Sometimes I leave supermarket carts in the parking lot.

r/

When I was 15 I worked in a supermarket. I loved cart duty. I got to leave the annoying bagging area with annoying whiney customers.

I got to go outside and kinda work at my own pace. Got to talk to the weird produce guy smoking under the awning. Got to sneak over to the gas station for a drink.

Basically it’s like a mini vacation, cart duty. And when I was a kid we had those heavy lead carts, not those super light space age carts you have nowadays.

I put carts away a lot too, but sometimes I just leave em on a grass island or something.

It’s gonna be alright.

And no, I don’t leave food and garbage around when I go to the movies. (I see that accusation coming 10 billion miles away)

Comments

  1. JuucedIn Avatar

    The adult response is to return the carts to the corral.

  2. FoxySlyRedHead Avatar

    Please stop this.

  3. Sensitive-Issue84 Avatar

    Same here OP! I loved cart duty just to get out of the store for a while.

  4. LemonActive8278 Avatar

    This is not the justification you think it is, most places add this on top of people’s existing responsibilities.

  5. Awkward-Inevitable75 Avatar

    Sometimes I take those ‚lost’ carts back 😂 I can’t help myself, it’s the German in me. In Germany you always have to put a coin in your cart and therefore everyone always returns it.

  6. Wolfgangj3503 Avatar

    I loved going out for cart duty, but I promise you, people will be out there long enough without having to go grab the cart you didn’t put back. I HATED when people leave them all over the place- we have a weird parking lot set up so I often had to put more effort into moving the carts up and down the curbs. Especially hated it when people saw me outside dealing with carts and still left them. Don’t do this please I promise you people enjoy getting away enough without you leaving them all over the place 🙏

  7. marcus_frisbee Avatar

    When I was in high school working at a local market I loved cart duty! I worked at my own pace, and friends stop by and shoot the shit. We had a roof top parking area that nobody ever checked on and my friends would meet me up there and we would hang out and drink beer and smoke, it was awesome. When it was nice out during the warm months I would work on my tan. Loved it.

    But now I hate MFers that leave their cart in the parking area because I have a car that I don’t want to get dinged.

  8. George-St-Geegland Avatar

    I also loved cart duty as a teenager working grocery stores. I assume others do too

  9. Phasnyc Avatar

    I see a lot of cart retrievers working miserably in the rain, snow, heat and cold because someone decided to be lazy.

  10. Margajay1784 Avatar

    I love this! I always feel a bit guilty and lazy when I don’t put the buggy back! Its very sweet to think there’s a kiddo out there who sees it as an opportunity 😂

  11. 3godeth Avatar

    We were often so short staffed at my last grocery job that I would have to run back and forth between pushing in rows of carts and the customer service counter. They don’t hire cart pushers or sackers any more for most places, they just expect the rest of staff to figure it out. It used to be fine but the world isn’t like it used to be.

  12. xxcatalopexx Avatar

    Seek help immediately.

  13. Cantbanthejman20 Avatar

    This post is gonna be hanging on the wall in your room in HELL

  14. yuanrae Avatar

    There’s definitely people who like cart duty, but I have a friend who’s kind of small and honestly weak (she doesn’t get a lot of exercise and has various health issues) and she gets put on cart duty in the rain a lot, so I err on the side of putting my cart back. Plenty of carts out even without me adding to it.

  15. Oven-sock Avatar

    I only leave it if I have young children in the car while I am loading it up. Sorry but if the cart return area is more than 2 spots away, I am not leaving my kids unattended to put it back.

  16. JadeAnn88 Avatar

    I worked on the floor in Walmart before moving into the pharmacy, and I seriously enjoyed picking up the random items people would leave in my department and putting them in their proper place. I think about this and having heard other people express the sane sentiment as you anytime I feel like a lazy pos for leaving an item where it doesn’t go or not putting a cart back. That random thing just might make someone’s day lol.

  17. Workinforweekends Avatar

    I am handicapped and one grocery store I shop at has the cart returns at the center of each aisle so I leave it in front of my car by the handicap sign. A store employee told me this was acceptable. One of the others it is three spots down to the cart return so I put it away there.

  18. dummythiccbish Avatar

    i hated cart duty, especially during the pandemic where i had to sanitize every single one

  19. FutureCrankHead Avatar

    It’s like you’re using rose colored glasses to justify your current shit behavior. It’s no different than littering or leaving your mcdonalds trash at the table.

  20. George-St-Geegland Avatar

    That’s been the case for all but the busiest stores my whole life