Actually I've thought about this too much...
Very simple, and borne entirely of working in retail:

People who don't put things back properly.

To begin with this seems like a churlish annoyance of someone who hates their job, which is partly true. To me though it exhibits the kind of thoughtlessness and sociopathy which makes me genuinely think that we are doomed as a species (not to destruction, necessarily, but certainly to unhappiness).

It's very simple - you are in a book shop, a clothes shop, a record shop, whatever. You pick something up, you should put it back where you found it, to the best of your abilities (which, frankly, should include having mastered the fucking alphabet by now). You are not a child. We do not expect children to put stuff away because they are children, and are idiots. You though should be capable of the following simple thought: 'The reason they are in order is to help people find things'.

That's why there are systems of order. To help people. So if you are too lazy, or stupid, or thoughtless to put something down at the other fucking side of the shop, or to put it in sideways so that it gets damaged or falls down the back, you are causing a degree of hassle for someone else. This could range from the employee finding it, tutting to themselves, and putting the item back in the right place, or it could result in someone not getting what they wanted, to the knock on effect of that person not going back to that shop, to that shop going out of business. In smaller shops that's not that unlikely.

If you think this is petty, then let me extrapolate a bit. If people are this thoughtless on a general basis in shops then they're not likely to be any more thoughtful and considerate outside. It's not like people are any better behaved elsewhere, and will usually come up with some bullshit bravado about how people should expect a bit of this sort of thing. It's basically how Frankie Boyle justifies being a cunt to people, how FIFA manages to get away with being hideously corrupt, corpulent and ridden with scary old men whose banknotes are probably as ridden with smegma as they are cocaine, it's how that complete cunt down the road manages not to realise he's a complete cunt - a complete lack of basic empathy.

Leaving something in the wrong place is basically saying that it's somebody else's problem. You're busy, you've got bigger fish to fry.

We all know that isn't true. You're just becoming a cunt, increment by increment.
(thePontificator, Tue 5 Apr 2011, 23:36, 9 replies)

I work in a super market here....
One thing to note is that some customers not only dump food miles from where they picked it up, some dump frozen or refrigerated food out at room temperature.

This can lead to it spoiling, being put back, re-refrigerated/frozen, a customer buying it and becoming very ill.

The most MOST annoying is where they pick it up, move about two feet away, and sit it down there. You could stretch your arm out and have it back where it should go! Why be *that* lazy?
( vix0r was not Matthew on, Tue 5 Apr 2011, 23:59, closed)

Bollocks. The supermarkets move their shit around every five minutes in order to confuse and depress the customers - and, more cynically, to stop them from establishing known paths through the isles. For if the customer knows what they want, and where to get it, they can't be tempted by all the other delicious, cut-price offers available.

I'll pay more attention to where I dump the stuff I no longer require, thus messing up the carefully-designed shelving layout, when supermarkets commit to keeping stuff roughly in the same place. Until then, I'm merely returning a favour.

Won't dump frozen/refigerated stuff outside its temperature band, though - that's wasteful.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Wed 6 Apr 2011, 1:00, closed)

When I see something out of place
in a supermarket, I like to think that person changed their mind and taken a different product instead, leaving the old one in it's place.
My favourites were a bag of carrots next to the chocolate biscuits and a pair of sexy frilly panties in the beer aisle.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 6 Apr 2011, 1:06, closed)

That's oddly charming. "I have ten pounds - I shall buy this pair of George at Asda brand Frilly Knickers, and hopefully get my end away. Oh, but there's beer... Must decide... Gah..."

*clink*

EDIT: on a minor tanget about stuff you see at supermarkets that sticks in your mind, and one not worthy of its own post - I witnessed a well-dressed lady loading her shopping into the boot of her immaculate 4x4 in Asda's car-park. Only it wasn't going in directly; prior to being stowed away, every single item was taken out of its Asda bag, and repacked into a Waitrose bag brought along for no obvious purpose other than maintaining some odd facade for the benefit of the neighbours during the long walk up the drive. Struck me as quite possibly the most pathetic thing I'd ever seen.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Wed 6 Apr 2011, 1:13, closed)

That's the opposite problem
She's clearly thought about it too much.

Lie in wait for her and give her a thousand 'Yes it's fucking organic' stickers so she doesn't have to change bags.
(thePontificator, Wed 6 Apr 2011, 9:31, closed)

Anyone who does this should be boiled.
They don't interest me enough to care what they are boiled in.

Oh, and why not take your Waitrose bags into the f'nig shop. Then at least people will think you are just being green and avoiding taking more carriers.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Thu 7 Apr 2011, 11:59, closed)

I've had a pack of pigs' ears in the baguette stand.
Cans of juice in the artisan bread baskets (guess which section I work in..). I've seen lettuce in with the cleaning products.

Shops are split into sections and have HUGE signs helping you remember where things go. They do get shuffled around, but bollocks to you! It's not that bloody difficult to realise that maybe the lettuce could have been dumped back with the veg, and not the Mr Muscle. =p
( vix0r was not Matthew on, Wed 6 Apr 2011, 13:42, closed)

*THE WINNER*
click*10^312
( SteamedCleaner, Wed 6 Apr 2011, 0:50, closed)

I started reading this going here comes a boring rant. Now I want you signature on a glossy 6 x 9. Plskthnx.
(SkoaL, Wed 6 Apr 2011, 12:57, closed)