When I go in to Kroger, especially when I was shopping for a family of 5, I collect a cart upon entering the store. My purse goes in the front portion, I get my list and I motor through the store. The recycle bags go into the back along with all of the other groceries on the list for the week. Trying to save time then and now, my cart is usually quite full so that I have all that is needed for food preparation for about a week. I like that cart, because it makes my trip to the store run efficiently. Once the groceries are all in the cart, I proceed to checkout. The cashier, bagger and or myself bag and the recycle bags and all are placed in the cart and then I push the cart out to the car, load the car, lock the door and either take the cart back in to the store or at least to the cart corral. The cart is very valuable to me as a shopper and makes my trip to the grocery store pleasurable as I do not have to try to carry all of the groceries in my arms or bring my own device to have to go through the store. The grocery store cart does not belong to me, Kroger provides it as a convenience to me. I probably buy more groceries because I do not have to hold them, but that’s not the point.
The average grocery cart costs about $500. The average grocery store has anywhere from 50-300 carts on hand depending on the size of the store. Your smaller local grocery store will have closer to 40 whereas a big box store like Walmart or Meijers would probably have closer to 300 on hand. Just look at how many parking places there are and consider that most shoppers will go in for more than a handful of items. At $500 or so, that means that the small local grocery store needs to spend about $25,000 to stock their store with carts. Then, they pay an employee to bring them in and corral them from all over the parking lot when the customers neglect to at least bring them to the cart collection area and most likely there is someone they pay to repair them. The carts left solo in the parking lot, if caught by a gust of wind, can blow in to a car damaging it, causing expense and hassle for the person whose car it hit.
The cart does not belong to me, it belongs to Kroger. I value being able to buy groceries at the store. I have no investment in Kroger, but I appreciate them as a business. I bring in that cart because I respect Kroger’s property. If the cart is stolen, Kroger has to spend some of their profits to replace it, in turn the increased is passed on to the consumer.
So much in life comes down to respect. Not just respect for you and your property but for the respect of others and their property. The conflicts in our professional and personal lives, so many times come down to respect. Respect for your employees or employer. Think about the employee who doesn’t give their all to their job. They are cheating their employer who they work for and who pays them, and the customers as well. The employer who doesn’t pay their employees on time is not respecting the person who works for them and expects that paycheck to feed their family and pay their rent or mortgage. The investor who accepts money from those who invest in their business, but neglects to pay them on time for that investment, doesn’t respect those who gave them funds to grow their company by giving them what was promised in the initial contracts signed in agreement. The customer who doesn’t pay their bill after they received service doesn’t respect the plumber, electrician or service person who did quality work for them. Those who file for bankruptcy, racking up too much credit card debt, affects us all in higher interest rates and costs for merchandise when they do not pay their bills, stores need to make it up somewhere such in higher costs or getting less for our money.
A couple of months back, someone filmed a thief robbing a convenience store in California. The thief was seen putting products from the shelves in a large rolling garbage can as he walked down the aisle of the store. You could hear the crook talking and he said, paraphrasing here, “this guy will collect insurance money, I can do this because it doesn’t cost him anything.” What warped thinking and absolutely wrong. Maybe or maybe not the store owner will be reimbursed, however, we all pay when crooks and thieves steal from stores, in that businesses need to increase costs to make up for the loss and insurance companies increase rates because they are having to pay out to more of those they insure.
How do you relay this lesson to your children? You explain to them that it is important to think of others. I remember when our daughter took dance lessons around age 5 or 6 and we shared rides with a neighbor who also had a daughter in the same class. We also each had sons right around the same age so we carpooled and who ever drove, dropped off their son at the other Mom’s house so that they boys could play and the driving parent had an hour of free time once they dropped off the girls. Once day, our daughter was not ready when her ride arrived. She was dawdling and had not put her shoes and coat on as she had been told. When she got home I told her that she was stealing Mrs. Rivera’s time. I explained to her that Mrs. Rivera had time to grocery shop while you girls were at dance and she would need to do her grocery shopping and then come back to pick up. By dawdling and not being ready when your ride comes, you are robbing them of the time they have to grocery shopping and you also are causing her to be late in getting you to dance. We respect other’s time. For the college student who has help from their parents with tuition, they need to work hard so that the parent feel that their investment in their child’s education is appreciated and not being squandered on partying and a child who does not respect the value of their parents money and the hard work it took to earn it.
When children are taught to be aware and realize that their actions affect others both positive and negative, we all benefit. Honestly, I want to believe that most clear thinking people have it in them to show respect to others human beings, I think they just get so busy in their own lives taking care of their own responsibilities and needs of those who depend on them that they just forget to think of others. When we take the time to be mindful of those in front of us behind us and to the side of us, our family, our neighbors and those in our communities, and teach our children to, it gives us all sense of looking out for one another and belonging. When children are taught from an early age to treat others with respect, they grown up to be kind and considerate adults, making for many Great Days for so many 🍏
