Why don’t they just put AI into the carts so they return themselves?
or build an AI that tracks behaviors; after failing to return the cart 3x, you don’t get to use a cart.
I despise AI but hell let’s make it do something actually useful
I really want to like this article, but I don’t care for the example of the old man.
It’s not the only example that’s lacking any sense of nuance or empathy, but it’s probably the worst. I say this as someone who has never left a cart out. I even used to put other people’s away if they were on my way. I can be a rule-follower to a fault.
Anyway.
I’m not old, but I’m physically disabled such that I don’t use carts anymore. It’s just too hard, too exhausting, too painful. I almost never buy more than I can carry in a basket.
If I did push a cart (especially full) out to my car, me still being well enough to return it is extremely questionable. I’d likely have to sit and recover a bit before doing so. Being disabled this way can be a lot like just being really old. I’ve come to empathize with them so much more these past few years.
You could argue that we should ask for help from staff in that scenario, but how often do you see grocery store staff who aren’t busy with something? It’s probably less of a burden on them to gather that cart up whenever they gather the rest of the carts that haven’t been returned.
But definitely “fuck you” to the lady who left her cart in the middle of a handicapped spot.
This was almost a decade ago, but when I was a bagger we would help people unload their groceries into their car fairly often. It wasn’t at all weird to ask for help from staff. They have other things to do but other than the cashier it’s almost always non-urgent and a lot lower priority than helping out a customer. Then we would just take the cart back when we went back inside. Grabbing a wayward cart along with others isn’t much of a hassle either but they can roll into people’s cars if they’re just left on pavement.
My husband has cerebral palsy. When he lived by himself he never returned the carts. Because he physically could not. He used the cart as balance to get to the car. If he took it back, he’d have nothing to use as balance to get back to the car.
But how’d he get inside with no cart? He wasn’t taxed yet from walking and shopping and could get to the carts to use as balance. He also hoped other people would leave a cart out nearby so he could grab that.
These days we go in, grab an electric for him, and we return that for him once he’s in the car.
I wonder how much of this behavior is caused by enormous parking lots and shopping by car. where i live there is a packing area next to the cart return. I put my stuff into bags and backpack there, then return the cart. No hassle at all. If I had to go a couple of hundred meters to return the cart, I might come up with excuses too. Lots of our decisions are driven by the environment we live in. Reasons are made up after the fact.
If I can, I grab a cart from a corral the middle of the lot and return it to the same corral.
I went to a futuristic distopian grocery store the other day. Awful time there. As I’m pushing the cart to my car in the parking lot, the wheels suddenly lock electronically as I cross some invisible threshold. “Fuck this” I thought, and took my bags out and carried them the rest of way to my car.
Leaving the cart, wheels locked, in the parking lot.
I would drag the mother fucker all the way to my car, out of spite.
Ngl, some random asshole comes up to me in a parking lot, I’d have a weapon ready and warn them off before they got close enough I had to use it. Those people walking up to strangers got a lot of threats, but they’re damn lucky nobody carried them out.
The fuck?
Your reaction to someone–a neighbor of yours, most likely, whether you know them or not–is to immediately threaten them with a weapon before they can even get a word out?
You’d be the one in jail after that and you’d deserve it. Maybe work on your paranoia and aggression.
Hey, maybe work on your reading skills
Nah mate this is on you
Americans when social interaction.
We’re job creators
I’m lazy as shit, no investigation required.
I’m situational about it. Hundred feet away? Yeah sure. If it feels a lot further? Sorry for the extra work cart dudes, tell your bosses to put another corral in.
