If you've ever been to a large chain store, you've pushed a shopping cart around. Hell, if you're reading this, you therefore live in a part of the world where you can go to a store to buy a computer, and said store probably has shopping carts. You know the drill: You enter the store, take your cart, walk around the shopping area to gather whatever the hell it is you're buying, buy your stuff, cart your stuff over to your car and leave the cart in some designated area. There's no way you haven't done this or seen somebody do this.
Now, in the designated area or whatever you want to call it where you leave your carts, some poor fool gets paid to push these carts back into the store, because there's no fucking way the [I]customer[/I] would do it. He/She has to move these bastards, usually several at a time, and while it seems like I'm bitching over the tiniest little thing, allow me to tell you a story and justify myself a little more.
I work in a Grocery Store, Part-Time. Normally, I'm a clerk, but due to a mix of worker shortage, lack of funding to pay for designated workers and dickishness in the upper levels of management, I occasionally get pulled out of my position to go push carts back into the store. And there's no reasoning with the bosses, [I]ever[/I]. You could be sick or tired or whatever, you're going the fuck outside. Earlier today was one of those times.
Not half an hour into my shift, I'm told to push carts by the head manager. The thing is, I recently sprained my ankle, making walking, let alone pushing heavy shit painful. My boss thought I was bullshitting about how every left step felt like my leg was crushing the ball of my foot, but claimed I would have 2 people from other departments in the store to help me. 2 people alone makes the job incredibly easy, but 3 would make it take maybe 20 minutes to get them all back.
Unfortunately for me, these other two assholes never came outside. So there I am, in 30 Degrees, wearing the standard uniform of a heavy polyester long-sleeve shirt, Black Pants and matching cap, tasked to move shit around a crowded and busy parking lot with a sprained ankle. I sighed deeply and hobbled my way over to the first of four Shed-like buildings where customers keep the carts. Normally, I can push 7 or so carts at a time without much incident, but when you have a sprained ankle that acts up whenever it feels like it, the complications that are normally easy to deal with become much more pronounced.
What complications could there be to pushing around fucking [I]shopping carts[/I], you amy ask? Well, when carts are "together", meaning loosely joined and held together by nothing, you can't stop pushing or start moving too quickly, or they come apart and you lose control of ones that are at the end, making runaway carts near moving cars or people a common situation. Your method of steering is also limited to pushing a bar more to the left or right and watching the rest of your carts fishtail around, often leaving you in a more awkward position than you were trying to steer yourself away from.
In the middle of a parking lot on a busy day, this is hell. Treat the guy pushing the carts as a sort of hybrid between vehicle and pedestrian, in the sense that you have to carefully avoid him with limited ways of communication, but he also can't stop, start or steer as effectively as a car, leaving him in a situation where nobody really knows how to deal with his presence immediately, especially given the fact that most people who are driving will not sympathise with his situation and will often assume he can stop and turn on a dime.
More than once today I ran carts into somebody's van due to a lack of control or almost got smacked into because the jackass in the car was in too much of a hurry to let me pass by, because fuck right of way. This led to scenarios where I got threatened with complaints to management (Protip: No customer ever actually complains to the management) and had to deal with angry road rage sufferers, something I was just not in the mood to suffer through.
Had somebody been there to help me, the job would have been simpler. With another person, the other end of the big row of carts you're pushing can be held together and steered bu the other person. This makes steering and stopping immensely easier, not to mention a hugely larger number of carts can be pushed since one guy no longer has to focus on where he's going and can simply push. But even when I went back inside to get the jackasses that were supposed to help me, nobody was "available" despite the large number of people leaning on the wall doing jack shit.
You might be asking why I would go through such a bitch of a process when I could just push one or two carts a time and be done with no headaches. The problem with this is that customers are constantly going in and out, in and out, while you're working. For every cart I would lug across the huge parking lot, two more would have taken its' place, thus turning my [I]entire[/I] day into walking in the sun wearing overly heavy clothes.
At the end of it all, I was exhausted, sweaty and horribly sunburnt on my forearms after the ordeal, with 6 hours left in my shift. If you get anything out of this story of mine, let it be that Lone cart pushers are definitely having a shitty day, and would appreciate it if you just let them cross with their shit before you and your Chevvy.
Edit: Apparently my job is in the dark ages, seeing as I don't have any special hardware to help with this. It's probably because I work in a smaller chain.
I'm guessing you work in a Vons/Albersons type of place. I know the big places like WalMart and Costco have this remote controlled machines that push the carts from the back and you steer them from the front.
Not to mention some carts have magnets in them to help them stay together more nowadays
You're Canadian. When nobody came out to help you you could have gone back inside and told the manager you're not going to do it. You were injured, the labour board would have had your back.
i thought they had ropey things that you attached to the front and back of the line to stop the whole runaway cart thing. I worked at a grocery store once though, i quit in the middle of my second shift and got my old job back the next day :v:
I always see guys pushing long trails of carts and think fuck I'd rather be a hobo.
One of the most hilarious things I have ever seen is some retard trying to take a cart off a cart train that a worker was pushing and the carts were stuck together.
I hate it when shopping carts only have the rear wheels turn you have to awkward turns around the end of the cart to change direction.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;30755932]You're Canadian. When nobody came out to help you you could have gone back inside and told the manager you're not going to do it. You were injured, the labour board would have had your back.[/QUOTE]
My job is actually very sketchy on rules like that, I've never been informed that I had the right to refuse work for reasons less significant than if you were too sick to be there
Thirty degrees? Hot? I hope you mean Celsius and not Fahrenheit, though I guess you could live in the damn Arctic Circle and have that temperature be hot for you or something.
[QUOTE=DarkendSky;30756080]Thirty degrees? Hot? I hope you mean Celsius and not Fahrenheit, though I guess you could live in the damn Arctic Circle and have that temperature be hot for you or something.[/QUOTE]
I live in Canada, of course I mean Celsius.
[QUOTE=DarkendSky;30756080]Thirty degrees? Hot? I hope you mean Celsius and not Fahrenheit, though I guess you could live in the damn Arctic Circle and have that temperature be hot for you or something.[/QUOTE]
30 C is 86 F
[QUOTE=FuhFuhFresh;30756048]My job is actually very sketchy on rules like that, I've never been informed that I had the right to refuse work for reasons less significant than if you were too sick to be there[/QUOTE]
It's kind of irrelevant what your boss thinks in that kind of situation. You always have the right to refuse work if you're physically-impaired or someshit. I mean like Zeke said, the board would back you up if you had a legitimate reason (like an injured leg) should your boss make a big fuss about it.
Ha, your job almost sounds as bad as mine.
[QUOTE=FuhFuhFresh;30756048]My job is actually very sketchy on rules like that, I've never been informed that I had the right to refuse work for reasons less significant than if you were too sick to be there[/QUOTE]
Has nothing to do with workplace policy, the law states you have the right to refuse any work you consider unsafe, and something that can make an existing injury worse falls under that
You know what sucks? Heathrow luggage carts. 4 rotating castors. Wtf? Who in their right mind thought that was a good idea?
I always push my carts back in the cart area.
Aldi's got the right idea, quarter in to take cart, quarter out once you put it back.
Too bad a quarter means nothing these days.
[QUOTE=Zeke129;30756220]Has nothing to do with workplace policy, the law states you have the right to refuse any work you consider unsafe, and something that can make an existing injury worse falls under that[/QUOTE]
I was never informed of such a law. You'd be surprised with how much the company I work for gets away with in terms of Health and Safety regulations.
Good read.
Tell me more of your "Adventures", please. I'd like to know what you would do in a situation if you took a big shit and realized you had no toilet paper.
[highlight](User was banned for this post ("Terrible post." - Seiteki))[/highlight]
I push shopping carts only if my store needs me to. It isn't my job to do it, I just do it if they are running low in the store. Also don't take so many at a time if it becomes a problem.
I do the same thing at the store I work, it sucks. It sucks more when it's really busy and I'm the only one trying to keep up with the mass amounts of people leaving the store.
It's worse in the winter when the carts won't even roll over the bumpy, icy parking lot...
The funny thing is, your store sounds exactly like mine: Worker shortage, terrible management.
I work at an Albertsons in the south, deal with it.
Do that shit every time I work, for a good half the time.
But I do feel sorry for you :smith:
[url]http://www.whitewhine.com/[/url]
I work in a grocery store and it's my job to get carts. I've pushed carts when it's snowing, storming, and recently when it's 100F outside. We have to wear black slacks, long sleeves or polo, and an undershirt. Our parking lot is also on a slope, so we have to push the carts uphill to get them back inside the building. A pusher can easily take anywhere from 4-8 in at a time, but I've taken in as many as 14 at a time, and 24 with steering help. Really it's not that bad...get over it and realize people have shittier jobs then you do. I just always think how thankful I am to even have a job.
Carts hit cars all the time, people just don't realize that you didn't do it on purpose. Stores without ropes must suck because I used to not use ropes and it was impossible to stop on a dime without the carts flying off everywhere. Since our lot was sloped it was even worse because if all of the carts came undone they would roll back downhill and hit cars. I've almost been hit dozens of times by cars and people don't realize you can't know where every car on the lot is going or what they are doing.
I can definitely relate to what you are saying...but you should be thankful that it isn't one of your primary duties.
[QUOTE=FuhFuhFresh;30756507]I was never informed of such a law. You'd be surprised with how much the company I work for gets away with in terms of Health and Safety regulations.[/QUOTE]
When you're ready to quit be sure to report everything.
[editline]28th June 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=TH89;30756742][url]http://www.whitewhine.com/[/url][/QUOTE]
Stunning contribution to a thread about workplace health and safety violations
8D
[editline]28th June 2011[/editline]
those are sunglasses
tape your ankle and stop whining
[QUOTE=FuhFuhFresh;30756048]My job is actually very sketchy on rules like that, I've never been informed that I had the right to refuse work for reasons less significant than if you were too sick to be there[/QUOTE]
Do you work at Dominion?
I always help the guy pushing carts if I see him out there with a longass line of it. They usually refuse help and I usually insist. Especially on days with bad weather.
[editline]28th June 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=makingthatmaker;30757114]tape your ankle and stop whining[/QUOTE]
Because tape = Brace
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