It's like Pre-school

[RailroadMonster]

I work at a grocery store which happens to have several types of carts. Of course, you have your "standard" carts, which are "standard" size and fit into each other nicely. Then there are "giant" carts, which are twice the size of standard carts and thus can hold twice the groceries. These carts only fit into their own kind. (This will be important later.) Next, we have these little double decker midget carts, which are very light and easy to push. Old people seem to love these, and they frequently run out and have to be gathered more often than the other types of carts. Again, these carts only fit into their own kind. Segregation, I guess you could call it. We also have some special carts; electric-wheelchair type carts, car-shaped carts, etc. These carts don't fit into any other carts, even themselves.

Now, there are 2 foyer areas in our store. We keep these stocked constantly, and try to put every type of cart in them. There are also four stacks of standard carts, two on each side, for the customers' convenience.

I am a bagger, so I have to do the dirty work, which includes getting the carts from the parking lot and putting them back into nice, neat stacks. Usually, I am in a bad enough mood when I'm doing this because of SCs being lazy and not returning the carts to the (one of three- for their convenience!) cart corrals. Now, it makes me feel a little better when I see a customer putting a cart back where it belongs on their own... but tell me, why do SCs go through all that trouble of bringing their cart back to the foyer, put it by a stack of like carts, and then just leave it there, instead of going the extra mile and pushing it into the stack so everything is nice and neat?

The real clincher here, though, is when SCs, the lazy-but-not-really kind who put carts back into the foyer, push a cart into a stack of a totally different kind of cart and just leave it there! How hard is it to understand that those carts don't fit together! It's like in pre-school when you have to fit the shapes into the holes. the squares go into the square holes, and the triangles go into the trianglular holes. They're not interchangible. And in the real world (rather than the customer-friendly grocery world) when you get frusterated because something doesn't fit together NO ONE IS GOING TO COME AND PUT IT IN THE RIGHT PLACE FOR YOU TO COME BACK AND DO THE SAME THING NEXT TIME!

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Any cart-pushers feel the same way?

[Bugg]

yeah, when people just leave a cart by the stack drives me nuts, like its that much effort to just push it in

I don't know if this bothers anyone else, but when people walk past a bunch of loose carts and grab from the stack I'm making it also drives me crazy

[dragonflygrrl]

I don't work in a grocery, but I have a few things that I see that I always think must really bug the cart corallers. One is when someone pushes the cart out to the far end of the lot, unloads their groceries, then banks the front wheels of the cart on the little "garden" thingies interspersed through the parking lot. I mean, not only are they killing the plants that someone worked really hard to plant and water, now the cart person has to go all the way out there and wrestle the cart back down. That seems needlessly rude to me.

The other is when one person is too lazy to take their cart all the way out to the corral (usually about five feet) and just leaves it in a parking spot. Then, others see this and apparently think this is a special, incognito cart corral, and soon there is a herd of carts taking up a parking spot.

It never ceases to amaze me how the same person that gets up at five to jog a mile every morning can't walk ten feet to put away a cart.

[Worker-Intellectual]

Where I work, we have a few different kinds of carts. I guess when they got new ones, they didn't get the same ones and wound up with three different sizes of carts... not to mention the garden center ones. The worst are the people who manage to jam a few different sized ones together and I need a crowbar to take them apart...

The other is when one person is too lazy to take their cart all the way out to the corral (usually about five feet) and just leaves it in a parking spot. Then, others see this and apparently think this is a special, incognito cart corral, and soon there is a herd of carts taking up a parking spot.

Bonus points if it's a handicapped spot

[Bliss]

Hehehe, the other day I was shopping at a supermarket, and there where about four or five loose carts in front of the stacks, so I separated mine, and quickly pushed the extra carts in place into the stacks.

Just then I noticed a bagger comming with a load of carts from the parking lot, he had seen what I had done and was jsut gaping at me, not angrily or anything, just unbeleiving someone would actually neat up what other customers left hanging around.

I just smiled back at him and went to do my shopping

[karma_gypsy]

then banks the front wheels of the cart on the little "garden" thingies interspersed through the parking lot.

I've always wondered that myself, I don't work in a grocery store either. But for crying out loud, some grocery stores will have the corrals every five parking spaces (ok, not literally), but you'll still see loose carts floating around the parkling lot when there is a corral less than two feet away.

[braindead]

It really bugs me when people are to lazy to do something with their carts. They just leave them anywhere. I to am a lazy person so what do I do I always park next to a cart corral. Or if I am close enough I just bring it back to the store. My mom is horrible about leaving her cart but she also doesnt use blinkers. Big pet peeve of mine.

My sympathies to anyone who has to go get carts.

[Jester]

I am good with the carts, generally, but some people really piss me off with their carelessness.

A few months ago, I was finishing putting my groceries inside my truck at my usual shopping time, say around 1 am-ish (so the lot was pretty empty) when I hear THUNK! Wtf? I go around to the back of my truck, and there was an empty cart that some nimrod had just pushed aside from two rows over and let it roll, all the way into my truck. Now, anyone who knows me knows that YOU DON'T MESS WITH MY TRUCK!


So I see the culprit, getting on his moped, oblivious to the world around him and his idiocy, and even though I yelled at him, he just rode off, not a clue in the world. I cursed him and his family for ten generations under my breath (did I mention that you don't mess with my truck?) and then drove home. Luckily, there was no damage to my truck, as the cart had hit the spare tire mounted on back, but man, I was ready to kill the little blankety blank!

I don't think it needs saying that this was not the type of man that would put his cart in the corral.....

[Pagan]

I don't think I've ever not taken a cart to the corral. I once ran into what has got to be one of the laziest asshats on the planet at Wally World once. I parked and got out of my car just as this dip got done putting his bags in his car. Here is the conversation:

Asshat: Do you need a cart?
Me: Yeah, but I'm not taking yours 'cause you're too lazy to walk to the cart return two spaces over!

You could have heard his jaw hit the ground!

[Ezrockspants]

We have to areas where we store trolleys- just inside the mall doors and just outside the mall doors (we make up the majority of the tiny, tiny mall). There are usually double the amount of trolleys outside than inside, simply because there isn't enough room inside.
It really ****s me off when people walk past the three rows of trolleys outside, notice that there is none inside and come up to the kiosk to complain that there is no trolleys.

Don't you people have eyes???

[RailroadMonster]

Rollers

Did I mention that those small carts roll like madmen? If there is the slightest decline in the parking lot they'll take off rolling and before you know it they'll be going 15mph toward someone's mustang. On more than one occasion I've had to sprint accross the lot to save someone's car because of another man's laziness.

Some people I could care less about, though. For instance this trashy-looking lady, I'd say about mid 30s, comes cruising into the parking lot at about 40mph, whilst talking on a cell phone, and peels into a handicapped spot with her (non handicapped) Jeep Commando. Because of her idiocy/obliviousness to other and the outside world, she smashes into three carts and the BIG, YELLOW POLE THAT EVERYONE CAN SEE inbetween the handicapped spots, smashing up her front bumper nicely.

At this time I'm about 20 feet away getting the carts out of the corral. Of course my SC alarm went off, so I just went on like nothing had happened, managing to avoid the (now damaaged) carts in front of her Jeep. She gets out of her car, still on her cell phone, and continues the conversation as if nothing had happened. She sits on the hood of her Jeep and talks for about ten minutes and then leaves. Some people I just don't get.

[pbmods]

I was shopping at a Target a couple of weeks ago, and I wish sooooo bad I had a camera on me at the time.

There was a cart corral in the lot, and one side was so full that there wasn't any room for any more carts, so customers made a big pile of carts right in front of it that completely nullified the usefulness of the corral.

The kicker?

The other side of the corral was completely empty (well, except for my cart, that is ).

[RailroadMonster]

Of broken carts...

Another thing SCs will do that drives me nuts: They will manage to find a broken cart that we put in a special place either in the back of the store or in the middle of the 100+ cart stacks outside (so no one will use it) and shop with it. When they finish, of course, they leave it strewn about in the parking lot.

[Becks]

Another thing SCs will do that drives me nuts: They will manage to find a broken cart that we put in a special place either in the back of the store or in the middle of the 100+ cart stacks outside (so no one will use it) and shop with it. When they finish, of course, they leave it strewn about in the parking lot.

Don't forget, the'll be sure to let everyone on the planet know, by bitching loudly, that they have the worst cart EVER in the history of shopping carts.

[pbmods]

Don't forget, the'll be sure to let everyone on the planet know, by bitching loudly, that they have the worst cart EVER in the history of shopping carts.

Oh I LOVE that! Because it's such a pain to get another cart!!!