An employee performing one of his/her job duties is not "wasting time." That's like saying I'm "wasting time" reviewing contracts. It's part of my job, just as it's part of the store employees' jobs to retrieve carts.
Not exactly apples and apples. We're not talking about a marketable skill.
Pumping gas is a similar thing: I can pay $2.52 a gallon, and pump it myself, or I can pay $3.02 a gallon and have someone stand there and pump it for me. I got an estimate for $1100 for the brakes on my car; or I can go buy pads and rotors for about $250 and do it myself. That's what we're dealing with here. It's the choice between paying $7.99 a pound for steak and bring my cart back individually myself (or restock stuff that assholes put in their cart then take back out four aisles down; yes, I've done that) or paying $9.99 a pound and have someone do it for us.
Are you saying that grocery stores in your area will give you a discount on your meat purchase for "bring[ing] your cart back"?!?!
Unless that's true, I don't see any relevance. Nor is the full-service versus self-service or the do-it-yourself brake job analogy (the former doesn't exist where I am). In all of your examples, the customer is reaping a direct financial benefit by undertaking work that could be performed at a cost by someone else. I get no direct benefit (financial or otherwise) by doing anything in particular with my cart, and I think it's at least debatable whether I get an indirect benefit (in the form of reduced overall prices at the store).
My analogy was simply that some employees have multiple job duties. While it is certainly true that spending time on Duty #6 will reduce the available time for Duty #1, that doesn't make Duty #6 a "waste of time."
Interesting how your selective reasoning must be convenient. I already explained why the corrals are there. Of course it's their job, but management doesn't want their employees spending all their time in the parking lot. Time is money. I also said it's a safety liability as well. How is that even remotely comparable to reviewing contracts? Apples and oranges dude.
Err.... I get that having customers do some or all of the work of getting carts back to store is good for the stores, but that's neither here nor there as far as I'm concerned. As far as it being "a safety liability," I suppose, but I'm fairly confident that the incidence of injury suffered by retail employees while retrieving carts is so low as not to be worth considering.
Actually most places specifically say they aren't liable for car damages.
Yup, they sure do.
And just because they "say" it doesn't make it so.
I love you, but you are literally the only person I have ever heard with this point of view.
Not anymore.