A Simple Question

[Dave1982]

GOD I hated that when I worked at the Supermarket. I saw it all the time. People woudl walk right past the corrals and "helpfully" leave their cart:

1) Right by the door, thus quite nicely blocking it

2) Up on the sidewalk in front of the buidling

3) Abutted up AGAINST the sidewalk right in front of the building, where the cart would usually roll away and smash into a car (I once saw a cart roll right into a classic car (I forget the type) and smash the taillight)

4) In this little fenced in recess where we usually stored the gas powered outdoor vacuum. This was especialyl annoying, since they often tipped the cart over on top of the damned vacuum, or wedged the cart in sideways if the vacuum wasn't there. Hauling the carts out of there was a major pain, especially when 3 or 4 of them were jammed in there.

I am a strong advocate of the French method of dealing with shopping carts (well, what I assume is the French method, since I saw it in an instructional video in my French II class in high school).

In this system, the carts are actually secured to a rail with a small chain. There's a small box on the push handle of the cart that the chain attaches to. You deposit money in the box to unlock the cart, then when you bring the cart back and rechain it, you get your money back (and this appeared to be a full refund, unlike the damned airport carts here in the States where you pay $2 or $3 to use them and get only a $0.50 refund for returning them). I'd love to see this done here.

[JLG]

I can't stand it when SCs leave the cart in front of the register, next to the register, right in front of the exit door or blocking an exit path. Our shopping carts are kept outside right in front of the door. All day long I am pushing carts outside. There have been many times were I pushed 5 shopping carts outside and when I come back inside 4 seconds later there are 5 more carts inside blocking the door again. The front of our store is not very big and it gets jammed with carts fast. When we get really busy and are not able to get the carts outside the front of the store turns into a maze to get out. And of course when people see all the carts blocking the front they add their cart to it

[cinema guy]

I still like the idea of a cartrack that takes a deposit that you get back when you return the cart (like the luggage carts at airports),

That is fairly common here in the UK. The carts are chained to one another and a shiny pound coin in the slot will release the chain. While I'm sure it does encourage people to return carts, there are still plenty who can't be bothered to return them and get their pound out of the slot.

[Shironu-Akaineko]

My problem is a little different in this case.
The bakery has it's own cart, it's an older model cart, different than the current 2 baskets model, PLUS we wrote "Bakery" literally EVERY TWO INCHES on it.

The front panel even says "Do not touch or else Charlie." (Charlie being the sweet as sugar but sour as lemon assistant manager. He's very nice but don't Frigg with him, seriously.)

Customers will ignore the labels and sometimes walk into the bakery to get it and even once EMPTYING it to get it.

Then when we find out the cart's gone, we hunt it down and the customer who stole it claims "Yeah but I found it in the front!"

NO YOU DIDN'T! LOOK! *points to very obvious bakery sign on the inside panel and the red flap AND the handle*

"Oh, teehee!"

Once aforementioned Charlie had to go fetch it from the parking lot.

In winter.

In minus 40 Celsius weather.

[Nakajo]

I hate pushing carts. We have those huge, metal industral ones, that are twice the size of regular carts.

What boggles my mind is that some people push these to the top of the snow drifts made by the plows when it snows, and think we're going to get them later. We used to yell at people we caught doing that.

[draggar]

What about the "helpful" people who decide to put their one cart in front of the 20-30 you're pushing thinking you can just scoop it up? Sure! These cards will easily slide into that one!

[Nakajo]

What about the "helpful" people who decide to put their one cart in front of the 20-30 you're pushing thinking you can just scoop it up? Sure! These cards will easily slide into that one!

AHAHAHAH! Yes! I had a woman push a cart really hard towards me once, and I didn't see her. The cart missed me, and HIT A MOVING CAR. The guy in the car got out and got really mad at her, screaming at her for not watching what she was doing and for pushing the cart at me and everything, and he didn't blame me at all. We still had to file a report, but the guy in the car was so nice to us about the whole thing. He said that it was lucky that the cart didn't hit me and hurt me.