Me before reading the picture:

you definitely should always return it. You are scum if you don't.

Me after reading the picture:

death to shopping cart returns.

At my store the cops just jump the curb and park right beside the fucking entrance anyways. Fucking lazy ass pigs.

Hourly wages of cart-pushers are baked into the cost of goods at the store, regardless of whether you return the cart to the collection point or to the indoor cart stack or not at all.

This is done for the median American who is too lazy to travel more than 20 yards out of their way without starting up a car to do it.

Roughly 2-3% of labor at a large retailer is cart pushing.

Back in the day when me and my friends worked at the various stores, we’d leave carts in the far reaches of the respective parking lots. Gave plausible deniability to fucking off 10-20 minutes, then you could combo chain that with a bathroom break, doing “go-backs”, or just walking around with a random item you were “bringing to a customer”. Or helping an old/short person with their shopping (customer service comes first ;) ).

Anyway fuck grocery bagging and cart pushing- And just generally making teens do mindless busy work for small business tyrants. Give them agency in work or let them be free; anything else adds literally no value.