Yeah this is the real test of someone’s moral compass, when there is no reward or punishment but you do it anyway. The “just dont be a dick” test.
See also: putting rubbish in the bin
In many places, you can get fined for littering. Even if it might not be very likely, it’s more punishment than you’ll receive for not returning a shopping cart (unless the place uses carts with inbuilt deposits).
well there is a slight gain from it because i don’t like rubbish laying around, so if i put it in the bin, it’s cleaner.
But if i keep my empty beer cans in the car, I can get in trouble for an open container! The law of the land requires me to throw my beer cans in a ditch.
I only do it so I don’t feel guilty. So it’s self serving.
In my case, it would just feel wrong to leave it - that’s not where it goes! Sometimes being anal is beneficial to society.
It’s similar to potential energy. Like leaving the cart there adds potential chaos. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night thinking the damage that cart could be doing.
So what would you have to feel guilty about?
I dunno man, some people actively vote to hurt and personally discriminate against marginalized people.
I feel like that’s a lot more definitive.
Some people also torture animals for fun. The bar needs to be higher. The point of the shopping cart test is low stakes, no one important is watching, nothing significant to be gained or lost either way–do you do the right thing anyway, because of course?
No I steal the cart so I am one basket closer to building Voltrolley
Nice move. Never considered this.
True, but this is more immediately verifiable than figuring out how someone votes.
The difference is those people think they’re in the right, no pun intended.
I don’t think they do. I think they feel entitled, and so doing the wrong thing to get what is “rightfully” theirs, is justifiable.
I’m sure you’re right for some percentage of people, but most pro life, lib-owning pickup truck patriots really think they’re doing god’s work and saving the world from “toxic empathy”. The less extreme ones just think that whatever the bible says is good, so smite the gays, it’s fine, or even try to save them by praying all the gay away. And the poor uneducated Facebook grandmas are just controlled by fear, gullibility, and ignorance. They mean well, and are totally oblivious to how their actions and words (and votes) really hurt real people.
I had this problem yesterday. My SO just left it next to the exit. Would have taken 5 seconds to move it to the rest at the entrance. But noooo im the one overreacting because ppl do it all the time. It felt like littering.
You’re dating a monster.
If a person who doesn’t put their shopping cart back sits at a table with nine others who don’t cap them, you have ten people who don’t put carts back.
I feel like its getting worst as we age. SO started driving angrier past few years. Middle finger and all.
If my time on reddit taught me anything… When’s the divorce?
Lol I should repeat this if I see it happen again.
Feels similar to littering your cigarette butt. It’s super common for smokers to not feel anything wrong with throwing their toxic smoker trash somewhere it doesn’t belong, even if they wouldn’t litter anything else.
As an ethical nicotine addict, I always hated those people! As I kinda felt some type of guilty by association, I always made sure to pick up butts every time I left the beach. Granted it was a fairly popular beach, but I would pick up no less than a half dozen easily spotted butts just walking the 50 or so meters from the water to the stairs, where there were two cans and bags for pet waste, every single time. I really don’t get how uncaring and/or lazy most people are.
I’m sitting in the break area right now, there’s 3 bins for people to toss their cigarettes in, yet the ground is littered with them.
It’s fucking disgusting.
Wonder if its the same energy as the people that bag the dogs crab and leave it on the trail. Like who does that?
It’s a small red flag, but a red flag nonetheless.
even though you gain nothing
Faulty premise. If I return the cart, I do not need to navigate my car around the cart as I exit the parking lot. This, alone, is a reason to return the cart to the designated collection zone.
You also normalize returning the cart and impressionable people around you will see people returning carts and increase the probability that they will return carts in the future. Together, these increase the probability that on the future, the carts will be where I want them at the front of the store and not all over the parking lot.
Also I get to be smug
The most ethical decision is to leave your cart at the top of an incline, aimed at any pickup making more than 1 space unusable. Just behind the rear passenger bumper is also acceptable.
What about aiming it at a line of motorcycles the biker gang rode in on?
Don’t forget, these things become fucking wrecking balls in windy storms. So not putting it away during a wind storm means you’re a full on pos. Ive seen it sooo many times.
You get back your 1€ though.
I think this is more of a North American-centric meme. It’s pretty rare in North America to have to put a coin in to use a cart. I think Aldi is the only one I’ve seen do it in the US. Maybe Lidl and Trader Joe’s (owned by Aldi) did it at some point but I haven’t seen it there in years. Basically they’re all German brands operating in the US. Maxi in Quebec used to do it but the past few years when we’ve visited my wife’s parents the carts have been unlocked, although they still have the locks. None of the other stores there even have the locks. Even when we visited her family in France this year, though, it seemed inconsistent. Some stores used them but others didn’t.
What I found to be the biggest difference between North America and Europe was the cart returns themselves. In North America most stores have corrals throughout the parking lot, but throughout the day employees will go collect the carts and return them to the store entrance. In France they also had the corrals but they’re never returned to the store by an employee. Customers grab a cart from the corral near their car and bring it with them to use in the store. That kind of makes more sense, in that it reduces the work an employee must do.
There’s an interesting thing I’ve noticed here in Europe:
Plenty of places, partly due to corona or whatever, you no longer need to pop a coin in. Or you simply ask for a worthless plastic token that you can use instead of a coin.
But because we’re all so used to returning the trolley to get our coin back, we’ve all been trained into returing the trolley, even if there’s no reward for doing so.
Worked at a grocery store growing up, I confirm this meme wholeheartedly! And now shopping at certain retail places, all able body between the ages of 17 - 30 should work on carts for an entire season so one understands the shity criterions.
I reject the premise. One already gained something - the loan of a cart. Returning it repays the debt.
If you were really selfish, you could steal the cart and try to sell it for scrap.
Bubbles made a healthy enterprise out of ‘fixing’ ‘broken’ shopping carts that he would sell back to the store when they ‘ran out’ of carts. Perhaps a similar business model but likely higher profit margin.
Before college I worked at a grocery store and initially I bagged groceries and gathered the carts
I always wonder if this meme is put out there by some penny pinching Kroger executive trying to justify paying off more of their bottom line workers.
My perception though is of a small grocery store with like 20 carts max and gathering up wasn’t a big deal…having seen how many the guys at Costco pull at once looks pretty rough on the other hand
no it’s because I’m sick and fucking tired of having to dodge carts all over the place because some lazy Karen thinks they’re too important to walk 50 more feet
What is it with every regional grocery store being owned by right winged pricks? Like I moved from a publix dominated area to a Kroger one and it just saddens me that there are no ethical alternatives outside of becoming a homesteader and growing my own food.
Edit; who’s out here shilling for billion dollar corpos?
“What are you gonna do, stop eating?”
They get off on it I think.
The solution is to be so broke you dont need a cart to finish grocery shopping.
sad hungry noises
I put them back in the cart corral.
Mainly because the business has to pay someone to go get them.
I don’t put the gym weights back so the employees can get a workout also. Youre welcome. /$
Same reason spill shit on their floors
They have to pay someone to get them if you don’t put it in the corral, plus it would take longer
They also don’t take up as much space in the lot and don’t get blown into random cars. It’s pretty clear-cut.
Yes, I get that. My comment was in reference to the person above me, who started they only put them away so the company has to pay someone to bring them back in. If that is really their reason, they could make the company pay more by themselves doing less.
But the company isn’t paying them only when they are collecting carts. They are there on a schedule and have to be there for that allotted time. They don’t clock in and out every time they go collect carts.
Correct, but the more time dealing with carts means less time doing other things that need to be completed, meaning they need more employees, this costing them more.
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The trolley return is the decent human checker of the world.
I’ve always said I was going to run for president on the platform that we have executioners in parking lots who take out people who do not return their shopping cart, but are able to. I think it would solve almost everything.
But it’s kind of like “God fearing” Christians - if they only do it out of fear, not because it’s the right thing to do, does it really count?
Hey, they said sorry to their imaginary friend after fucking you over repeatedly. That’s not good enough for you?
That’s honestly fucking disgusting. Forcing the people to do free labour under the risk of death for massive corporations turning a higher profit from said free labour.
You need to rethink your moral compass.
work on your sarcasm a bit, it doesn’t quite come across well enough tbh
I gain the satisfaction of doing my part to keep society turning.
I gain the satisfaction of simply putting things where they belong.
Does the cart need to be returned to right at the entrance of the store or is it acceptable to return to a mid parking lot cart corral?
That’s what the corrals are for, I’d say either is morally good.
The meme literally shows a corral.
