I saw someone leave their cart next to their car and get back in the car. So I grabbed it and put it in the corral a few spaces away. That person drove back through the parking lot to tell me to “mind my own business”. I still get a little schadenfreude about how upset they were over their own conscience and perceived social judgement.
“Be a better person”. Hold onto that one for the next time this happens. It never will though.
“Mind your own business” is such a perfect encapsulation of how completely incapable of self-reflection that person must be.
The cart was no longer their business, but yours. So not only couldn’t they recognise that the judgment they felt came from within, they projected that feeling outwards so hard they ended up sticking their nose into your business about it.
That’s how they avoid learning basic life lessons like, “I should return the cart,” because as soon as they hit the “I should” part they freak out and make it everyone else’s problem.
Why not use the European system where you have to use a coin to unlock the cart from the stack. People are more likely to return the cart if it costs them money if they don’t and if they still leave the cart out some kid or hobo will return it eventually.
Some stores in the US do this, most notably Aldi. It’s kind of a pain in the ass, especially in an increasingly cashless society.
Names a European store.
They sell like coin shaped discs you can put on your keyring, dunno if that’s a thing in the US though.
Yes, I know Aldi started in Europe.
My point was, they have stores in the US, and their stores in the US also do this. Which is unusual for US stores. Trader Joe’s, for example (which is also owned by one of the Aldi companies) just has regular carts without the coin chain things.
[ Removed by Reddit ]
That’s not correct, actually. There were two brothers who inherited Aldi, and they did have a falling out over cigarettes, but they actually split the company in two - Aldi Nord (North) and Aldi Sud (South). As the names imply, they operate the Aldi stores in North and South Germany respectively.
In other countries, either Aldi Nord or Aldi Sud operates the Aldi stores, but they do not directly compete with each other. The exception is the US, where Aldi Sud operates the Aldi stores and Aldi Nord operates Trader Joe’s (which the original owner of Aldi bought from Joe Coulombe in 1979).
Huh, that sounds familiar too. Looks like I screwed this up last time I researched the history of Trader Joe’s for some post like this.
You can 3D print a tool that lets you unlock the cart, then pull the tool back out, so you don’t need to leave anything (coin or otherwise) in the cart to use it.
A good option if it’s available to you, as long as it’s tough enough, would suck if it broke up in there.
They give those out at the shop info where I live
Because we’re not savages, and can return the carts like a civilized society.
“Civilized”
So civilized in fact, there are monetized YouTube channels dedicated to catching & shaming people for not returning their carts.
So it’s kind of like the European system in a way. Instead of getting a coin for returning an abandoned shopping cart, you can get a subscriber count & ad revenue!
That cart narc guy is absolutely obnoxious. Sure I get his angle, and perhaps some people need to be shamed into doing the right thing, but I’m amazed no one has run him over yet.
He had a firearm pulled on him once actually, he walked away very quickly while continuing the bit haha
Yeah I think I saw that, a contractor in his work van in Texas I believe
So civilised.
Well we clearly can’t. Even the existence of corrals shows it’s too much to return a cart to a store we just walked out of with said cart.
Can we just use the nordic system where people are not fucking savages and bring their carts back? I hate people who don’t return their carts but I hate even more when I need coins to unlock the cart. I haven’t carried coins since 2014.
I live in a Nordic country, we have carts which need a coin, most people have a thing on their keychain to unlock a cart, majority of carts are returned.
I need to get one of those, my local (rural) grocery stores don’t have the locking shopping carts and I alway forget to bring a coin when I need to unlock one.
My local aldi does this and still when I get there I find like 3 trolleys scattered around the tiny carpark. I can only grab like two max to take with me to the pen.
Yeah. For a lot of people a quarter is nothing and worth tossing for the convenience of not being a decent person.
Yeah for me the real value here is where the hell am I going to get another quarter. I use my phone to pay and don’t carry cash.
Whenever I go to Aldi (US) there’s usually at least a couple carts with quarters left in the parking lot so I just put them back. The quarters pile up in my car until I eventually bring them inside.
Fine, they can subsidize the cart retrieval employee cost.
Also I discussed this with someone in the UK once and they pay an entire pound for a cart… we do quarters because it’s the largest denomination common coin in the US.
In fact, we are so used to taking them back that we even return shopping carts that we have unlocked without a coin.
Uh, maybe that’s an unfortunate design.
You can and will replace the coin with something worthless of equal shape and size.
Some might think it’s the price for a cheap shopping cart. In German there was a comedian who did a prank call at a store, telling them he bought 500 carts for 500€ and use them as rabbit cages.
German
ComedianThe math ain’t mathing here.
German humor is no laughing matter
Oh of course the Europeans have done it better than us
This is how it is at about half the big grocery stores where I live in Canada
Food Maxx in the U.S. employed this in low income areas to prevent cart thefts. So, that’s nice.
I’m Geordi.
I’m disappointed Q isn’t on this.
Covered by the original’s post text: “Q intentionally leaves his cart in the blind spot behind the most expensive car in the lot.”
Q: increases the gravitational constant of the cart collection area until all the carts fall into it. Keeps going until a singularity forms and the planet is destroyed.
Oops! Disappears with a blink
Q: with a bright flash Captain Picard becomes Captain Picart
Q shops with 1 cart for each item he has, and returns them all upside down.
Can you put names with all these faces? I can only do three. Updated with trash@lemm.ee 's help, we’ve now identified 4.
Top right is Beyond Belief Fact or Fiction “we made it up” guy.
I assume this is funny answers only? Some kinda woooosh? I think a lot of Lemmy could name them all, given how popular Trek is on here.
I’m Levar Burton. This is Reading Rainbow.
I’m also the guy in column 2, number 5.
Counterpoint:
The Wholefoods in Redmond, Wa is known as Hellfoods by their employees because of how cold people are there and how overbearing management can be. It also is in one of the most beautiful parts of the country. When I worked there, I love the warm summer evenings when I could go out to the outfield to fetch a cart because I got to be outside and no longer under the micromanagement that is retail.
When I would clock off, sometimes I’d nab a cart and send it out on purpose for the guy behind me to give them an escape.
Did every other employee feel the same way as you? Because otherwise that’s not a counterpoint.
But you could say the same for the original premise- not every employee hates getting rogue carts, in fact many like getting them.
I gave an anecdotal point, but the broader argument simply questions one of the assumptions of OP.
Yeah bringing in the carts is one of the best parts of some jobs
That original 4chan post is like Jordan B Peterson level, which says more about JBP than the 4chan poster.
Maybe we should make a game show titled “Are you more intellectual than a right-wing grifter?”.
I’m so in the minority here, but I have a different perspective.
I worked at a grocery store for years, with about a third of my job being cart duty. I loved it when people left their carts outside of the corrals, for a few reasons.
First, if a lot of people did so, I would point it out to whoever was the manager on at the time before I went outside. My manager knew that I would take longer before coming back in, and that would give me more time to stroll/relax/enjoy the outdoors before coming back in to customer craziness. Having those extra minutes because my manager didn’t know how long I should take was nice.
Second, sometimes I had to walk way the hell out to the edge of the parking lot, which was really nice for a long walk away from customer craziness. Such walks were very nice when the weather was nice.
Third, it was job security. Working during the recession made my managers want to let as many people go as they could, but customers who made it so even the most efficient cart duty workers took a while to clear the lot effectively kept more of us employeed than management would have employed otherwise.
For those reasons, whenever the weather is nice, I try to leave my cart in a weird spot that is anchored by something. I realize that many other cart duty folks probably dislike me for it, but I know I appreciated it when others did this. So I do it for the folks like me.
I know all of the arguments against it and I’m not trying to debate here. Just sharing a different perspective; sometimes, leaving your cart in a terrible spot can be nice for some of the workers.
Interesting point. So it’s more like
Cart? Returns Leaves Thinks return is right 😇 👿 Thinks leave is right 👿 😇 whenever the weather is nice
I definitely don’t miss helping out with the carts on a freezing winter morning in Colorado and trying not to fall on my ass.
It cracks me up that “shopping cart returner” is a full-time job for Costco employees. One of them randomly told me he’s been doing this full-time for 7 years. 🤦♀️ But he seemed to genuinely enjoy it so okay. Exercise, fresh air, vitamin D all day every day.
I personally always return my shopping carts to their proper locations.
The only exception was when I was a mother of babies in those 50 lb baby carriers, the chores were immense, putting groceries into the car and putting the baby into the car and then what, I can’t leave the baby in the car while I push the cart back to where it belongs, so put the baby back into the grocery cart and push the grocery cart back to the cart return, then carry the baby back to the car? I’m exhausted all over again PTSD just thinking about it.
And in those situations it’s a rare treat to get a parking spot right next to the carriage return, but that has its own risks, getting shopping carts rammed into your car while you’re parked there.
I go out of my way to offer to return peoples carts for them, generally anyone but especially women with children and the elderly. To me its no big deal to mash a couple carts together and return theirs with mine.
Do you guys have parking spots for new and expectant mothers yet?
Yes those exist in some parking lots now, The first time I ever saw one was when my youngest child was about 3 years old. by then I didn’t need it any more. My kids were walking.
InB4 “If everyone returned their shopping carts it would eliminate jobs” idiots come into the thread.
The people putting the carts back are spending what, 1-2hr/8hr shift doing carts? The rest is either cleaning or stocking so it’s not like they won’t just do more of that.
It’s surprising to me US carts don’t have to be unlocked by a coin (which you get back when you lock your cart again), it’s like that in every supermarket I know in France and Germany and probably many other European countries.
You can misbehave but it costs you a little bit, and if you do someone has the opportunity to make a buck off you by cleaning after you.
In fairness, that’s been phased out in many places.
I suspect less out of faith in humanity and more out of the reality that many people don’t carry cash, much less change, anymore and they kept annoying the cashiers.
Yeah it’s hard to justify carrying coins around, they’re not worth much, whereas euro coins still carry some value (1€/2€).
When I arrived in NYC a few years ago, I got cash from the ATM and then tried to take a bus to our airbnb in Brooklyn, it was $2.75 per ticket, only payable in coins… like we’d have 44 quarters in our pockets :-)
I keep a few quarters in my car for ALDI specifically. If I forget: I don’t get a cart and put the groceries in my reusable bags. Or nab those giant cardboard containers ALDI employees stock with and leave around.
The busses don’t take metro card? I’ve only ever ridden the subway in NYC.
They do now, that whole OMNY system
They probably do (it was 10 years ago) but we had just arrived from the airport and had no idea how it all worked
I think it’s because Americans don’t have dollar coins.
The USA has like 26 various prints of dollar coins. Only two of witch are not a standard weight and size. Those two also being the oldest and more rare of all the versions. We could absolutely start using them as they are still minted on a regular bases. For the life of me I still don’t understand why they are so rarely used.
I had never seen that before in my entire life until an Aldi opened here.
I take it one further and bring in a cart from between spaces, someone is finishing using packing away groceries, or already in the station and bring it back into the store to use. And as a single person struggling with the increasing cost of groceries, trying to keep my weekly trips under 80$. I can carry out everything I get by hand, leaving the cart in the store.
Returning the cart to the station is like bare minimum and still many people can’t even do that.
This should be a do-or-die grade in the finals, globally. And don’t let anyone know when or where they’ll be evaluated and graded, make’em think the Civics teacher/professor will stalk them around town, putting together their resupply patterns, and grading their mall etiquette. That’ll put the fear o’God in’em!
Which defeats the whole purpose of the test - it has to be done not out of fear of consequences but out of a sense of duty.
This is basically the same as people that need their religion to define their morality.
Yeah but they tend to be the worst. This is the same crowd that will be a raging cunt all week but once a week they go listen to a sermon and somehow that absolves them of being an ass the prior week.
Completely agree with you! But that may be a bit idealistic at this point, to be honest, and it pains me to accept it, too, believe me! I’m starting to think more in the lines of “doing the best with what we’ve got,” and we ain’t got much…
Edit: of course I was joking in my initial comment, just to dispel any potential uncertainty! But everything with its grain of truth and all that…
I think the theory goes too far, tbh. If we’re being a little bit realistic, a difference between animals and members of human society is that animals cannot and do not obey laws. Higher order animals obey direct threats of punishment, such as if you’ve trained them not to shit on the floor, but that’s not the same as law. With a law, you are aware of the consequences without having directly experienced them.
An animal only respects consequences after directly experiencing them.
I am willing to accept into society those who obey (just) laws without directly experiencing the consequences. They ARE better than animals, they are not savages, they are not bad members of society. They are doing the bare minimum necessary to belong to society; indeed, their existence is the reason we form societies at all. You might not want to be friends with them but they aren’t animals.
While the conclusion of this post goes to far, I do think it nails it right in the first sentence: if you return the cart, if you do what is correct without need for a law, then you are capable of being self-governing. You would make a good anarchist, for example, because your social group would function well without laws.
I prefer the Gom Jabbar but the Shopping Cart seems like a viable alternative.
Gom Jabbar always seemed like a pointless task. Are you “human” by being able to willingly withstand physical pain? Some people have higher pain tolerances and willpower; doesn’t make them beasts.
I think the idea was that you knew that it’sa test and that you’d die if you remove the hand, so it’s less willpower and more reasoning over instinct/fear, at least in theory. You have to presume the box is at least tuned to different people’s pain thresholds or whatever.
Also, the text pretty much says that Mohiam is doing it wrong more or less on purpose:
“Enough,” the old woman muttered. “Kull wahad! No woman child ever withstood that much. I must’ve wanted you to fail.”
If you give the benefit of the doubt that Herbert figured out the practicalities and wasn’t going by rule of cool (which he absolutely was) the implication is that the person administering the test has some control of the itnensity and you’re supposed to deal with some pain you’re supposed to hold, not become convinced that your hand is a charred stump like Paul is.
That, and the movie verisons amp the whole thing up a lot, so it comes across a bit differently.
I thought it was less about the charred stump and more of another activation of his powers. Turning the inner eye, conquering it, knowing it won’t come out a burning stump, because his whole arm and body would be that way if it was actually on fire.
Well, it can’t be that in the context of the story, because as it’s presented, they give this test to pretty much everybody they train, including Jessica (although Mohiam clarifies that “seldom” to men).
Don’t get me wrong Paul and all the other Dune protagonists don’t need much encouragement to go supersaiyan on your ass, and this often comes in similar circumstances, but this particular first example seems to mostly be Paul taking his finals and things getting intense because his examiner turns the dial to eleven. In the book it isn’t even that big of a deal, he just says the litany once, has the vision of his hand getting melted for like a paragraph and Moiham goes “phew, I went a bit hard on you there for a second and poofing away”.
Also, this doesn’t relate to anything else, but I went back to find the passage for this and man, both her and Paul are such little shits to each other in this bit. He calls her “old woman” and threatens to have her killed, she mocks him for being so privileged he has to know about poisons as a a teenager… They’re so sassy, and neither movie quite nails that part.
It was always more about the triumph of the mind over the body. When the body is screaming to run away, the mind retains control. That is what makes someone Human.
It’s an interesting definition of humanity, but certainly not a definitive one.
In the real world, sure.
In the context of Dune, it is a question of whether you can maintain your logic in the face of pain or danger, or whether you will be ruled by your instincts when push comes to shove. And that question is a vitally important one when taken in the context of choosing a new leader or ensuring that someone (in this case Paul Atriedes) is able to handle the pressures of their given task. An animal will be ruled by its instincts while a human can overcome them by force of will. If you are not a human then you are an animal. Animals can still be treated with respect, but they are unfit for leadership roles because a frightened animal driven by fight-or-flight response is unpredictable and dangerous. A cornered king can be reasoned with, but a cornered animal will gnaw its own leg off to escape a trap.
Put like this sounds pretty lame yes.
Every time I fail to return a shopping cart on a beautiful spring day, the grocery store’s Cart Gatherer thanks me kindly and calls, “Thank you kind citizen for giving me leave to leave the hellhole that I was stuck in because the world is filled with assholes who are stealing my job! I want to be in the sunlight! Don’t take that from me!!”
I have very young children, meaning very often I can walk away from the car after getting them in their carseats and unloading the groceries or whatever and be gone for about two minutes before one or both of them start losing their minds and getting scared. If the shopping cart return spot is more than two minutes from my car (round trip), then the cart gets left exactly two minutes (round trip) closer to the return spot and in a spot that doesn’t inconvenience a) anyone parking, b) anyone leaving, and c) the employee that will eventually have to return it to the store.
Ideally, I catch someone walking inside the store on my way and ask if they’d like the cart, but not always.
That’s just how it is, I don’t feel bad about it. I don’t know if you all live somewhere where these cart return chutes are more available, but most large parking lots here are the size of like two football fields and they have three total return chutes.
What irritates me is how often the “parent parking” spots are filled with people that get into their cars with no kids. They are typically located right next to the chutes, and it is great because you don’t have to walk short children through a parking lot, you can put them in a cart, and then walk in where cars backing out can see the little kids.
I seriously rarely see people with kids using those spots. 100% some of the people in this thread are using the parent parking spots without kids, returning their shopping cart right next to where they’re parked, and then judging people for not returning their carts.
I’m not judging you, but to offer another perspective to anyone reading this thread: I am a parent of two young children, and have never not returned a shopping cart. I take the kids with me when I return it.
As a parent, I realizes that it’s harder to do things with kids than without, but I go out of my way to not pass that burden onto others.
There are many ways our situations could be different that would make it harder for you to do this than me - your reasons are completely your business.
I hear you, but in a busy parking lot, the shopping cart elevates the height of the children, making them visible to cars.
Where I live, the grocery store and target or whatever are primarily SUVs and trucks. The blind spots on vehicles like that are huge, and my children suddenly decide something looks and interesting and will sometimes just bolt off.
They’re pretty good in parking lots, and obviously we have to and do walk through them, but, when I can, I try to limit the time my children spend on their feet in a busy parking lot.
My daughter barely comes up to the bumper of some of these trucks! But I do appreciate what you’re saying, and I tend to agree with you in most circumstances.
I don’t know why you’re catching so much flak. Parking lots are not safe places for kids, and you can’t leave them alone in the car for long either. I’ve never had an issue returning a cart, but that’s because I’ve never shopped at a place where the return corrals are that sparse. If it’s over a minute’s walk to return a cart then that’s a failure of the parking lot architects, not you. You’re doing what you can, which is good enough.
Hey, thanks for your understanding. It is much appreciated.
I do return the cart when I can!
I mean this is all in your head. Your children will be fine if you return the kart.
It’s not all in my head, insofar as it then makes the drive home miserable because they’re upset. You honestly think that your desire to whine about this ever-recurring meme complaint about shopping carts isn’t “just in you head” too?
They’re both “in our head”: I’m worried about my kids’ happiness and comfort, and you’re worried about being critical for a meme.
It’s a shopping cart. I do what I can, and when I don’t have the kids, I return the cart to the chute. I realize it’s funny to make this a big deal on the internet, but my real point was that people with small children find it harder to do, and if we all keep spaces near the chutes open for people with children, it’s much safer for children going into AND back out of the store.
And you’ll get your shopping carts returned more often, as you’d prefer.
If you genuinely believe the sanity of your children rests on the whole 20 seconds it takes to return your shopping cart, you are thoroughly delusional.
Not only that, but you should seriously rethink your parenting skills. If you are so afraid of how your children will react that you can’t even return a shopping cart, then your children have very serious self-control issues, which again stem from your own parenting
Return your shopping cart. It is not that dire, you’re just being lazy and trying to make excuses for it.
It isn’t about their “sanity,” and you’ve made quite a few assumptions here.
And you’re this mad about people not privileging your interests when it comes to checks notes shopping carts being returned? I take it you still ride inside them rather than push them? 🤣
Blocked.
Edit: I was going to block, but I checked your comment history.
Hey. I love my kids. I do try to take care of them in parking lots. They run around in the woods pretty freely, they travel often, and I’m very proud to be their parent.
Everyone deserves supportive parents, and I’m sorry that your parents can’t support who you are. That isn’t fair to you. That is THEIR problem. It is THEIR flaw. You didn’t do anything wrong. I bet more people than you even realize love you for just who you are. Focus on them! Let them be your support.
I have never heard of or seen a ‘parent parking spot’. It seems kind of unfair to people who don’t have kids. I can see why people don’t really care to honor that.
They’re usually the two spots directly next to a shopping cart chute. They allow a parent to take a returned cart from the chute and immediately put their children in it so that they don’t have to walk through a parking lot where no one can see them in their rearview mirrors. Also, you may not know this, but sometimes small children just… start running when they get out of the car. If you’ve got more than one child, it can be very difficult to hold them while trying to get your other child or children out their carseat. Those things are like jet seats.
It’s much easier to plop then in a cart that makes them visible to surrounding cars and less able to run away while unloading kids. It is also better for getting them into the store. I live in America. The average distance needed to see a 2ft child through the WINDSHIELD is shocking. When multiple cars are backing up and trying to leave a parking lot, it’s not fun.
https://x.com/dannyman/status/1661087159082967040?s=20
Yes, it is “unfair” to people that don’t have kids, but, given it helps reduce the chance of small children being hurt or killed, they are generally seen as a part of good parking lot design.
If you’re less interested in the safety of children, perhaps you might also think about it from a profit perspective. Making accommodations for people who are interested in the safety of their children is more likely to attract people with children, who very often spend money in the store for not only themselves but also those children.
Additionally, it reduces the incidence of tragic accidents involving children in a commercial parking lot, and costs almost nothing, which is generally seen as a positive by most businesses.
They’re usually the two spots directly next to a shopping cart chute.
Well that works out well. Nobody else usually wants those spots, presumably because you’re more likely to get nicked by an errant cart there. Seems like a win-win.
Excellent! Though, you would be surprised how often they’re taken just because they’re the closest available spot.
And agreed, my car does get bonked by shopping carts fairly regularly when I’m in those spots.
My car has cameras that monitor the exterior when I’m parked, and the amount of times I’ve come back to watch a video of someone on their phone and just ramming the cart directly into the rear is… more common than you’d think.
But! They were returning the cart, so it is kind of a win-win, I think.
