High Priced Shopping Carts
Joe SieglerI’m in the parking lot of Sam’s Club today loading the trunk of my car with some stuff I had bought. I’m walking my shopping cart over to the metal whatever you call it that sits in a spot to collect carts. I’m reading the sign which says “Help keep your costs low by putting your carts here”. What I want to know is why exactly does the placement of my shopping cart affects the prices of what I buy? I mean the minimum wage flunkie who collects the carts from the yard will get the same minimum wage whether my cart is in the metal bin for the carts, or in the back end of the entire parking lot. I mean really – is the price of my can of peas going to be affected because my shopping cart is 5 spaces away from the assigned spot? Another example of dumb ass labeling.
And while I’m at it, what’s with people who can’t line up their carts in the assigned areas? 95% of the time, I go to put my cart there, and the thing has about 6 carts actually in the metal collector, while another 25 or so are all lined up on the outside of the thing starting to block lanes of traffic in the parking lot. It really cheeses me off that people are so afraid to actually push the carts into each other where they belong. I mean if people did that, the 6,000 shopping carts they have on the outside would all line up and fit inside the collection area nicely. No, these housewives who don’t want to push a shopping cart anyway, feel it’s OK to block my car and my way because they don’t want to exert any effort into lining up a shopping cart properly. Take the three seconds and actually push the shopping cart into the one in front of you please so you don’t have 50,000 shopping carts all over the parking lot.
Oh and one last thing – to the people who work at Wal-Mart. It is NOT OK to get on the PA of the store and scream at the top of your lungs for all the employees to go out on a Buggy roundup. First off, they’re not friggin buggies, they’re shopping carts. Second, you don’t need to scream into the friggin PA system. Third, stop hanging up the phone while the PA is still open. All of us shoppers don’t need to hear the fact that you have no ability to properly use a PA system by slamming down the phone before disconnecting the line, instead of the other way around like you should be doing. Stupid Wal-Mart employees. My wife works at Borders and in their training on how to run the store, they’re told “Now don’t use the PA system like Wal-Mart does – disconnect the line before hanging up, we don’t want to look stupid”. Heh.
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AMEN! Usually the parking lots for Costco (or Sam’s) are friggen HUGE! And they have about a bazillion carts. They taught us the same thing at Barnes & Noble… hang up before slamming down the receiver. I read your entry to my roommate, she was falling off her seat listening. ;)
Whoa! Now who says that the culprits are all “housewives”? ;)
That is so funny! I agree with you that laziness is very annoying on the buggy dilemma.
You know, now when I’m returning shopping carts, I make sure that I do it right so that my husband doesn’t gripe about it. However, according to him I don’t know how to load a shopping cart up “correctly” (note the sarcasm). Grrrrrrrr…:)
I was just at Sam’s today, and yes, there were carts EVERYWHERE. Most of them were maybe two or three spaces away from the empty cart rack. Lazy sob’s. Not only that, but the lot was full of people who seem to forget how to drive when they are surrounded by white lines. Here’s Ms SUV, sitting right in the middle of the row, surrounded by empty parking spaces… gotta wonder what, if anything, was going through her head. Then, the last requirement of any shopping establishment, the row of cars waiting for some person to back out because they absolutely HAVE to park within a 10 second walk from the door. Never mind that there are 400 spaces up the row a bit, these people are all fighting over ONE space because it is the CLOSEST space to the store. For cryin’ out loud, people… walk! You’re going to push a cart around the store for an hour, what’s another 60-70 feet?
“I mean the minimum wage flunkie who collects the carts from the yard will get the same minimum wage whether my cart is in the metal bin for the carts, or in the back end of the entire parking lot. I mean really – is the price of my can of peas going to be affected because my shopping cart is 5 spaces away from the assigned spot? Another example of dumb ass labeling.”
Hey jackass, did you know some of those “minimum wage flunkies” are making 15-20 bucks an hour ?
It saves you money so they don’t have to send out more 15-20 an hour people out to pick up after your lazy ass.
Nice stereotyipng, asshat
What an ignorant chump. Have you ever stopped to consider any other reasons the store management personnel would ask for the cooperation of their lazy customers (much like yourself) and for increased effort and diligence in maintaining an organized parking lot? Try imagining one of those abandonded shopping carts rolling down a slight grade or even catching a strong gust of wind, sending it slamming into your car. Now try imagining the owner of that car returning to find the incurred damage and simply leaving the scene without a word. If you think that’s REALLY how they would react you’re even more ignorant than you led us to believe previously. Those signs are ther to remind us customers to be responsible so no unnecessary costs arise from lazy customer neglect. Those unnecessary costs,in turn, have to be paid for SOMEHOW, right? Each dollar spent on repairs for damages incurred on the business’ property will most likely translate into an increase in price somewhere on the SHELF among the products we buy. THAT’S why they post those signs at the shopping cart areas–because they can’t very well just come out and say, “Hey dumbass, if you scratch somebody’s car because you couln’t figure out how to return these carts to the proper area, you better wait around long enough to fess up for it!”. People (most likely ones as scholarly as yourself) won’t get it. Again, you’re and ignorant fool.