This is unironically how i judge if someone is a decent person. It costs you nothing, and requires minimum effort, and yet most people I meet just can’t be bothered. I don’t even work in retail, nor have I ever, but it just annoys the hell outta me that people are that inconsiderate. It’s not like Sam Walton himself is asking you to put the cart away for him. When you don’t do it some minimum wage employee has to chase them down. You’re not better than them. You’re capable of doing the minimal task asked of you.
As previously stated, I’ve met way to many people like this. Pox on the Earth. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Reminds me of shopping cart theory.
Words of wisdom right there.
That’s gotta be the only decent thing to ever come out of 4chan
Plenty of good things come out of 4chan, it’s just that the bad ones outnumber them by a lot.
Kind of like with humans in general.
No one will kill you, but I might call you a cunt-muffin to your face. And you can’t even complain to anyone about it because when you tack muffin on the end it sounds sort of cute and you sound like even more of a cunt-muffin for complaining. Ya cunt-muffin.
Caveat: Do not use that word in America unless you intend a fist fight.
My Pilipino wife asked the other day, “What is C U N T?”
“It’s a pussy, and don’t use it.”
I don’t think anyone will confront you about such things where I live or where anon lives. So there isn’t even that incentive. Someone might look at you disapprovingly, but more likely they’re just condemning you in private without showing it.
One incentive used to be to get your money back, but nowadays many are unlocked.
What if I’m in a rush? Also, as a customer, the carts and the people that gather the carts are part of the convenience of shopping quickly at the store. I return the cart when it’s not an inconvenience.
It takes two minutes at most to return a cart. If you’re that short on time, plan better. Also returning carts is not just for the convenience of the staff, it also prevents carts from blocking spaces and damaging cars.
There are interim places that are out of the way of spots, like little islands where lampposts are mounted. The fact of the matter is that most lots don’t have enough corrales.
You might be able to make time to putz around the parking lot, but I keep busy. This is not a time management issue.
Well of course it’s not a time management issue, because it takes like 1% of the shipping trip.
I feel like I JUST recently saw an image or two that explains what it might be an issue with…
Are you really that self absorbed that you can’t be bothered to put the shit you used away?
Yes. I typically do the right thing, but not when it’s inconvenient. I have empathy, but it only goes so far.
I hope your car gets scratched by someone like you.
I worked in retail as a college summer job and someone let their cart loose and it cracked a light on my car. The security tapes confirmed it. I was parked way off to the side with the other employees and the cart gained some momentum on its way.
Another similar test is when someone changes their mind on buying something if they return it to its original spot or just dump it on a random shelf. This is another thing that I really hated dealing with in retail.
Another similar test is when someone changes their mind on buying something if they return it to its original spot or just dump it on a random shelf.
Bonus points on when it’s something from the frozen food aisle they just stash randomly on some shelf to melt and spoil!
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I used to work in retail, and I looked forward to doing cart-cleanup because it meant I’d have a few minutes where I didn’t have to deal with customers but I was still getting paid. Returning shopping carts was the least stressful part of my day and I wished I could do it more.
are you a bot? I’m like 99% certain this comment has appeared in every askreddit thread on this, and there’s been a lot of them
lol
I argue that empathy, and the sympathy and compassion that flow from it, are the only things a person can be rightly judged by. It matters not one’s wealth, race, skill, ambition, charm, etc. Those are nice to have and can make life easier, but they don’t make a person better or worse. It only matters that they care about others, and anyone that cares about others and acts like it is a great person even if mistakes have been made.
If you think you’re a loser because you don’t have a girl/boyfriend and live with your parents or something but you care about others, you are a far greater person than Elon Musk, Bill Gates, or anyone like that to be certain.
Well said.
I worked at grocery stores for 7 years in my late teens and early 20s. People who don’t use cart corrals deserve nothing.
They deserve a fine
They say that it’s the ultimate test of selflessness, because it doesn’t benefit you and there’s no recognition for it.
But does it cancel out the selflessness if I’m now thinking that every time I return a cart? “If someone sees me, they’ll know how selfless I am…”
That’s why shopping carts in Germany are coin operated.
You only get your coin back, if you return the cart.
I made a bypass tool so I can know that when I return them it’s due to moral superiority and not base greed.
I take the ones people haven’t bothered to lock back in. My moral superiority knows no bounds.
Oh yeah? well!
Sometimes I round them all up, take the coins, and donate them anonymously to orphans with cancer.
I just put in a washer and leave it in there
While that is true they seem to die out. Older Shops still have the but during modernisation works, they usually get swapped out
Our nearby store just used inserts that disabled the feature. The chains are still on.
Well you gotta have the chain. What else are you going to fidget with when at the store?
My girlfriend’s boobs are my go to. She doesn’t seem to mind.
On the internet, nobody knows you are a baby
You are right, it’s better that way. 40% of all customers would otherwise choose their penis.
I do tend to tie the chain around my penis, as it is the custom of the times
Then one will never truly know if one is selfless or not as they now have an incentive to return it.
It’s a paradox for sure. I have this exact thought everytime I do something I think of as morally good. Then I’m bashing myself for thinking that way, and then I wonder if I need to become a monk or something to completely rid myself of that initial thought. Then I forget about it until it happens again.
I had a teacher in highschool that presented the philosophical argument that no one ever does anything that is truly selfless. The argument was exactly what you mentioned, that if someone is doing something that appears selfless, they’re actually doing it in hopes that someone notices and thinks more highly of them.
This would have been an interesting rebuttal to the argument. If you return a shopping cart in an empty parking lot, does that make you selfless? Kind of like a modern version of a tree falling in a forest…
I’m not doing it for the goodness of my heart or being selfless. I enjoy following the rules.I do it for me, not for the person using the cart next or the store employees. You can argue I’m kind of an asshole for it, actually.
i don’t think true selflessness exists, but i also think that is completely and utterly irrelevant.
Everything is fundamentally fueled by selfishness, but it seems to be a fundamental truth of the universe that cooperation is optimal for an individual if they can achieve it.
for example cooperation is the thing that allows us and animals like ants to be so hilariously more successful than other species, and on an ecosystem level everyone is cooperating since their chemical structures are compatible. If something were to evolve to use mirrored sugar (which is incompatible with the version of sugar molecules we use) then they’d have nothing but themselves to eat and thus promptly starve.
That just reminded me of the book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. The author talks about how we beat out other Homo species not due to our intelligence or our strength, but due to our ability to cooperate among large groups. If you took 10 humans and pitted them in a fight against 10 Neanderthals or even 10 chimps, we would lose. But if you took 200 humans against 200 of them, we would win every time.
i would caution against taking that as gospel, afaik we don’t really know why other species died out yet, and we have very clear evidence that our species interbred a whole heck of a lot.
it’s probably a whole host of reasons that led to us surviving alone, including stuff like being able to survive on very little food, and hey maybe we to some degree simply interbred to the point that their species dissolved into ours.
imagine being a buff neanderthal and encountering these strange lithe people with less hair and suddenly that pretty girl in another neanderthal tribe you had your eyes on is completely forgotten.
But does it cancel out the selflessness if I’m now thinking that every time I return a cart? "If someone sees me, they’ll know how selfless I am…
Well, thank you for ruining my life.
Honestly unless you believe there is inherent good in doing that (religion mostly, morality for some) then no. It doesn’t make sense to work for free, to not have returns.
If recognition is a form of payment then good on some people, though I personally think recognition can be a drug, and religion justifies my good actions for me much better.
Point is keep on doing good, and maybe consider that the slightly tidier and cleaner space you leave was worth the effort. Surely someone would have seen you and thought “damn, I should do that next time”
It doesn’t make sense for the individual unless you consider that they live in a society. You would be annoyed to have to retrieve a wayward cart and by returning your cart you enforce the expectation and social pressure on others to do the same. I don’t think it’s selfless to treat your environment with respect, it’s in your own best interest most of the time.
Oh, I make sure they see me.
So do I if I want my money back
Sadly Aldis in my location has a terrible selection so it’s barely worth shopping there most days
German or American? I’ve always wondered how the German Aldi Süd compares to what we got in the US. Does Aldi Süd have the aisle of shame? They’ve got Aldi Christmas sweaters next week, it’s so weird.
They’ve got Aldi Christmas sweaters next week
Don’t know about Aldi but Lidl branded clothes are some peak ironic fashion. Fucking Lidl christmas sweaters, it’s beyond hilarious
The Lidl shit seems to sell pretty well, I’ve seen someone out in Lidl drip
My brother’s gym clothes are a matching set of Lidl merch. It’s hilarious
Aisle of glory you mean?
Grocery store owner: “Looks like customer altruism is ramping up again, time to lay off some more employees!”
If they could find a way to apply the same “self checkout” solution to cart return, you know they would in a heartbeat!
Self driving carts, probably too expensive
And I’m European
We’ll pray for you. /s
Bless your heart.
I think that was just Paris
I’m sorry for your affliction.
I bring loose carts into the store on my way in, usually don’t use a cart since I bring bags
Me too. I find it really odd seeing people walk past a loose cart to go inside and wrestle one loose from the corral.
Plus, I’ll take the cart that’s baking in the heat and UV every time. Yet another way the pandemic changed me permanently.
Why is that odd to you? I think that’s very normal and expected behaviour for the average wild human. If you look closely, you can even see them mouth breathing
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You need to check out the cart narcs on YouTube!! They record themselves calling people out on not returning their carts, and the petty reactions from the lazy bones. They even have hood magnets for the unrepentant!! https://youtube.com/@CartNarcs
They’ve gotten some pretty unpleasant reactions, too. Like guns pulled on them.
And those people should not have guns.
It wasn’t until I moved and had a Wegmans that I pretty much never see a cart outside of their sheds. The couple times I have seen it was at the “entitled rich people” location. Wegmans has enough cart returns around that you have absolutely no excuse. They even put the reserved spots for pregnant and those with children right next to the returns so it is easier for them.
actual marriage material
Honestly, that’s probably not a bad litmus test. New first date recommendation: take them shopping and see if they return their shopping cart or not. Could save a lifetime of misery!
I still feel bad about the one time I didn’t return a shopping cart.
A creepy guy was hitting on me and wouldn’t take no for an answer, didn’t feel safe to go anywhere but in my car and the fuck out of there.
That’s on the dude, not you. As a larger guy who has never not returned a cart in his life, I’d have done the same lmao
Ah the good ol shopping cart litmus test
