I've always told my family I like to build up "cart karma." You get karma by bringing a cart in with you from the parking lot, or returning the one you use after. You lose karma by leaving your cart in the parking lot. Even if I'm going in for a single item, I'll take a cart in from the parking lot with me and leave it in the rack by the store.
I don't really care about cart karma, it's just a way of saying that it seems like the nice thing to do.
No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you or kill you for not returning the shopping cart, you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart.
Cart Narcs. Those guys are fucking crazy. They were doing their thing in Texas. I've read stories of idiots pulling out guns for less.
BUT! What if the parking lot is four miles long and there are no cart returns anywhere and you're tired because you've been working 20 hour days with no time off and it's 140 degrees outside and the grocery store is exploiting their workers and you haven't eaten in days and you have a disability and the carts are coin operated and this is literally the only way to solve the unemployment crisis? WHAT THEN??
I'll do you one further. It is morally correct to take a cart from the parking lot to use in the store rather than grab one from inside the store.
To shop is human. To return is divine.
I've gone out of my way multiple times to put up multiple cats that were blocking parking spaces, including handicap spaces. While the handicap ones make it seem like the person is an extra asshole, I wonder if it's the handicap person that leaves it there and it just moves into the space. There's are very few stores that put a corral by handicap spaces.
Interesting idea... Is human morality (in situations where no punishment exists) a result of the societies we live in and our societal expectations, our upbringing, or is there some inherent morality (guilt from doing something bad, or satisfaction from doing the right thing) within most people?
Whilst I do live somewhere that has trolleys with coins, sometimes you get one that is damaged and doesn't require a coin. Yet I still return those ones, because why wouldn't I? It only takes a minute.
Another possibility is that people that don't return the cart may not be having their needs met. A person who is tired after walking across the hot parking lot may not return it out of a desire to maintain a modicum of health. Or, perhaps, they may not think about it because their cognition is temporarily hindered by hunger, exhaustion, or some other carnal need.
On Maslow's hierarchy, I'd say if a person meets all of their physiological and safety needs they are more likely to return the cart than those who do not.
I was concerned this was going to be a comment about what I put in my shopping cart.
But I can tell I'm an individual of extreme self-discipline because after I filled my shopping cart with chocolate and vodka I return it to the carousel.
Everyone praised me.
Seems legit
Yass and when I'm walking into the store I always offer to take a cart for someone walking theirs back, if such a person is within hailing distance.
nah fuck that shit. there are staff paid to do it and if the store can't afford that staff they are fucking lying. they have earned this with the price fixing and gouging and I'm not giving them any more of my time than absolutely necessary.
in addititon when I had that job myself, more often than not people put them away wrong and I had to redo everything. I've gotten called to the office more than once because shoppers that put the carts away didn't lock them somewhere along the stack and the whole thing rolled across the lot and smashed in to someone's car. Collecting lose carts is way easier than pulling them alll apart and putting them back after finding the two near the middle beginning of the chain and not being able to get them back together without doing it one by one in the stupidly hilly lot.
Well the discussion started off ok before ending in a rabies infested rant against humanity! Talk about going off the rails!
Anyhow, many people return the trolley so they don't look bad/feel guilty. That doesn't necessarily make them 'good' or 'civilised' and therefore fit into the 'being forced' category through peer pressure. Does that make them 'animals' and 'savages' too?
Animals are far better than people.
Wrong. The correct act is to put the cart out of the way of others, but not in the corral.
You then help provide a job to a person that capitalism wants to take away. They want your free labor. And then they provide less and less corals to save those extra pennies, knowing that you'll walk. Fuck them.
Nope, I don't buy it.
- An estimated one out of every 500 Americans is homeless
- Unarmed noncombatant civilian women and children are being bombed, shot, and starved to death.
- There has been a nearly 70% reduction in wild vertebrates worldwide since 1970
- The leading cause of death among children and teens in america is firearms
Privileged westerners could do something about these things, but they are sipping their pumpkin spice lattes and congratulating each other for putting their shopping carts back because, you know, it's the ultimate test of moral righteousness. Ugh.
I think it's similar to weights in a gym. Leaving them on the barbell is a jerk move. Returning them to their correct staging location is the ethically correct thing to do. Whenever I see them left on the barbell, I imagine a fantasy where the person has a team of horn players follow them around and play for them to announce their superiority.
Depends on your beliefs. There are people who believe in being judged for every action by an almighty force or being, so it's probably not absolutely perfect. I might be smitten in my next life for it.
Yay, I'm good!
It's interesting to read the comments, as there are people who are like
I sometimes don't return the cart and I attest myself to not be a bad person. Therfore the test is bullshit.
But then they behave like a dick in the comments; showing involuntarily that the test is a good metric.
So I think even a post about this test works like the test on a more meta level.
slight flaw in this theory, I always return the cart and will often return other carts as well. despite this, I am terrible at self governing to the point of nearly failing out of college. that being said return your carts you bastards
In my country we have dedicated people in the parking who literally follow you, can even push and collect the cart from you.
society made me like this
I return mine because its an opportunity to get more steps in.
After taking it outside boundaries so a wheel locks up.
Look at tge people returning them in the lot, mostly fat and/or wealthy.
