shopping rule theory

I saw someone leave their cart next to their car and get back in the car. So I grabbed it and put it in the corral a few spaces away. That person drove back through the parking lot to tell me to "mind my own business". I still get a little schadenfreude about how upset they were over their own conscience and perceived social judgement.
- "Mind your own business" is such a perfect encapsulation of how completely incapable of self-reflection that person must be.
  The cart was no longer their business, but yours. So not only couldn't they recognise that the judgment they felt came from within, they projected that feeling outwards so hard they ended up sticking their nose into your business about it.
  That's how they avoid learning basic life lessons like, "I should return the cart," because as soon as they hit the "I should" part they freak out and make it everyone else's problem.
- Tbh I would have put it right behind their car lol
- “Be a better person”. Hold onto that one for the next time this happens. It never will though.

In Europe, you have the incentive of getting a coin back
- the very fact that they had to install this system tells us all we need to know about humanity.
  
  Nobody did that shit until LIDL introduced the concept. After that, nobody still did it. LIDL are still the only ones who require the sacrifice.
- No free Litmus test for us, sad.
  
  You can still get the test!! Hear me out if you have two keys you can press the buttons to disengage the locking mechanism as if it were a coin
  This way the cart is now coin free, I do this all the time you just need the right key and a bit of practice
- Depends on the store. My local IKEA at least does not require a coin.
- Wait this isn't standard practice in the rest of the world???¿???
  
  It is at Aldi (and maybe Lidl?) but uncommon in general in the US
- Aldi used to do that in the US. Maybe they still do. I never carry coins on me, so for this reason (and the always extremely long lines at checkout) I never shopped there.
  
  I keep an Aldi quarter in my car. I don't shop there regularly, but I'm always prepared when I do.
  
  There are plastic coins you can use instead.

The shopping cart theory, as written here, starts as a litmus test for whether a person is capable of self governing and descends into two paths:
If you do return the cart you are doing it out of the goodness of your heart and because it is correct; and
If you don't you are no better than an animal, a savage, who does what is right only because there is a law in place or you are forced to.
Self-governance: Are you a good person or a monster? There is no middle ground.
- WRONG there is a third option where i take the cart home and eat it with my teeth 😬
  
  Become ungovernable
  
  Or, when people live within walking distance of the store, take the cart home, unload your groceries and then leave the cart by the street.
  
  good way to get your teeth stronger for the "eat the rich" movement
  
  Fourth option: I filled the cart with groceries, it is now my home.
- So you are criticising the over simplification presented here and I agree with you.
  I would however point out that although I also don't like the binary aspect of their blurb, I find that I would quite agree with their final sentence. I don't think the test shows whether we are a good or a bad person, but it does say something about a person's ability to fit in a society.
  
  I think it's a interesting experiment I just thought it was funny how those who don't return were demonized.

Why not use the European system where you have to use a coin to unlock the cart from the stack. People are more likely to return the cart if it costs them money if they don’t and if they still leave the cart out some kid or hobo will return it eventually.
- Some stores in the US do this, most notably Aldi. It's kind of a pain in the ass, especially in an increasingly cashless society.
  
  Names a European store.
  They sell like coin shaped discs you can put on your keyring, dunno if that's a thing in the US though.
- Can we just use the nordic system where people are not fucking savages and bring their carts back? I hate people who don't return their carts but I hate even more when I need coins to unlock the cart. I haven't carried coins since 2014.
  
  I live in a Nordic country, we have carts which need a coin, most people have a thing on their keychain to unlock a cart, majority of carts are returned.
- Some might think it's the price for a cheap shopping cart. In German there was a comedian who did a prank call at a store, telling them he bought 500 carts for 500€ and use them as rabbit cages.
  
  German
  Comedian
  The math ain't mathing here.
- Oh of course the Europeans have done it better than us
  
  Food Maxx in the U.S. employed this in low income areas to prevent cart thefts. So, that's nice.
  
  This is how it is at about half the big grocery stores where I live in Canada
- Wait is that an european only thing?
- My local aldi does this and still when I get there I find like 3 trolleys scattered around the tiny carpark. I can only grab like two max to take with me to the pen.
  
  True. Come to think of it, at least with the coin system there is an incentive for another customer to bring the cart back.
  On the flip side, where I live people sometimes bring their cart back but don't connect it to the others, so that somebody else can use it without needing a quarter. Those people are nice. :)
- This was very common in Canada in the late 80s and 90s with a couple chains still doing it today.
- Because then we can't use it as an arbitrary metric for judging people's moral righteousness.
- You can and will replace the coin with something worthless of equal shape and size.
  
  As an American, coins are already basically worthless.
- Because we're not savages, and can return the carts like a civilized society.
  
  “Civilized”

Remember that a lot of religious people believe that without written rules of what is right or wrong that we'd all turn into literal murder hobos.
- jesse what the fuck are you talking about jesse
  
  I think they're saying religious people believe that if it isn't an enforced rule by either the law or some religion, people won't follow it.
  (I know it's the jesse meme text but internet sarcasm is hard so I'm putting my interpretation anyway)

I am glad I live in a place where many grocery stores don't have this problem, because they don't have parking lots, because most of their customers don't even have a car much less would drive it to get groceries if they did. (Yes, I do realize how fortunate I am.)

A long time ago I worked at a grocery store and I preferred it when people didn’t return the carts. Would you rather spend your day gathering carts outside or gathering carts for 10 minutes at a time and then having to deal with customers?
- Customers in the store are bitchy and demanding.
  Customers outside the store are bitchy, demanding, and controlling a two-ton machine.
  Hard choice.
  
  I was yelled at daily. Never was I threatened with someone’s car.
- Depends on the weather
  
  I’d still rather be outside than dealing grocery store customers in the snow, rain, cold, or heat.
- I'm just curious, did you bring the carts in in smaller batches so you'd have to make more trips and the whole task would take longer?
  
  Yeah. Way longer. It’s a much quicker job when all the carts are in one spot and you just bring a long train of them back at once.

But I gotta get my quid back.
- This one Aldis.
  
  It's basically standard (at least everywhere I've lived) in Europe
  
  Every supermarket has this in the UK. Has for years.

Counterpoint:
The Wholefoods in Redmond, Wa is known as Hellfoods by their employees because of how cold people are there and how overbearing management can be. It also is in one of the most beautiful parts of the country. When I worked there, I love the warm summer evenings when I could go out to the outfield to fetch a cart because I got to be outside and no longer under the micromanagement that is retail.
When I would clock off, sometimes I'd nab a cart and send it out on purpose for the guy behind me to give them an escape.
- Did every other employee feel the same way as you? Because otherwise that's not a counterpoint.
  
  But you could say the same for the original premise- not every employee hates getting rogue carts, in fact many like getting them.
  I gave an anecdotal point, but the broader argument simply questions one of the assumptions of OP.
- I've been on both sides of this and it really depends on what management is expecting at the time. If "cart run" is a considered a task unto itself then it can be bliss, but if you're short staffed then management starts to look at "cart run" as a means to an end. When the expectation becomes that you'll be back on register in 10-15 minutes (but all the corrals out front are now full and no customers are complaining about it), then all those wayward carts mean you gotta hustle.
  When I eventually found myself in a supervisory role, I remembered that and tried to equitably rotate between everybody that I knew liked doing carts (or offer when I could tell someone was getting burnt out/long day and needed to go outside for a while) and just let them do their thing. Mostly people really appreciated that and in those cases it was gratifying to be the cool supervisor, but I hated that my responsibility had become to ensure that the front carts were acceptably full at any given time rather than to gather the carts -- all it takes is a random rush and suddenly there are no carts and a micromanagey shift lead is chewing you out because they only appear at moments like these (or immediately after the rush while everyone is catching their breath to ask why you can't find something to do) and your guy outside was just standing in the back of the lot smoking a cigarette, the shift lead doesn't care that there were carts mere minutes before they arrived on the floor, nor that the cart runner only just started that cig after gathering all the carts strewn into bushes and discarded between cars or down the sidewalk...
  god I don't miss retail lol

Every time I fail to return a shopping cart on a beautiful spring day, the grocery store’s Cart Gatherer thanks me kindly and calls, “Thank you kind citizen for giving me leave to leave the hellhole that I was stuck in because the world is filled with assholes who are stealing my job! I want to be in the sunlight! Don’t take that from me!!”

Where I am people do not trust people and shopping carts are coin operated.

- My experience is as anecdotal as yours, but it seems to me that the typical conservative male is more likely to return the cart than not. Conservatives, as backward as they can be, typically have irrationally higher expectations for certain rules.
  These are the same people who would be ok with police brutality, but would be upset with swearing in front of an old lady.
  The people I see leaving carts more often than not are older people (perfectly capable of walking into, through, and out of the store but act like they're too frail to return the cart) or two different groups of women (stuck up Karens or moms who are by themselves with children).
- $10 says Yankees, on average, leave more carts in the parking lot.
  This is not based on extensive travel and observation, and I am not planning on what do with your $10.
  (Nothing much, but $10 is $10)
- Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but are you saying that it's morally neutral to put others at risk as long as you're putting yourself at the same risk?
  Cuz it's not. Not at all.

What if returning the carts is my usual practice, but there was a time crunch one time and I needed to save myself the extra 30 seconds?
- I'm having a tough time imagining a scenario where you're in too much of a hurry to spend 30 seconds returning the cart, but not too much of a hurry to buy your merchandise and load it in your vehicle.
  
  Maybe if you are about to piss your pants, but even then you should check inside the store first. But that's about it
- Then your time management sucks.
- Believe it or not, jail!
- If you are in such a hurry you don't even have 30 seconds, you shouldn't be shopping in the first place, especially if you buy enough to fill a cart.
- Unless you get a phone call just after unloading your shit into your car what sort of emergency allows you to shop but still demands literally no second be spared?
- I suppose if it was dire you save those 30s, it's acceptable.
  But you would not be immune to being judged by a third party. They wouldn't know the situation is dire unless explaining it, which would take at least a few seconds.
- The post specifies an exemption for dire emergencies. It would need to be pretty dire for 30s to make a meaningful difference.
  Otherwise, by the metric here, you're a bad person whenever you're in a moderate hurry.
- Walmart sells indulgences.
- I always just park next to the cart return things. Makes it easier to find your car and you don't have to walk as far.
  
  Parking next to the cart return doesn't count. You must bring the cart all the way back.
- The description says unless it's a dire emergency

prints this image out a million times and attaches it to every shopping cart I can find

That original 4chan post is like Jordan B Peterson level, which says more about JBP than the 4chan poster.
Maybe we should make a game show titled "Are you more intellectual than a right-wing grifter?".

Capitalist has entered the chat.

InB4 "If everyone returned their shopping carts it would eliminate jobs" idiots come into the thread.
- The people putting the carts back are spending what, 1-2hr/8hr shift doing carts? The rest is either cleaning or stocking so it's not like they won't just do more of that.
  
  Yes, they would have 2 hours a day more time to clean and stock the shelves. Making their job easier.
- I mean, the image shows a cart corral (sp?). They still need someone to collect the carts, they just don't have to chase them down or pull them off the curb
  Not everywhere has those, but most places do

It's not a theory, it's a damn law.

As if disabled people didn't exist.
- Come on. I think we can assume that if someone is physically incapable of putting a shopping cart back, they're not included in this. But then I do wonder how they were using the shopping cart in the first place.
  
  given how often disabled people are yelled at for using disabled parking spots, I would not be as optimistic that we'd not be included
  As for how they were able to use it, maybe using it for a little bit is okay but it starts physically hurting after a while leading to them not being able to put it back, that has happened to me before. Or maybe the return cart area is a bit up a hill or otherwise inaccessible
  
  There are no situations except dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their shopping cart.
  It's pretty clear to me.
  Disabilities of all kinds exist. There may be some that use the cart for balance or others that can't easily navigate places where there are cars (visual disability for example). Leaving the shopping cart at exit is easier if you get into a vehicle or mobility aid right at the exit, rather than going around.
  It's funny because I've seen this same post before and half the comments were about disabled people. And here I was the first.

If there was a law punishing people for not putting shopping carts back, I would deliberately break it and sue whatever stupid fucking government passed such a thing under the grounds listed in the post.
A law like that would be a violation of our rights. You can't just use government to force people to do whatever you want. We have rights.
- A law like that would be a violation of our rights
  We have a right to not clean up after ourselves? Tell me more
  The fact is you're borrowing a cart from it's owner, probably a store. If the store requires you to put it back and you don't the they would be within their rights to sue you over it. The only reason they don't is because their damages would be massively less valuable than their legal fees and the time it would take to present a lawsuit.
  
  You really do. Governments can't arbitrarily make you do whatever they want through laws; they have to have good reasons for it that are acceptable by the people, and no one thinks it's acceptable for governments to harm their own citizens over an act the OP emphatically tells us harms no one.
  An act that really doesn't mean anything more than a minor inconvenience and annoyance for everyone else.
  And you want to harm people over it.
  They're not the ones who are disgusting. You are.
- Same logic can apply to throwing your trash around. Which does get fined.
  
  I am pretty surprised no one has sued to get those laws overturned on those grounds.
  Laws like that are just dog whistles to enable discrimination, just as loitering laws are.
- Pretty sure it could be considered fly tipping.

I mostly shop at a place where you can safely leave the carts on a covered sidewalk outside of the store. Get fucked moral absolutists
- Safely, but still creating more work for store employees to collect the carts and possibly inconveniencing pedestrians. Point 1 for the moral absolutists.
  
  Some stores hire students to continuously gather all the shopping carts and return them to the hubs. Altough, I think nowadays all stores in my country use the coin operated carts, so if you don't return the cart, you don't get your coin back.
  
  Mostly, people take the left carts back into the store to shop with

This is such a dumb take - doing unpaid labour for corporations is what makes someone a good person? Nah.
- That's a weird take. The shopping part is provided to you for free for your convenience. Not returning the shopping cart means you are creating a nuisance for other people who are coming to the store to get the things that they need. It is blocking parking spots, potentially going to damage somebody's car, and no longer in a centralized location.
  Not returning it is inconsiderate in multiple ways.
- Nah, yours is the dumb take. I guess returning your 3D glasses at the end of a movie is too much "unpaid labor" for you. How about cleaning up your table at a restaurant that doesn't have servers? I guess you just leave the mess sitting there huh?
  
  Nah lol I return the shopping cart and don't make a mess in public. But I really don't believe that's some kinda evidence of morality.
- Working a customer facing job with poor pay and little to no benefits sucks. That's why I do it, for those people, not the business.

I disagree with returning the shopping cart being an act of free will. There is a lot of societal pressure to do it for some people, or to not do it for some other people. And there is always the risk that someone who you know will walk see you not returning, and tell all your friends about it. Or want if your boss happens to see you? What would happen then?
So yeah, better quickly return it. Better than having to deal with all these unknowns.

One time I went to a Walmart in the middle of the night and turned all the cart returns backwards. What does that make me?
- You will probably be mentioned in history with Hitler and Stalin.

I love when people leave their carts around because that means I am not forgetting my coin if I have to take one out the aisle
- Your coin? Are you renting the shopping cart?
  Edit: TIL about European shopping cart rental
  
  I'm not sure if they still do, but ALDI used to do this too. Not too sure about other stores but I've only seen it at ALDI here in Michigan

I return the shopping cart entirely out of the fact that ai fucking hate it when people leave the cart in the parking space. But yeah if theres a concrete sidewalk or something I may leave it there if the return area is a row of cars away.
- Then you sure are a bad member of society. Did you read the post?
  
  They're simply stating the parameters where they perceive it to no longer be an easy convenient task. We'd need to argue that line to be sure.

But then what do you do about those monsters who leave carts in motion, on slopes, leaving them to hit parked cars?
- Ziptie those carts to their car handles.
- You judge them as bad people, I guess. The post only defines how to judge people, it doesn't prescribe what should be done about it.

- god america is weird you can't even carry bags a few metres out the door to your car

I prefer the Gom Jabbar but the Shopping Cart seems like a viable alternative.
- Gom Jabbar always seemed like a pointless task. Are you "human" by being able to willingly withstand physical pain? Some people have higher pain tolerances and willpower; doesn't make them beasts.

I have very young children, meaning very often I can walk away from the car after getting them in their carseats and unloading the groceries or whatever and be gone for about two minutes before one or both of them start losing their minds and getting scared. If the shopping cart return spot is more than two minutes from my car (round trip), then the cart gets left exactly two minutes (round trip) closer to the return spot and in a spot that doesn't inconvenience a) anyone parking, b) anyone leaving, and c) the employee that will eventually have to return it to the store.
Ideally, I catch someone walking inside the store on my way and ask if they'd like the cart, but not always.
That's just how it is, I don't feel bad about it. I don't know if you all live somewhere where these cart return chutes are more available, but most large parking lots here are the size of like two football fields and they have three total return chutes.
What irritates me is how often the "parent parking" spots are filled with people that get into their cars with no kids. They are typically located right next to the chutes, and it is great because you don't have to walk short children through a parking lot, you can put them in a cart, and then walk in where cars backing out can see the little kids.
I seriously rarely see people with kids using those spots. 100% some of the people in this thread are using the parent parking spots without kids, returning their shopping cart right next to where they're parked, and then judging people for not returning their carts.
- I'm not judging you, but to offer another perspective to anyone reading this thread: I am a parent of two young children, and have never not returned a shopping cart. I take the kids with me when I return it.
  As a parent, I realizes that it's harder to do things with kids than without, but I go out of my way to not pass that burden onto others.
  There are many ways our situations could be different that would make it harder for you to do this than me - your reasons are completely your business.
  
  I hear you, but in a busy parking lot, the shopping cart elevates the height of the children, making them visible to cars.
  Where I live, the grocery store and target or whatever are primarily SUVs and trucks. The blind spots on vehicles like that are huge, and my children suddenly decide something looks and interesting and will sometimes just bolt off.
  They're pretty good in parking lots, and obviously we have to and do walk through them, but, when I can, I try to limit the time my children spend on their feet in a busy parking lot.
  My daughter barely comes up to the bumper of some of these trucks! But I do appreciate what you're saying, and I tend to agree with you in most circumstances.

It's surprising to me US carts don't have to be unlocked by a coin (which you get back when you lock your cart again), it's like that in every supermarket I know in France and Germany and probably many other European countries.
You can misbehave but it costs you a little bit, and if you do someone has the opportunity to make a buck off you by cleaning after you.
- Stores have tried it. Customers hate it. Chiefly because many people simply don't carry any coins on them. You can't have all of your store's registers set to card only mode (yes this is very common for some reason) and then expect people to have a coin on them at all times, so they don't bother.
  It also seems trivially easy to circumvent. Easier than remembering to bring a quarter with you when you go to the store.
  
  Yeah in a cashless society things like that can't work well. In Germany cash is king, you can't go out without. In France it is mandated that shops accept at least 2 means of payments (among cash, card, check or wire transfer), and only cash and cards have enough safety and speed that shops and restaurants want to use it.