So ... AITA?

[Pixelated]

Or if not the asshole, am I just being petty?

Here's the details: we are handing out bottles of water right now, each with a little piece of paper on it telling customers that if they fill in the survey at [website] they have a chance to win 10,000 loyalty points.

All well and good.

But ... each cashier is supposed to print their name on each bottle they hand out.

Because, you see, cashiers can get $5 "lunch vouchers" as a result, IF a customer fills out the survey and says nice things about you specifically. I don't actually know the details -- whether you have to get X number of mentions to get the voucher or whether you just get a voucher each time your name is mentioned on a survey.

So I hand out the water bottles, no problem. But I don't "autograph" them. Two reasons:

1) I'm really not interested in participating in a Miss Congeniality contest; and

2) More importantly, those vouchers irk the hell out of me. Yay, my employer is giving me $5 - and guess what? The only thing I can do with it is ... give it back.

I should also add that since I work 4- or 5-hour shifts, I get only a 15-minute break, not a half-hour lunch, so a 'lunch voucher' (good for hot deli foods) isn't really of much use to me. And most of their hot deli foods consist of things I'm trying to eat very little of anyway (chicken fingers, fries, pizza, etc.)

Thoughts? Comments?

[EricKei]

NTA. No need to participate if you don't feel like it. Besides, it lets the people who care about it have a better chance of "winning," I suppose.

Just make sure they're not using it as some sort of weird performance metric, effectively making it mandatory; I wouldn't put that sort of thing past any big company.

[RealUnimportant]

Definitely not the a**hole. I wouldn't be surprised though if, as Eric suggests, your employer might be keeping an eye to see if your name doesn't show at all... But there should be other records that you've been giving stuff out, and you can't go to the customers' houses and force them to fill in the survey and include your name, so there's not likely to be much they can actually do about that.

[Monterey Jack]

AITA: Battle Angel.

[EricKei]

... and you can't go to the customers' houses and force them to fill in the survey and include your name, so there's not likely to be much they can actually do about that.

I can tell you from experience that some companies (such as a certain global video game shop) don't see tiny, insignificant things such as "I don't want to do that" or "I already have your discount card/a pre-order/your credit card" as valid reasons to refuse another one. I.e., they see that as a flaw on the worker's fault, not the simple reality that the customer doesn't want it. All I can see is caveat...operatur? And watch your back.

[Ironclad Alibi]

So I hand out the water bottles, no problem. But I don't "autograph" them.

Do you have co-worker you like? Put their name on the bottles.

[Pixelated]

Do you have co-worker you like? Put their name on the bottles.

Actually, I have done that a couple of times. There's a young guy here who's supervisory level, and when a cashier or customer needs help, he's right there. He'll run a defective item back and grab a replacement, or help customers having problems with their cellphone 'points cards' or whatever needs doing. Whenever he helps out, I've put his name on the bottles and told the customer "The young guy who helped you is [Name] if you would like to mention that in the survey." I don't know whether anything has come of it.

I never thought of management keeping track of these things, but I'm not sure how they can prove anything unless they stand behind me for an entire shift to make sure I'm "signing" the bottles. I think their main concern is whether people are filling out the surveys.