I don’t mean just returning your shopping cart to the cart area, but actually sliding it back in. At my grocery store, some people half ass stack it back in or don’t at all. This drives me nuts because when I come to return my cart I have to fix the mess before I can return mine. Plus, I don’t want the workers who collect the carts to do any more work than they already do.
I caught this one guy who was returning his cart and I had to wait until he was done. Instead of stacking his cart, he just left it there in front of the stack and I said, “C’mon man!” He was surprised and said, “Oh!” then immediately stacked his cart.
I think bringing the cart to the corral is the bare minimum, and generally people will try to get away with the minimum for most tasks and social obligations. If you don’t at least bring it to the corral you’re deranged, but beyond that I’d rather a job is done half-assed than not at all.
If I get to the corral and there’s two or three loose carts I’ll stack them with mine. If there’s six or seven I won’t fix them all but I’ll still be as neat as I can.
If the store has different sized carts, this is always a bigger problem. People generally are uncoordinated at figuring that out.
My grocer has one of those schemes where the carts are unlocked by putting a coin in them, and you get the coin back when you return the cart. It works pretty well for keeping things tidy.