Sucky bludgers can get bent

[Rapscallion]

Oh, those who expect stuff for free...

Only a small village food shop, but we had plenty of regular bludgers. The local church sent out an email about how it was 'use us or lose us' time, what with declining attendance, and we laughed hollowly at this note since we were in the same position. They decided to have a charity bonfire to raise funds. Of course, we got approached.

The Boss had gone on holiday that morning. I and our glamorous assistant were trying to run the place on a busy Friday morning (couldn't get the stuff on the shelves because of the customers). Of course, they wanted to see if we could do something for them. Our usual response was a fruit basket with a compliment slip, and I explained that I couldn't do anything right there and then, but I would be able to do a basket later on that day after getting the deliveries out. When did they need it?

"Well, now, really."

The do wasn't until the day after, so I pointed out the lines of people waiting to be served and the facts of the matter, and I ended up telling them that we'd have something ready for them that afternoon.

Did they come? No. Did they park outside the next day and not come in? Indeed they did. Had to get another customer who knew them to take it down there.

Then there was the thirteen-year-old girl who stood in the door when we were trying to close the shop down for the night.

"I'm doing a sponsored walk for charity," she said. We looked at her, looked at each other, and then shrugged. We waited. More information was not forthcoming. She left.

The newsagent, her next target, asked her which charity it was for. "I haven't decided yet." "On your way."

Rapscallion

[Arm]

I had a job interview with the folks at the United Way near here. It was a regional office, so that meant that all of the local programs reported up to them. Kind of like a pyramid scheme or how I would imagine a mafia organization would work, I guess...

They wanted, in addition to whatever normal duties they felt they would be hiring me for, that I should spend additional time volunteering at their subordinate programs.
But, since I would be employed by their office, I couldn't accept paying work with any of the subordinate programs, because that would be showing favoritism (and volunteering WOULDN'T?).

But that was okay! Because they wouldn't want me to have to stop doing my freelance work on the side.

....

...so, this supposedly charitable organization wanted me to work for a sub-market wage, and I mean REALLY sub-market, like 10%-15% lower than market, do EXTRA work on the side, and I would be expected to make up this drain on my finances by working for someone else because they KNOW they're not going to offer enough to live on?

I don't think there's enough 'white man's burden' in the world to get me to do that, thanks.

To top it off, they had a skill test they wanted me to take, except they told me ahead of time, "by the way, we know that some of these questions are wrong, but just do your best anyway and I'm sure it'll be fine"

I mean, I'm sorry, I only know how to do my job right. I'm afraid I don't know how to get it wrong in the specific way that you fucked up your test questions in.

Charities like Child's Play? They're awesome, because you can tell that they're not scheming, scamming, massively-top-heavy groups.

The United Way? Fuck'em. They're a group of feel-goods who expect you to have your spouse or your daddy supporting you while you expunge your guilt at being well-off, and still get paid for it. And if that's the case, they can get REAL volunteers or they can pay a REAL wage.

I hate charities that do all their solicitation based on guilt.

[Moggie]

I was unemployed for about 4 years due to nasty local job market. at least once or twice a week I'd get phone calls about 'helping underpriviledged children go to the movies' or the circus or an amusement park. The call often ended quickly when I asked how to get my underpriviledged self on these lists. Either that or I asked them for a job.

[Imogene]

When I worked atr Chesterfield, we had some really nice-looking, but cheap, pictures from famous movies, in black and white, glued to the upper border of the store. The number of people who came in, and asked us to sell these worthless pictures to them was crazy... at least four a day.
The people who wanted donations were worse. "Would you be at all interested in donating one of those pictures to our raffle thing?"
"Those pictures that belong to head office, not to the store? And that I would not even take down and SELL to paying customers? You want me to just give them to you, and leave big gaping holes in our decor, possibly lose my job... and such like that? Really? How about I just leave it at 'No, get the fuck out.' ...?"

[Dips]

Being a small business who caters to customers who aren't rich (and often are charities themselves), we are very selective about our donations. Mainly because we feel asking our not-rich customers to subsidize our donations through higher prices isn't very fair.

There was one very amusing episode with a charity that asked us for $2000 to be listed in a concert program for a fundraiser they were doing.

We gave the usual answer and they persisted by telling us how much business we would get for this. Since the concertgoers were fans of this musician and most were not in our very specific customer demographic, we doubted we'd get much business, but they kept asking.

Finally Mark looked them up to see if they were good customers. It turned out that they had an individual license and had installed on lots of computers.

So he offered to upgrade them from the individual license they had paid for to the multi-user license they were using for free. The retail value? About $2000. He'd send them a copy of the ad for the program.

[Mamadrae]

My husband actually has to deal with fundraiser folks constantly.
There is 1 big difference though...the ones he deals with are looking for donations to political parties. That's the sucky part of having to work with the government. They pretty much tell every single one to go away, it has closed doors to them when someone takes office and is vindictive because his company didn't back them. Never mind that they didn't back the other guy either.

Thankfully though, my husband and his fellow owners know their worth. While they can and will bend over backwards for their clients they won't break themselves, as one moron learned recently when he whined to the President. He threatened to drop them if his demand for them to do more work for less pay wasn't done. The President told him he'd send him a draft of the (nonexistant) cancellation form by the end of the day tomorrow.

I love my husband's work sometimes.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Gee, thanks for reminding me: Our annual United Way drive is coming up fairly soon.

So I'll be given a pledge form, urged to "give 'til it hurts", promised a pizza party if our store gets a certain percentage of people donating, and some other prize if we have the highest donation rate in the district, blah blah blah....

And then I'll "lose" my pledge form and nobody will say to me "Hey Irv, I noticed you hadn't turned in your pledge form, please get it to me ASAP. Thanks!" so big fat hairy deal.

In the past, I'd make a one-time donation of one dollar and include the dollar with my pledge form. Whenever the person in charge of United Way donations would guilt me into "giving 'til it hurts," I'd tell her "I have a low tolerance for pain."

[portia911]

What is this United Way thing? It does'nt seem to have a great rep. Almost sounds like amway

[candyshopgirl]

I don't get equest from charities but at christmas...
I get radon jackasses coming in with the usual story. Oh my spouse diabled and we don't have money for christmas.Last year this woman came in and handed me a flyer and said she was "fixin" (her word)to lose everything.her husband was diabled and she doesn't work. She had two kids with her,one was 18 and the other was 17,lazy damn kids. She made me mad because she said that she thougth everyone that worked at this University has lots of money(her words). I had to almost call security,she wouldn't leave and kept asking for money. Finally I just told her lady I make nothing and leave me the F**K alone. The final straw was when her kids kept pulling out money buying candy.

[Tigress]

I had one of those moments:

I started a side business back in January, making custom costumes and other garments. While at a local anime convention, I chatted with a lady at one of the tables for the local library. She was trying to generate interest in the library by pimping the library's manga collection and a "summer workshop" for sewing and cosplay. When she learned that I do costumes semi-professionally, she immediately wanted me to help with the workshop, stating that it would be free advertising for my business.

The catch: These were middle- and high-school kids I'd be working with, so not much chance of making any money (unless their parents gave them money). She didn't have any idea of what to teach these kids or how she wanted the workshop to go aside from "cosplay", which wasn't much of an issue since I'm used to making something out of nothing.

Oh, and the library didn't have any money to pay me for my time, but had enough to buy "any" materials I wanted for the workshop, even $40/yard silk.

Considering that the library was a 1 1/2 - 2 hour drive both ways and gas was hovering at $4/gallon at the time, I asked if she could at least kick in some money for gas. True, I'll drive half-way across the state for a convention, but that's maybe once a month and I'm usually guaranteed to get commissions. Driving that far once or twice a week for something that isn't even going to make me money is another matter entirely.

She suddenly wasn't so interested in having me run the workshop.

[portia911]

It's amazing how many people expect you to sacrfice your income their their whims> i had one girl wanting me to sponsor her race car FFS. Polietly advised her I could'nt even afoord to have my own hobbies let alone finance hers

[eltf177]

What is this United Way thing? It does'nt seem to have a great rep. Almost sounds like amway

It doesn't. It's a national thing that supports many local charities through one donation.

Their downfall was when their President was 'let go' a few years ago. He seems he was spending the charity's money on hookers and things of that nature. When he was caught he blamed mental illness. The jury bought that, he _still_ gets a pension and his wife will too after he dies!

That pretty much trashed their reputation, but our local office was raided a year later and several employees were arrested for doing drugs in the building!

At that point I refused to have anything to do with them. Our workplace had them as the charity of choice and just about everybody there refused to donate another penny. They were finally replaced with another charity, I heard they whined and complained about being dropped but hey, nobody wanted to have anything to do with them. Staying on wouldn't had netted them a thing!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

What is this United Way thing? It does'nt seem to have a great rep. Almost sounds like amway

Yeah, they're a charitable organization that does certain charitable things, but fuck if I know what they are.

The only experience I have with them are the yearly pledge drives.

[eltf177]

Yeah, they're a charitable organization that does certain charitable things, but fuck if I know what they are.

The only experience I have with them are the yearly pledge drives.

The money they collect is supposed to support various local charitable groups like soup kitchens, food banks, day care for those unable to afford it, etc.

Of course, it's hard to give money to these charities when nobody's giving you a thing (see my rant above). Most of the businesses in my area dropped United Way as their workplace charity after the local scandal and, quite honestly, I never hear about them any more. But after all these scandals I really can't pretend to have any sympathy for them.

[Mamadrae]

I started a side business back in January, making custom costumes and other garments.

Costumes! WHERE!?

Happen to have a website somewhere I can oogle and maybe sweet talk the husband into getting stuff?