Maybe it is the 47 cups of coffee talking but these carts have me thinking... (design thinking)

There is this grocery store by the gym I go to. There are many early mornings that I see a stray cart or two at the opposite end of the strip mall sometimes even as far as the street. I would imagine these carts are not cheap and cause issues for the other stores in the area. Who would want another store's cart clogging up the sidewalk and taking up parking spots?

Did you know a runaway cart can hit about 35mph if the wind catches it just right? Think of the damage that can do if it hits a person or car!

You could post signs, put a few cart corals in the parking lot but that does not seem to change shopping cart behavior. Think of every store with carts you have visited, it is the same, carts all over the place.

Tonight we had about 87 things to do between the time we left school and karate. It was a wee bit stressful. The kids were taking care of the things outside which freed me up to hit Aldi.

I have always thought the quarter for a cart thing was weird but the store is always mellow and clean. I really hate those chaos filled stores, they stress me out.

Tonight I think I cracked the quarter code, there might just be two reasons.

The first is there are no loose carts anywhere. Every cart is accounted for, in the hands of a shopper or in the cart spot on the side of the building.

The second is about human contact.

As I headed to the door someone called out to me about her cart. We exchanged cart for a quarter with a few nice words thrown in. While I do not care for shopping this shifted my mood. A pleasant exchange with a stranger can brighten almost every day.

On the way to return my cart, I had another quick and happy exchange with another person, cart for quarter.

These tiny conversations brought a certain human element to something that might otherwise be a lonely shopping trip. One thing that hit me was the people I talked with were both well into what I assumed was retirement age which made me wonder if this might be the only human interaction they had that day. What if their kids were at work or lived far away?

A tiny shift in how they deal with carts solved a business problem and brought about positive interactions among their customers.

How might we develop an exchange like that in our buildings and classrooms?