Some context...

nytimes.com/2021/06/08/style/s...-lot.html

Ironic that Reddit would be an arbiter of determining a good or bad member of society.

I suspect the good/bad question is not as "all-or-nothing" as the theory sets out.   

If it is, then what good is "There's some bad in the best of us and some good in the worst of us."?

Is litter another fair identifier?

And unlike not returning a shopping cart, a person expends more effort doing the wrong action i.e. hurling a soft drink can out of their moving vehicle.

I must be a little OCD...
AS I will bring the cart back to the rack..n..
More often than not straiten out the mess in the rack..too.. :0/

as for litter...
Liz n i pick up our stuff..n..others trash at our Picknick places....

Yes people can be..slobs..

quote:

---

Originally posted by STUD

as for litter...
Liz n i pick up our stuff..n..others trash at our Picknick places....

Yes people can be..slobs..

---

Same.  Was taught in Boy Scouts, to always leave a place better than you found it.

That being said, I will return the carts to the corrals.  But if I start straightening out the carts, now I'm taking work away from someone LOL

Yeah I'm like the "parents" the TV ad is trying to prevent young people from becoming. I not only return my own cart, I usually snag a few strays and put them back in the rack. And, like Al, if the carts in the rack are a mess I will straighten them up a bit.  I also patrol my neighborhood picking up litter, so I'm a hopeless caricature of the old fuddy duddy.   I don't care, it's just what I do and would not feel right doing any less. 
But I wouldn't call a cart slob "no better than an animal, an absolute savage." I would just call them a slob, which is widespread behavior these days, just like littering. One either gets manners and a sense of Right---and self respect--- instilled in them at an early age or they do not, and I am afraid that many young people today have little guidance is such matters.

But a video of how potential employees handled that cart situation would be most beneficial in hiring decisions, because I would not want cart slobs on my team.  

I don’t make an effort to return carts. I will put one in a collection area if one is near. I look on my approach as a small contribution to keeping folks employed.

I'm with Al and Bill-e on the shopping cart thing. but they still need the kid to push the carts back to the store and with eight cart corrals I'm sure he has lots to do.
I also do not use the self-serve cashier section. (Which also meant a job loss)

the ones that P*** me off are, you finally see a parking spot that isnt in the next county on an extra busy day....you get to it, start to turn in and there in the smack middle of the parking spot is a cart.....you get out to move it and the freakin' horns start blowing because you're blocking traffic.....what i do now when the slobs start beeping their horns is, I'll take the cart and walk it back to a corral no matter how far.....before I move my car.....gets them p***** off...... ya know ...this world would be a great place if there weren't any people.

Reading that clip, it does not feel right to me. It points out how innocuous the entire premise is then proceeds to put a great deal of weight in such simple things. It seems way out of balance.

It seems a better measure of what is right and moral and just, might be to join in making a world where the least of us in society, people, don't live in a world we have also made, where our entire worldly possessions can fit in one shopping cart parked at our home under a bridge. A world where the least among us are not mocked, ridiculed and punished for being in this position. And like that fantasy told, we all know what is right in our hearts. It's what we do, and how we live our choices. Life is a series of choices. Shopping cart placement is not high on that list.

It does not matter to me if I don't put a shopping cart back where I got it. There are places made just for leaving carts out in the parking lot. I do think it's rude to leave the cart in the way of others' future path, but that's not a measure of the worth of people or how we think of each other. The premise presented in that meme is pretty silly and a laser pointer distraction.

Another reason I like Aldi grocery store. Not only do the people return their carts, but some even offer you their cart, probably because some don’t want to return it, but most just do it as a nice gesture!!! Amazing how 25 cents can make two people feel good at the same time. My first time at Aldi I thought it was the dumbest damn thing I’d ever seen paying a damn quarter for a cart, until the next day when I went to Meier and there was a cart up against my passenger side door of my truck!!!
Genius!!!
Slammer!!!

Slammer..thanks i was gonna mention that...

N ..Frank makes good sense too on this subject...

We all jump to conclutions..
On..simple n incomplete info..
Alto...lazyness dose igzist..
N..there is the..
Hooray fer me n.."F" you types out there..

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bill Rogers

I don’t make an effort to return carts. I will put one in a collection area if one is near. I look on my approach as a small contribution to keeping folks employed.

---

I grew up in NW Ohio. Lots of union presence there. JJeep, GMC, Chrysler, Railroads, every skilled trade, etc. In those days, I was a Teamster, then in the UAW.

Protocol was, you do not leave the cart where it will be in anyone's way. You don't leave the cart out if it's windy, or the lot is on a hill. Otherwise, you leave the cart where the next customer can grab it or a store employee can come and get it. 

I din't make the rules, I just follow'd 'em.

I also like Aldi's system.

I use the auto-checkout because they open one register and purposely slow serve to encourage self-service. 

I also wish people would take the time to put shopping carts back where they belong. To me, it's being courteous to the next person who comes along, tries to find a place to park that's not littered with abandoned carts.

I also get irked at people who throw their trash in the parking lot when there's a trash can within a few feet or yards of them. And the worst of all....... dirty diapers left on the parking lot. Yuck!

It's pretty standard here to have coin operated supermarket trollies. If you don't want your pound coin back then somebody else will. So it's no longer easy to find one dumped on wasteland or in a canal if you need one to, say, transport a sack of compost or a small child home.
I always see taking back trollies (if there' no coin involved), using automatic tills and clearing my own table in fast food restaurants as denying the opportunity for a minimum wage job to somebody who may need one. Not often that one can square laziness with social conscience.

The shopping cart is akin to the wild elephant. When they sense they are injured or sick beyond repair they wander off to die a alone.
If in my selection of a cart I find one that I consider near death or injured I will allow it the dignity to die alone away from the herd.

Love 8thpol...
:0)

I think small things tend to give us a window into larger things. Therefore, I think people who do not return carts (and Bill we are talking about people returning them to bins, not necessarily back to the store) and people who litter tells us much more about them than the fact that they are just sloppy. I guess my pet peeve is inconsiderate people and this certainly applies to non-cart returners.

I routinely, like to park far away from a store because I like the exercise walking to the store and do not like car doors to hit my car. Of course we have seen those driver who do not want their car hit , so they will take up two spaces near the store (rare by it happens). In addition to parking far away from the store, I go to the bin and grab a cart and push it to the store, even if I am not going to use it. It's one less cart that has to be retrieved. I like the Aldi method where you put in a quarter to use a cart and when it is returned you get the quarter back.

quote:

---

Originally posted by BanjoLink

I routinely, like to park far away from a store because I like the exercise walking to the store and do not like car doors to hit my car. Of course we have seen those driver who do not want their car hit , so they will take up two spaces near the store (rare by it happens). In addition to parking far away from the store, I go to the bin and grab a cart and push it to the store, even if I am not going to use it. It's one less cart that has to be retrieved. I like the Aldi method where you put in a quarter to use a cart and when it is returned you get the quarter back.

---

I'm always tempted to grab a few of those far-away carts and use them to pack the parking spot around the jerk that took multiple spots ... gets them closer to home and makes a point.

I've never yielded yet, but it makes my fingers itch.

quote:

---

Originally posted by grandpafive

I'm with Al and Bill-e on the shopping cart thing. but they still need the kid to push the carts back to the store and with eight cart corrals I'm sure he has lots to do.
I also do not use the self-serve cashier section. (Which also meant a job loss)

---

When I was young I was that kid.  Now I'm retired, and the people I see out there in the rain, cold, and snow getting the carts are also of retirement age.

We have a chain here, Aldi's, that charges a deposit when you remove a cart from the coral, and returns the deposit when you return the cart.

Meanwhile.

The opportunity for employment and social conscience aspect makes so much more sense now than it did at the time of an incident at one of the fly-in in schools a decade or so back. 

A student and I were walking along the hallway.  The student tossed his chocolate bar wrapper onto the floor. I mentioned that it was contributing to messiness and that he should pick it up. He replied "That's Johnny's job."  [Johnny was the janitor.]   So, I really added to his confusion... I picked it up.

I'm also glad that guys toss their pop/beer cans as it provides an "opportunity" for guys like me tp pick them up and give 'em to grandsons who get 10 cents per.   A win-win if ever there was one! 

Edit: I guess there really is merit in, "You can justify anything."

quote:

---

Originally posted by BanjoLink

I think small things tend to give us a window into larger things. Therefore, I think people who do not return carts (and Bill we are talking about people returning them to bins, not necessarily back to the store) and people who litter tells us much more about them than the fact that they are just sloppy. I guess my pet peeve is inconsiderate people and this certainly applies to non-cart returners.

 

---

I remember being with my grandfather several times and we would witness some one doing some boorish activity like littering, leaving a shopping cart in a parking space, speaking in a demeaning fashion to his wife or child, etc. and my grandfather would say "That's all I need to know about that man."  It stuck with me.  I'm now 71, and I assist people, allow women, especially older women ahead of me in line, hold doors, etc.  When I'm told I dont' need to I say something like "My grandfather will hit me if I don't"  When the pebble is tossed into the pond, we do not know how far the ripples will go.

quote:

---

Originally posted by B0bIII

Meanwhile.

---

When I was attempting stand up in New York there was a comedian who complained about the cost to go to the laundry mat so he took his shirts to Goodwill and then buy them back cleaned and pressed the next day for a quarter.