I had a great day today. I got some work done that I had not looked forward to doing, progress was made for this Saturday’s Military Appreciation football game, I saw some of my favorite people stop by the office, and basketball season arrived as I worked the Griz and Lady Griz scrimmages this evening. Because the day went so well, I pretty much forgot about the fact that I witnessed three of my top pet peeves in the laziness category. As “pretty much” does not mean “completely,” these examples of sloth are still in my head. On the bright side, it does bring up an interesting topic to blog about. In no particular order, here are three acts of laziness that drive me crazy.

Not Returning Shopping Carts to the Racks

This evening at around 10pm I arrived at Wal-Mart and it looked like a UFO must have hovered over the parking lot and abducted 20 different people because I saw at least 20 different shopping carts left in the most random and inconvenient spots around the area.

How hard is it to return your cart to inside the store or to a designated cart rack after you unload your groceries into your car? I really don’t know how much of an inconvenience it can be for a person to walk an extra 30 feet. As you will soon see throughout this post, my biggest problem with laziness is it puts the person committing the act before everyone else. Thus, laziness equals selfishness in my book, something that I detest. Nothing is more irritating than looking all over for a parking spot and then finally coming up upon one that is empty only to see the second you are about to pull in that something actually is parked there…a shopping cart. It is almost like stumbling upon a land mine. Idle shopping carts just don’t pose a threat to finding a parking spot, they pose a threat to the safety of your car. I get nervous going inside a store, especially Wal-Mart, after I park my vehicle. The possibility of someone’s non-returned shopping cart colliding with my car is not far-fetched at all. People love to push their cart away from their vehicle after loading, completely unaware and unconcerned about where the cart might travel. Non-human forces also make carts ruin paint jobs on cars. All it takes is a little bit of wind or a slope of some kind to introduce a lone cart to the side of a vehicle.

Even if your unreturned cart never harms a car or takes a parking spot away from someone, please just have some respect for employees who must pick up and return the cart you left out in the Siberia portion of the lot. Or think about fellow customers who could have used it if brought back properly. Return what you use.

Not Racking Weights

In the middle of my workout today I needed to transition into the incline press. Although one incline bench was vacant, the weight stacked on the bar suggested otherwise. I had to ask the nice girl working on the regular bench right by the bench I wanted to use if she had seen anyone there recently. She responded by telling me that someone was last there ten minutes ago and he had since left the gym.

This is not just an issue that I experienced today. This is an issue that I experience five days out of the week when I go workout. Although everyone who has ever spent five minutes in a gym should know that it is proper etiquette to rack your weights at the completion of an exercise, I am always astonished at the inconsideration many show towards others and simply leave their machines/benches fully loaded. First off, an unracked piece of equipment gives off the illusion that it is currently in use. This initial assessment deters many people from walking any closer to the exercise that they wanted to complete. For others it leads to them looking around the gym trying to see if they can spot anyone who looks like they might still be working in on the equipment. It then leads to the awkward situation of approaching a stranger who is by the equipment you want to use and asking him/her if they know if anyone is still on it.

Besides giving off the impression of a machine in use, not racking weights places a burden on the person who wants to use it next. During a workout, we should exert energy while doing the actual lift…not by removing weights. I always feel bad for the dude who thinks he is the next Arnold Swarzenager who grunts and shouts while struggling to do one rep at 315 pounds and then leaves it fully loaded for some poor girl to come and take all six of the 45 pound weights off herself so she can use the equipment at her desired weight.

Not racking your weights just shows a great amount of disrespect. It sends the message that you don’t care about anyone else in the gym and that racking weights is below you. But mostly it is just lazy. There is nothing hard about completing your sets, ripping off the collars, and then racking the weights in their respective spots. Take the thirty extra seconds and make the piece of equipment welcoming for the next person…and don’t forget to wipe it down either!

Soliciting Mass Texts

After I finished my workout I looked at my phone to see that I had a group text message from a person who I am not relatively close to. When I opened it up, I shook my head. The text asked for donations to a good cause that this person was participating in early in November. Good cause, bad method.

If you want or need something, don’t send out a mass text. You are asking others to sacrifice a little bit for you, so please sacrifice a little bit of your time and personally contact each person individually. Simply adding a bunch of names to a text and blanketing them all by pressing the “send” button is lazy and impersonal. For many people, like me, it is a complete turnoff and a deal breaker. Getting the generic text message is bad enough, getting all the random replies from people included in the group message is even worse.

I am not saying all mass texts are bad because they aren’t. Invitations, directions, and significant news (baby born, someone passed away) can be effectively communicated via group texts. However, if you are requesting something from someone, please show the decency to personally reach out to him/her.

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Many people say it is the little things that count. I tend to agree. In a world where it is so easy to cut corners and take the lazy way out, it is good to hold ourselves to a higher standard and do things the way they are supposed to be done. Bring your cart back inside the store, rack your weights, and don’t send out soliciting text messages! Don’t Blink.