What do you expect for free?

[Linda]

Hatches matches and despatches in my mothers house too. Heh, must be a nurse thing!

[South Texan]

SC: There's a lot of scratches on this stuff.

SC: Look at this door, it's almost falling off.
Me: Please don't touch that sir. I saw that, don't worry, I'll fix it up good as new.
SC: Good as new?!? You mean this furniture is used?!?

SC: Where are the locks for these drawers?
Me: They were compatible with customer's new furniture so we removed them and used them there.
SC: You took the locks off of our furniture?!?
Me: Yes sir, they're actually quite expensive and seeing as all of this furniture and our time to deliver and install it is being donated free of charge, they wanted to save some money where they could.

I expected "donated free of charge" to humble him at least a bit but...

SC: You should have left the locks in, that's not very considerate.
Me: Well it was all arranged with the pastor and he was very happy to get everything donated; maybe you should talk to him about it.
SC: Yes I'll do that after you leave.

What a STUPID church member.

I am in a director position with two charities, and I can tell you the philosophy of most charities is that when a business or person offers to donate furniture or something like that, the immediate response is "Yes, thank you so very much!" and NOTHING ever is to be said when the furniture arrives in a dilapidated or unusable condition except "Thank you very much." The reason for this is that the business or person just might think of the charity the next time it is looking for a philanthropic cause to give money or some item it no longer needs - and the next time the item might be of use. Saying anything negative or refusing a donation almost always means the charity never will be offered anything again. Think how the OP's customer will react and the opinion the customer will hold of the church if the customer is informed as to how the desks were received by this church member.

I cannot tell you the number of broken (beyond any hope of repair) desk chairs, malfunctioning computer parts, ruined clothing, rusted out and bent file cabinets, etc. from businesses looking for tax deductions that I have had to haul straight to the dump or appropriate disposal place. Almost all of these businesses, however, later gave us a check to sponsor an event. (If the item is of no use to us but in good condition, we give it to another charity who can use it.)

I have a feeling the pastor clued in this member when he spoke to him about the used nature of the desks. Especially since the desks and furniture seem to be in usable condition.

[greensinestro]

Does anyone out there actually donate brand new furniture when brand new furniture is pretty expensive?

I donated an entertainment center and an old desk a couple of years back. The desk had a fruit punch stain on it from a paper cup left on it years before, but that could be stained over with varnish. Nobody thought the worst of it, being it was free furniture and still able to be used.

This guy was pretty ungrateful and should just be fine with what you all were doing. After all, I'm sure other organizations would have been delighted to have that stuff, no matter what the condition of it was.

[aurelemsrealm]

After my wife and I got married, I got to know the people who worked at the local Salvation Army Donation Center. My wife's family is heavily involved with the Salvation Army, so we agreed to donate our unwanted stuff to make room for what we would keep. Talk about a nightmare!!!! We are both packrats, and we both had apartments full of stuff we'd collected in our single lives. At least we had the foresight to rent a storage locker for the wedding gifts. So, we packed box after box of donations for the local Salvation Army Corps. Sometimes, no one was immediately available to receive the donations since I worked an odd schedule between two jobs at the time. A lot of people were leaving trash and useless junk that the city wouldn't haul off in the trash collections, which I thought was a rather chincy act. Several times, I found the boxes of donations left by myself and others had been opened by people who had no business nosing through them, and they were helping themselves to what they wanted. I just irritated me. These were people who appeared to be as well off as I was, but they just took it upon themselves to swoop down like vultures on a carcass. One guy even made a comment about finding some good stuff as I was unloading boxes out of my car. He said he likes to stop and look some nights on his way home from work. He was driving a real nice dually pickup. I was immediately disgusted, so I let loose with my opinion. I told him I knew what was in those boxes because I'd just left them not even a half hour ago on my previous trip to drop off donations. Then, I made a comment about how shameless some people can be for taking from the needy. He quickly shut up and left with his tail between his legs. I was annoyed, and didn't care who took the brunt of my frustration.

[Can I Help Your A$$?]

I could see where a church is coming from, if people thought that they could dump their garbage there anytime they wanted to. But if a company actually made arrangements with the pastor, wtf is the problem?

Sometimes I feel sorry for Salvation army, 'cause I see people dumping pee couches and crap next to their donation boxes. It must cost charities money to have to haul stuff to the dump.

[evilhomer]

I understand where those thoughts are coming from. There's a big Goodwill drop off site near me. The place looks like a garbage dump some days, worn out, shredded couches; rusted, destroyed bikes; just all kinds of crap that these morons should have enough courtesy and sense to trash. They have staff there full time just to monitor what's coming in and clue these clowns in; only to have them come back after hours.


This furniture that was being donated was nothing like that. A few scratches but they were just superficial, the door falling off had just popped out of it's track, just needed to be smacked back in. Clearly used and certainly not pretty enough to break out the fine china for, but completely usable; nothing was falling apart, no satanic messages carved into the surfaces, just regular, standard office furniture.

It's a good point you make ST. Once you get on a list, you do not want to do anything to get off it. I never said anything, but I'm sure the pastor would have set him straight. He was very pleased to be getting this stuff because they had virtually nothing before. A single folding table for three offices was all they were using.