Anyone who has pushed a cart through a Costco on a Saturday afternoon knows the drill: crowded aisles, towering pallets, and a hot dog line that never seems to move. What most shoppers do not see is the running list of frustrations that builds up behind the vests and name tags. Employees rarely say anything out loud, but on forums and social media, they have been surprisingly candid about the habits that make their shifts harder than they need to be.
1. Leaving trash in carts instead of using the bins
1. Leaving trash in carts instead of using the bins (CraftyBunny, Flickr, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY 2.0</a>)
Costco spends a lot of effort keeping its warehouses tidy, which makes it especially grating to staff when customers treat carts like rolling trash cans. One employee complaint that surfaces again and again involves shoppers who leave trash in shopping carts despite the store having 50-plus trash cans throughout the building, with garbage still turning up all the way out in the parking lot.
It is a small thing individually, but multiplied across thousands of daily shoppers, it becomes real labor. Someone has to sort through carts, pull out wrappers and cups, and get them ready for the next customer, all while trying to keep the floor clear during peak hours.
2. Letting kids treat the toy aisle like a playroom
2. Letting kids treat the toy aisle like a playroom (Image Credits: Pexels)
The toy and seasonal aisles are a magnet for children, and plenty of parents use the moment to duck away and shop in peace. Workers have noted that shoppers letting young children roam freely through the toy aisle or seasonal displays unattended creates a mess and eats up staff time to reorganize everything.
It is not that employees dislike kids being excited about toys. The issue is scale. What takes a child thirty seconds to scatter can take an employee much longer to put back exactly where it belongs, especially during the holiday rush when those displays are already picked over.
3. Snatching items straight off restocking carts
3. Snatching items straight off restocking carts (Image Credits: Pexels)
Watching an employee wheel out fresh product is apparently an invitation for some shoppers to grab first and ask questions later. One former employee described the experience of stocking muffins, saying people would hover and wait until they turned their back to grab more from the cart, trying to snatch items before they even hit the shelf.
The irony, as that same worker pointed out, is that the items on the cart were not actually fresher, since they were made at the exact same time as what was already displayed. Hovering over an employee mid-task just slows the process down for everyone else waiting nearby.
4. Showing up without a membership card, especially now
4. Showing up without a membership card, especially now (Image Credits: Unsplash)
This complaint has taken on new weight heading into 2026. Costco has rolled out entry scanners at warehouse doors nationwide, and reports indicate every person entering the warehouse must now scan a physical or digital membership card at a tablet stationed at the door. That means the old habit of digging through a purse or wallet at checkout has effectively moved to the front entrance, and it can back up a line just as easily there.
Employees have long dealt with this friction at the register too. As one retailer explainer put it, without the card a cashier cannot simply look up account info on the spot, so a supervisor has to be called over, which takes extra time, especially when the store is busy, while the line behind grows and stress rises. With the added photo verification step at the door in 2026, forgetting a card is more disruptive than it used to be.
5. Standing in the middle of the aisle to chat or check a phone
5. Standing in the middle of the aisle to chat or check a phone (Image Credits: Unsplash)
Costco aisles are wide by design, but they are not lounges. Employees consistently name this as one of their biggest pet peeves, describing customers standing directly in the middle of an aisle oblivious to traffic, whether that means leaving a cart in the main walkway to chase down a sample or stopping to chat with a friend right in the flow of foot traffic.
Workers pushing heavy pallet jacks or flat carts loaded with product need a clear path, and a body blocking the lane forces awkward, sometimes unsafe maneuvering. It sounds minor until you consider how many thousand people pass through a single warehouse on a busy weekend.
6. Abandoning frozen or refrigerated items around the store
6. Abandoning frozen or refrigerated items around the store (Image Credits: Pexels)
Changing your mind about a purchase is normal. Leaving a half-gallon of ice cream on a shelf of paper towels is where employees start to lose patience. One worker vented that leaving frozen or cold food in random places baffled them, since changing your mind about a purchase does not give anyone the right to put it wherever they want, and staff literally have to throw it away when this happens.
The financial waste adds up, but so does the safety concern. A puddle of melted ice cream in the wrong aisle is a slip hazard nobody wants to discover the hard way.
7. Ripping open sealed packages just to inspect them
7. Ripping open sealed packages just to inspect them (Image Credits: Unsplash)
Costco typically keeps a display sample already opened for items like garbage bags or storage bins, precisely so customers can check size and quality without damaging sealed inventory. Even so, some shoppers dig into a fresh box anyway. As one retail worker described it, employees are baffled watching someone tear into a package "like it owes them money," and then, more often than not, they proceed to buy one, but do not buy the box they just damaged.
That leaves a torn, unsellable box for staff to deal with and a slightly less complete shelf for the next customer. It is a habit that costs the store money in shrinkage that ultimately gets baked into pricing for everyone.
8. Trying to jump the rotisserie chicken line
8. Trying to jump the rotisserie chicken line (Image Credits: Unsplash)
Few Costco items inspire as much devotion as the rotisserie chicken, and that devotion sometimes turns into impatience at the hot case. Employees have described customers pointing at a chicken still mid-cook and demanding it, prompting one worker to explain plainly that they cannot stop the process to let one person off early, since there is a system and the birds will be ready in a moment.
The rotation exists for food safety and consistency reasons, not to be difficult. Asking politely and waiting the extra couple of minutes goes a long way compared to hovering at the case demanding an early release.
9. Interrupting an employee who is already helping someone else
9. Interrupting an employee who is already helping someone else (Image Credits: Pexels)
Costco warehouses are enormous, and finding a specific item without help can feel impossible. Still, employees have pointed out how often they get pulled away from a customer they are already assisting, with one describing how it happens daily from at least two different people who see them clearly leading another member to a product and interrupt anyway, asking to help finish with the current customer first, please.
It is an understandable impulse when you are in a hurry, but it effectively doubles the wait time for both customers involved. A quick "excuse me, when you have a second" tends to land much better than a flat interruption mid-task.
10. Bringing pets into a warehouse built for chaos
10. Bringing pets into a warehouse built for chaos (Image Credits: Unsplash)
Costco is not a pet-friendly retailer for a reason, yet employees say animals still show up more often than expected, tucked into carts or trotting alongside their owners. The concern is not just policy; it is genuine safety, since bringing pets into a major warehouse has become a widespread annoyance, and busy stores like Costco can be genuinely high stress for animals unused to that level of noise and crowding.
Workers have shared stories of dogs snapping at strangers who got too close in similarly chaotic retail environments, a reminder that even a normally calm pet can react unpredictably under stress. Leaving the dog at home is not just courteous to staff, it is safer for the animal too.
None of these habits are dramatic on their own, and most shoppers are not trying to make anyone's shift harder. Still, small courtesies, grabbing a cart from the lot instead of the corral, keeping a membership card handy at the door, giving an employee room to finish a task, add up to a smoother trip for everyone in the building. Costco's warehouses run on volume and speed, and the workers keeping that system moving notice the difference between a considerate customer and a careless one more than most people realize.