the cart in a decent parking space.  Further, the bloody carts roll in a stiff wind, right into a car if they aren't properly secured.    All you have to do is get the cart to a corral if not to the inside of the store.  Is that really too much to ask?

[Larry of the Lawn]

3 minutes ago, Scott de Montevideo! said:

That sucks too because 90% of the time they leave the cart in a decent parking space.  Further, the bloody carts roll in a stiff wind, right into a car if they aren't properly secured.    All you have to do is get the cart to a corral if not to the inside of the store.  Is that really too much to ask?

I don't know.  For some people it might be.  The fact that we're having this conversation leads me to believe that yes, it is too much to ask. 

I generally don't use a cart, but it doesn't bother me when people leave them in the parking lot.  The stores have already reduced staff with the self-check out lines, why not add a parking lot attendant to pick up the carts?  

 

 

[Proudfeet]

11 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Eh, not sure why we should be doing free labor.  I know there's a cost to have someone collecting them, but you can also look at leaving them all over the place as a job creator. 

As far as the video goes, not going to watch it, there are assholes all over the place and providing free labor for corporations isn't going to fix that.  

I don't see how corporations play into this. Are you going to litter all over the place so that you can "create jobs" for cleaners? Is it not alright then only because its taxpayers money? Its just basic social responsibility. 

Besides, there will be no job creation. It will be dealt with by adding a duty roster for existing staff, and the other customers who are blocked by the carts will have to move them anyway because the staff will only collect them every hour or so.

14 hours ago, Scott de Montevideo! said:

One of my pet peeves is putting shopping carts away.  If you can't get them back into the store at least get them into a corral.  Apparently, the man shown in this video attacking a woman for asking him to move the shopping cart he had left behind her car is my opposite number:

http://www.wyff4.com/article/video-woman-thrown-to-ground-yanked-by-hair-after-asking-man-to-move-shopping-cart/22547280

You live somewhere where you have to drive to the store. Imagine if you are within walking distance. I've seen people push them right to their front door and leave them there.

[Buckwheat]

13 hours ago, Scott de Montevideo! said:

No you don’t need to pay to get a cart ar most groceries in the US.  

There you have the solution. American shops should implement this kind of trolleys with a lock.

[Alarich II]

13 hours ago, Scott de Montevideo! said:

No you don’t need to pay to get a cart ar most groceries in the US

There's your solution, then. Abandoned shopping carts are incredibly rare here and the deposit you put in the cart is between 50ct and 1€. Customers are so trained into this deposit thing, that supermarkets hand out plastic chips so that you don't even have to put in a coin and People still return their cart to get that piece of plastic back.

The thing is: you won't get far with a "customer is always right", service-oriented philosophy. You need more of a "the customer is an idiot that we have to train like a puppy" attitude. And I'm not sure that American customers would appreciate that.

[Jo498]

One does not have to pay in Germany. It is a deposit (usually a 1 EUR coin, most slots accept two kinds of coins and many people also have re-usable tokens they have on their key-rings) one gets back when the cart is brought back. OTOH hand it saves the menial job that exists sometimes in the US of the person who patrols the parking lot and collects the carts.

It was not always like that. I think until the early/mid 80s or so shopping carts were "free". But I don't remember, I was a child and not frequently enough shopping (or caring for other stuff (sweets, icecream...) while shopping with a parent).

[Loge]

39 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

One does not have to pay in Germany. It is a deposit (usually a 1 EUR coin, most slots accept two kinds of coins and many people also have re-usable tokens they have on their key-rings) one gets back when the cart is brought back. OTOH hand it saves the menial job that exists sometimes in the US of the person who patrols the parking lot and collects the carts.

It was not always like that. I think until the early/mid 80s or so shopping carts were "free". But I don't remember, I was a child and not frequently enough shopping (or caring for other stuff (sweets, icecream...) while shopping with a parent).

The deposit thing came up around 1990. I don't think the issue was people leaving the cart in the parking lot, though. They would leave them in the street or downright steal them. Not sure hoe effective the deposit is, but German retailers have stuck to it. I'm always slightly annoyed by it because you have to make sure you always have a fitting coin in your pocket.

[OldGimletEye]

15 hours ago, Scott de Montevideo! said:

One of my pet peeves is putting shopping carts away.  If you can't get them back into the store at least get them into a corral.  

I pretty much feel the same way. If you think about it, most parking lots are pretty dangerous places with people and vehicles moving around everywhere. I think the clutter of shopping carts everywhere just makes it worse.
 

[Jo498]

Of course, one EUR is still quite cheap, if you want to keep a shopping cart... So it will not help much against real mischief but it does help against the casual chaos in the parking lot or the area where the carts are stored.

I remember when a friend of mine was living in a student dorm in Bonn in the early 1990s, this was in a somewhat run-down area with ugly huge apartment buildings/projects and the students frequently kept a shopping cart or two around the entrance of the dorm for all kinds of transportation needs.