Everyone cuts corners from time to time. Taking the easy way out of chores and responsibilities just seems to be part of life, but if that’s the case, corner-cutters have no right to complain. Their complaints are usually traced back to lazy antics.

Years before working retail, I developed a rare shopping habit: Learning from my mother’s example, I assumed it natural and expected to fold or re-hang clothing and replace it to the sales floor exactly as it was found.

Being fully capable of cleaning up after myself, it never occurred to me that the average person makes no effort to maintain order outside of his or her home.

I am still shocked at how thoroughly messy shoppers can be. I’ve come to a point where I accept the abnormality of orderly shoppers, though they do exist. Fitting rooms are frequently left a pile of inside-out clothes and abandoned latté and smoothie cups. Some people make a shockingly counterproductive exhibition of putting everything back on hangers before bringing it to the fitting-room attendant. We laugh bitterly when this happens because most often, items are inside out or a pants hanger has been used to hang a blouse or dress.

These are probably points only noticeable to the retail-trained worker, but I sometimes can’t help but wonder what brings shoppers to languidly unfold the top shirt of every stack on a table and then wander off without showing much interest in anything they’ve just messed up.

My favorite act of character discrediting is when a woman digs through her purse and hands me a pile of things she would like for me to throw away. This has happened more times than I can count at every job I’ve ever held.

Yes, retailers are paid to take care of a store, but when customers abuse this understanding, it speaks to laziness and slovenliness. When they further shock me by making sharp comments about the messy state of a display or rack while contributing to its unacceptable visual standard, it makes me want to go to their homes and trash them simply because it is their job to keep their living areas clean.

I can only imagine the complaints of grocery-store employees. How many times do you find misplaced food merchandise while shopping? When I find a perishable item ditched in the cereal aisle, I wonder what is wrong with the person who left it there.

If an item is unwanted, a mature and respectable person replaces it where it was found. I don’t accept any excuses on this one; it’s black and white. The world does not employ people to clean up after lazy, selfish slobs (sorry about that).

A couple of weeks ago, I watched a fit young man bring his shopping cart from QFC to the bus stop where Northeast 45th Street meets U-Village. He had one bag of groceries and a half gallon of milk, but he apparently needed a shopping cart to bring his groceries to the bus. When it arrived, he left the cart at the bus stop, far removed from the QFC property.

Excellent job, young man: You are a stellar individual whose laziness now requires someone — mall security, a QFC employee or a good citizen, perhaps — to go out of his or her way to make up for the deficit of responsibility you’ve created.

If nothing actually prevents you from cleaning up after yourself, then just do it. Everyone else on the planet has enough to take care of without the additional trouble of cleaning up after those who don’t carry their own weight.

Whether this is a matter of taking out the trash or doing the dishes to show that you respect your roommates or not wreaking havoc in a space of commerce, taking responsibility for yourself and your own messes makes the world a better place.

Reach columnist Matt Jackson at opinion@dailyuw.com.