We aren’t even into the holiday month and I am already grumpy about Christmas. You know the scene: You finally get to the front of the line with your thoughtfully chosen gifts –or in my case, gifts struck off a very precisely written list from my sons – and for some reason you are wearing a coat that is too heavy for the season.
You drop the gifts down and pull out the credit card and the overly perky cashier says, “Would you like to donate a dollar/two dollars/your life savings to such-and-such a charity?”
Oh, how that gets my festive granny panties in a knot.
What I want to say is, “No! Why doesn’t the company donate profits from these overpriced items to that charity instead of taking my money and then acting like it had anything to do with this donation? I already donate to a charity of my choice, you selfish mucky-mucks.”
But, the cashier is only doing her job and there are people behind me who would think I am rude, so I either shyly say, “No thank you,” or I hand over the cash and grumble like the Grinch all the way home.
How did we get here as a consumer society? The whole thing is ludicrous.
Can you imagine if I went door-to-door to my neighbors and asked them to buy some chocolates from me and then added, “Oh can you throw in another two dollars to help the poodles whose hair won’t curl? (It’s not a charity? Should be.) And, lucky you, I will say my family donated on your behalf.”
My neighbours would surely say, “Um, no.”
Currently, a professor at UBC Okanagan is researching the best ways charities can get people to donate. I want to see that research. My hunch is people give less at the till but feel like they are generous just because of the gargantuan effort it takes not to yell at the cashier. That can’t be good in the end for the charity.
So if there are any company heads out there reading this, please, for the love of the season, donate some of your profits. Do it quietly because it is the right thing and don’t ask for more from your customers than you already have.
Thank you.
