Mukoh-
But it doesn’t stop the cart from rolling and denting a car and it blocks the view around corners so there is higher chances a small child will get hit by a car that is moving to fast or an un-attentive drive. (I personally have had the horror of witnessing this) I have seen people go out of thier way to not put a cart back even walking farther to put it on a curb. Some of those people even come in asking to have the dent from someone leaving thier cart out paid for as well. The curb can hold it but when you decrease the open space for cars to drive because one cart on the curb means everyone will follow suite makes the parking lot more dangerous for children, the workers, customers, and personal property.

Jonness-
Yes you take the extra 15 seconds or so away from that person making minimum wage by walking your cart to the coral but they are scheduled to be there anyway so whether they keep the parking lot looking nice or spend more time cleaning up single carts or not. But it does add time at the end of the day if it is busy meaning they stay at work and not spend as much time home with thier family so really you don’t add any value to thier lives. Some would say you take value for your own benifit. I have made over 20$ an hour pushing carts in lots and I did a survey for a sociology class about 6 years or so ago. The number 1 reason people claimed they didn’t put thier carts away was: “I am just lazy” it was a staggering 73% of the 350 people I polled for 2 weeks.

But Tim I can give you some comfort for this dissapointment of social standards. Most of the children that I polled when asked about putting your cart away said it would be mean not to put something back where it goes. About 86% of children under 12 had that response. So at some point when we get older and supposedly gain more intelligence is where the problem lies.

The state that is home to Microsoft Corp. will shrink a planned $875.7 million offering tomorrow to $563.9 million, said Chris McGann, a spokesman for the treasurer’s office in Olympia. Washington is rated AA+ by Standard & Poor’s, Aa1 by Moody’s Investors Service and AA by Fitch Ratings.

State and local government bonds extended their declines today, pushing higher benchmark yields tracked in a daily survey by Municipal Market Advisors of Concord, Massachusetts. Yields on 10-year debt rose 6 basis points, the most since June 10, to 3.16 percent. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney said dealers are becoming less willing to take on inventory that may undermine a profitable year. Issuers plan to sell about $8.5 billion of fixed-rate bonds, down from the eight-week high of $11 billion last week, based on data compiled by Bloomberg.

Washington originally planned to sell $1.38 billion of general obligation securities this week. In addition to the tax- exempt debt tomorrow, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are to market $500 million in taxable Build America Bonds Oct. 15, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The issues will fund capital improvements and refinance debt. “

I shop the same rack, whenever I get a call that something new is there. FYI I leave my tried on right shoe on the floor. What is the big deal? I am a fast shopper, to make more productive decisions in my work then at a closeout store.
BTW The wife puts her’s back on the shelf.

It’s a double-edged sword. My GF always returns the shopping cart back to the cart rack. When she does, I pleasantly remind her she is contributing to the destruction of a hard up person’s minimum wage job. I will return the cart if the rack is close; otherwise, I push it to a safe out of the way place where the hired cart pusher can retrieve it.

The economy? Current federal tax receipts are just barely enough to cover the military and the interest on the national debt. Everything else the government “buys” it has to borrow for. Think about that for a minute. All of the social programs (social security, Medicare, Medicaid, prescriptions, state aid, etc.), all of the federal regulatory programs, the parks system, the agricultural subsidies, the foreign aid, education, on and on. All of it is based on vapors, future hopes and promises that won’t be coming true.

When the attitudes and behaviors that leave shoes on the floor collide with the economic reality about to crash down upon us, the herd, as they say, will be thinned. The need to survive both focuses the mind and selects out the weak.

Meanwhile, the media and our leaders prattle on about plans that will never come to pass and an endless parade of personalities as if they were giddy high-schoolers. Reset can’t come soon enough.

Back when I was young, people put the shoes back on the rack!

Sure they did,old man, sure they did.

I don’t know why I keep coming back to this blog. It is more and more amateurish with each passing week.

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Hey Oz, it’s a generalized observation about society.
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I remember reading an article awhile back where the author stated that we have become a nation of slobs. I cannot remember much about the article now, but to support his point he published a photograph of fans attending a major league baseball game in the early 1900’s where all of the men wore jackets, white shirts, and ties!!!! Things have certainly changed over the years.
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Sure they did,old man, sure they did.

I don’t know why I keep coming back to this blog. It is more and more amateurish with each passing week.

That’s a Nordstrom Rack, not a Nordstrom store.

Their shoe section always looks like a bomb went off them.

Actually I do. The standard answer should be hoard it, store it for years, and eventually toss it.

How about the fact that most people would rather sit in their car idling for 2-3 minutes while someone with a close parking spot loads their car than just take the nearest spot and walk a few hundred extra feet into the store?

Or just walk through any parking lot and look at the dozens and dozens of carts that people just shoved up on the curb because they couldn’t be bothered to walk 50 feet over to the cart return.

Yes, it’s true. I hacked The Tim’s password! ;-)

(Those are two examples I gave earlier.)

You can’t afford the monthly payment, well that subprime loan will let me get it anyway right now. I’m sure many people understood what they were getting into but the alternative of not getting what they wanted didn’t feel good. If you talk to people, many were never taught or understand the idea that working hard and sacrificing to get something is what you are supposed to do in a life and it makes you better for it.

But that’s just it, and I think an area where you and I differ. I’m paraphrasing here, but I think your thinking goes something like ” People are stupid, selfish, and lazy, and should suffer the consequences of these behaviors”, and my thinking is ” There’s SO many of these stupid, selfish, and lazy people that they need to be rescued from themselves, or we may see society collapse.”
The movie ‘ Idiocracy” comes to mind. If you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely good for a laugh.

You don’t even have to do the math. We do it for you.

ARGH.

Have you been watching the parking lot at the local gym?

I have worked retail many many moons ago and the picture you have here tells you more about the store and the employees who worked there than the customers who shop there.
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This really says NOTHING about our country as a whole. You are really diving deep on this one.

The fact that the Rack doesn’t have as many employees cleaning up after people doesn’t mean that people aren’t grotesquely lazy, it just means that other stores are better at constantly covering up the results of widespread laziness. If you don’t like the shoe store example, pick something else. There are plenty of things to choose from.

How about the fact that most people would rather sit in their car idling for 2-3 minutes while someone with a close parking spot loads their car than just take the nearest spot and walk a few hundred extra feet into the store?

Or just walk through any parking lot and look at the dozens and dozens of carts that people just shoved up on the curb because they couldn’t be bothered to walk 50 feet over to the cart return.

Having worked at a Subway sandwich shop for most of my teenage working years, I can also tell you that far more people than you would think just leave their trash on the table at fast food restaurants when they’re done eating, despite the fact that the trash can can’t be more than 10 steps away, and they walk right by it on their way out the door.

I guess instead of laziness you could call it “not my job” syndrome. It seems that everyone thinks that any task that isn’t easy is somebody else’s job. “Read my mortgage paperwork? Well the bank qualified me, so I’m sure everything is fine. It’s their job to make sure all the paperwork is in order.” Etc.

Example my wife, who is slightly OCD like myself, goes to great lengths to clean the house etc, and reads through stacks of documents, does countless research before buying anything, rarely goes shopping (actually hates to step foot in a department store), has two or three pairs of dress shoes, still caries a no-name purse that she got as a gift while in college (close to a decade ago), but hates the idea of putting stuff back at the store. She believes that is not the best use of her time, and thinks that the responsibility of the people working there.

So don’t assume that messy floor at a shoe shop is an indication of laziness. :-)

Bubblebuyer, Check Out this Funny Onion News Article on “Medicare Savings” Through Elderly Depopulation

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/obama_health_care_plan_would_give

I read this last week and couldn’t stop laughing and I’m a liberal type….LOL

Here is for example an article about it:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=is-testosterone-to-blame-for-the-fi-2008-09-30

It is up to the store to present their merchandise in the pleasing manner, not customers!!!

This is why you have all those people working at the Gap constantly walking around and folding and refolding the clothes. I remember spending endless hours working at various department stores in my youth folding more clothes and organizing more racks than I care to remember.

You take even the most POSH retail stores and don’t stock them with sales associates and this is what you get. This goes the same for US, Europe, Asia, anywhere.

It is up to you to decide whether or not the savings you get from Rack is worth not having enough sales associates to keep the place clean. This really says NOTHING about our country as a whole. You are really diving deep on this one.

Second, this is the women’s shoe section. By and large, women are the ones who like to keep a tidey home in comparison to their male counterparts. Yet, by the logic of this article (and the reality that the men’s shoe section at the Rack looks pretty clean), one would conclude that women are the culprits of today’s economic ills and risky realty behavior. I don’t buy it though.

The men’s section of the rack is equally messy, too. There are theories according to which testosterone played a big role in the current economic crisis and that if the economy was run by women there would be less risky behavior. In the past, societies run by women were more peaceful.

She said some awfully sobering things about Realtors who handle short sales! More later over on the open thread.

Please don’t forget to post that. I’d be very interested in what was said.

because the shoes I select don’t go out of style and the stuff at the Rack is typically seasonal.

Hey guys, I’ve got to run; speaking at the state Realtor convention down at SeaTac this afternoon. My breakout session is on short sales. I was on twitter yesterday right from the Realtor attorney’s session. She said some awfully sobering things about Realtors who handle short sales! More later over on the open thread.

The shoes are very cool. They look odd, but they feel great. I refuse to wear those grandma-looking ‘comfy’ shoes. I need function and comfort but that doesn’t mean we throw style completely out the window.

http://us.mbt.com/

All good reasons to be more discerning than shopping at The Rack.

I just didn’t understand why you gave as a reason for not shopping at The Rack that the shoes were “already out of style”, when you where your shoes for 4 years?

I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been so sheltered. I hope that wasn’t too much of a shock.

I like your idea!

……..Besides, heels are only for the bedroom and a good pair of black heels can last 10 years……. .

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I did not know that. I’ve obviously been very sheltered.

MBT shoes sure are weird looking, like they’d be impossible to walk in.( But I guess more comfortable looking than high heels). Do you find them comfortable?

I agree, HGTV is out of balance with what’s going on right now.

Only right now? It’s not called “house porn” for no reason. ;-)

First off, go to DSW, a gigantic shoe store (there’s one at Northgate) that sells shoes at quite a discount, much like the Rack. The women’s shoe section isn’t nearly as cluttered as the Rack because, 1) the workers constantly pick up boxes and put them back and 2) the shelves are laid out in a way that its very easy to put the boxes back.

Second, this is the women’s shoe section. By and large, women are the ones who like to keep a tidey home in comparison to their male counterparts. Yet, by the logic of this article (and the reality that the men’s shoe section at the Rack looks pretty clean), one would conclude that women are the culprits of today’s economic ills and risky realty behavior. I don’t buy it though.

I met the HGTV people at a convention in 2008 and told them they should consider doing a reality show about foreclosures! Show the viewers that yes, people can be foreclosed upon, yes, it’s tough but YES they can likely find a comparable house or even a nicer house for LESS rent and yes, there IS life after foreclosure and how their lives will be better as renters.

There’s nothing wrong with renting and besides, more renters means more of a demand for investor-owners to rent out those homes.

They said they didn’t want to do a downer topic like foreclosure because people watch HGTV to escape from their lives. In response, I told them that I was certain the show would attract viewers out of people’s desire to compare themselves to others. They would tell themselves “Well, at least we’re not as bad off as those guys.” Other viewers facing foreclosure would be able to see that life can get better after foreclosure! The person I talked to was a producer and still declined the idea.

I agree, HGTV is out of balance with what’s going on right now.

The shoes I wear are specifically designed for people who spend a lot of time on their feet. I do a lot of public speaking. Last week I was on my feet at a convention for 13 hours straight.

I love Dansko shoes because they have shock absorbers in the heels and the shoes are timeless when it comes to design. I switched this time to MBT shoes which are designed to take pressure off the heel and ball of the foot and put the weight on your arch and on your core muscles. The designs of these shoes are again, pretty limited and somewhat timeless. Anything fancy like odd, seasonal colors and seasonal designs are something I would pass by. Besides, heels are only for the bedroom and a good pair of black heels can last 10 years.

I’m not the kind of person to buy six new pairs of shoes every season. I buy work shoes for more for function and quality, something passed down to me by my depression-era grandmother and dad.

What about over a 100 year time frame? Still no savings? I’ll wait to inspect the final reform plan; it’s too much in flux for my efforts now. Either the corporatocracy will score another win, enslaving us further, or else we’ll be on the road to becoming a more civilized nation. Even when the costs of reform are highly predictable it can be difficult to predict the savings, esp. the intangible ones.

By AMS @ 19:

On a more serious note, I always go to a checkout where there is a live worker to check me out–I never use the self checkout. Why should I do all the work on an unfamiliar machine and pay the same price?

Simple, because sometimes its faster. There is usually a smaller line, and its one line for multiple checkouts, so it moves faster.

Looks like Kerry beat me to the punch saying essentially the same thing…

I can understand your reasoning why you would not spend 2 hours searching for a pair a shoes that hurt your feet and back, but not the reasoning behind unwillingness to buy a pair of shoes that are “already out of style” when you are willing to wear them for 4 years, unless the Rack is only selling shoes that are 3.999 years old.

On a more serious note, I always go to a checkout where there is a live worker to check me out–I never use the self checkout. Why should I do all the work on an unfamiliar machine and pay the same price?

Simple, because sometimes its faster. There is usually a smaller line, and its one line for multiple checkouts, so it moves faster.

RE: bubblebuyer @ 14 –

The health care bill is predicted to reduce the deficit; i.e. it is predicted to pay for itself and then some. You’re mentioning the spending while ignoring the resulting savings.

This may be predicted but the prediction is predicated on fraudulent assumptions and the typical smoke and mirror games played by congress. The bill is structured to start funding the bill 2 to 3 years before we would begin to deliver any services / benefits. Of course, over a 10 year time frame the bill would supposedly “reduce” cost because it has no cost against it for 20% of the time frame under consideration. Also the time value of money reduces the impact of future payments versus revenue flows today (Assuming the CBO is smart enough to even understand what a DCF is). Rerun the numbers over a longer than 10 year time frame and or align bill funding with delivery cost so they occur at the same time and see what impact that has on those supposed “savings”.