Consider the following scenario:
You’re walking up the street to the grocery store. A guy parks in the ‘Passenger’ zone (intended only for dropping off and picking up passengers, presumably) immediately outside the front doors of the store and walks inside. He picks up a basket and starts shopping. He’s still shopping ten minutes later when you go through the checkout line.
What’s the appropriate course of action?
- Do nothing.
- Speak to the guy, politely explaining the minor bylaw that he’s broken.
- Speak to the manager, leaving it in his or her hands.
- Do something else.
Option #1 makes you a mellow fellow (lame, I know, but the only other option I could come up with was ‘noninterventionist’) , #2 makes you a busybody and #3 makes you a tattletale.
It’s a tiny but curious moral quandary. What is our role or, if you like, civic duty, in such circumstances? Do we trust that the system (the store manager or a bylaw officer) will take care of matters? Do we ‘not sweat the small stuff’ and let it slide? Do small breaches of the social contract matter?
For a parallel example, what do you do if you see someone litter?
This entry reminds me of the goofy moral quandaries which begin Ultima 4.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
If I see someone litter, I tell them “you dropped something” and leave it at that. Sometimes they pick it up, most times they ignore me.
I often wonder if I see someone toss a cigarette butt out the window of a car, and I pick it up and toss it back through their window, am I responsible for any damage? I’m only returning something that was dropped…
I would, and have, told people that they’ve littered, or usually that they’ve dropped something.
As for the guy in the loading zone; I don’t see what talking to the guy or the manager would accomplish. Complaining just for the sake of showing people that you noticed is pretty pointless.
TTFN
Travis
If I see someone litter (although I can’t remember the last time I did), I pick it up, unless it’s a friend of mine in which case I bug them until they pick it up.
I’ve actually taken to picking up random bits of trash recently. If I’m walking down the street, and I see, say, bits of newspaper or a starbucks cup or something, I pick it up an drop it in the next garbage can I see. It’s a habit I’ve picked up on fairly recently, and I think I’ll stick with it.
This reminds me of a time when I was in University and had to endure a road trip to a basketball tournament in Saskatchewan with a bunch of guys who thought rap was the only music worth listening to and that the side of the road was their litter bag for all the fast food-related garbage we would accumulate.
Since all my protests were met with jeers (yeah, I wasn’t a very popular guy among that crowd) I thought I’d be clever and that when we all eventually got back home, I decided that the lawn and driveway of one of the car’s occupants would be great place to dump all of my garbage.
For some reason, they didn’t get it.
I stopped at the grocery store one day, picked up 3 things, and headed for the express lane only to be met with a man with a cart full of items. A bit of a fight ensued when I told him that he had too many items for the express lane, and that it wasn’t fair that I had to wait in line for him because he didn’t want to wait in line. He actually then denied it, so I started counting his items out loud for him, and then he whipped around and tried to hide his cart with his whole body. I asked the checkout girl if they ever say anything to “those kind of people”, and she admitted “no, because they don’t want to lose their business”. But I sure told him!
Indeed, I also tell people that they’ve dropped something, and try to hand it back to them. When they don’t want it, I politely ask if they want me to throw it away for them.
I’d leave a note on the guy’s car. If I were organized, I’d have a pad of preprinted notes that looked like parking tickets that said at the top, “This COULD have been a parking ticket, so park properly next time.”
Or one of these bumper stickers. He might not even notice for awhile.
Derek: That’s what I did. I left a polite note on his car, written on the back of my grocery receipt.
I hope you paid cash….
Thanks for ideas for handling litter-bugs, these sound appropriate and effective: “You dropped something” “Would you like me to through it away for you.”
Richard: I’ve often wondered about throwing trash back inside cars, especially since I’ve had the opportunity on my bicycle. However, the two times I actually confronted motorists about their driving, they almost got physically violent, so I think drivers are too sensitive to mess with.
As for leaving notes (and bumper stickers), that’s a good idea. Here’s another: the Karma Violation Ticket Book. It’s a humorous way to tell people they’re being a jerk and will pay for it eventually. I couldn’t find the text online, but the contents are similar to this parody.
I used to ask people to stop smoking in the non-smoking sections of the train in England (yes, you used to be allowed to smoke on trains). Then I read the story of a passenger who did exactly the same thing and got his nose bitten off by the irate smoker.
After that I stopped asking…
I’m surprised nobody was tempted to suggest to key his car… If he thinks he’s so special, maybe he deserves special treatment.
But yeah, I guess a note is more civil. 😉
There is a classic piece of parenting advice from Barabara Colorosso about tattleing: You say to the child “Did you tell me that to get him/her into trouble? or out of trouble?” If the motivation is to get someone into trouble, forgetit. Let them suffer the natual consequences of thier action (ticket). It the person is really in trouble, then it is ok to tattle. The book is called “Parenting with wit and wisdom”, and it helps me in my dealings with adults, too.
Dear lord, all this is completely secondary to the joys of discovering Ultima 4 is free *and* multiplatform!
As for the person shopping, who cares. There is such a thing as karma (I think I’ve lived long enough to believe it happens in our existing life) and who knows, maybe his child is sick and he’s in a hurry to get the medicine back.
http://www.rider.edu/~suler/zenstory/obsessed.html
(I’m as guilty of it as any other – I’d ponder what I *should* have done while heading off to the next thing)
I’m a “what-should-I-have-done-er” too. Except for when I see children litter. Then I pick it up, go to them and say “Nobody else will pick that up, you know… it’s your planet too” (kids tend not to bite off noses… at least not off adults who sport a mohawk and piercings, hehehe). But now I’ll try the “you dropped something” approach with adults. It drives me way too nuts to let it slide.