Very Charitable of You

[customersruinmylife]

Have you ever gone into work, and before you have even got there you know what you are going to be writing a thread about it later on? I had that feeling today, and I was correct.

It was the pubs annual Summer Fare. The pub has two a year, one during the summer and one at Christmas (I have posted about the Christmas one before) We had allsorts going on, face painting, lucky dips, raffles, things for sale, a bouncy castle and a tombola (my stall).

As well as setting up our own stalls, we also got a few people from local businesses to come in. We had people from a salon giving pedicures, a toy store had set up a lucky dip and a bakery had donated a lot of food for us to sell. We were also supposed to have a girl come in and do some makeovers...until this happened.

She arrived and was immediately oozing with attitude. She looked at the other stalls with such distain, like they weren’t good enough for her. She went over to the co-worker who had organised everything.

Makeover Girl: Look, I am having second thoughts about this. I mean, I am taking time out of my only day off to come and do work, and use my own equipment and materials, and well, I am not going to make any money off it.
CW: Oh, well I’m sorry to hear that, but when I spoke to you I made it very clear that everything we are doing today is 100% for charity.
MG: Oh I know, I know, I’ve just been doing some thinking and I’m not certain it will do me any good. I mean, I’m going to be working at a loss, aren’t I?
CW: Yes I understand, but I made it very clear when I met you that would be the case. This is for charity, no one is making money for themselves today.
MG: OK, I don’t know how else to put this, so I am just going to say it. I want 50% of the profits or I walk.
CW: *speechless* Guh...buh...whaa?

I nearly jumped in and called her a loon. But co-worker managed to regain her voice.

CW: Then I guess you’re walking.
MG: Just like that? But you have already advertised that I am going to be here! People will be asking! What will you tell them?
CW: I’ll tell them that you wanted 50% of the money we made for a cancer charity and you left.
MG: But that will drive people away from my business in the future!
CW: Yes. It will.
MG: Fine! I’ll stay! I’ll stay!
CW: No, I don’t want you here. Pack up your things and go.
MG: I don’t believe this!

She grabbed her bag and stormed out.

The fare started and I manned my tombola. A middle aged grumpy man and his wife came over. They were my very first customers.

Me: Hi there, would you like to buy some tickets?
GM: *very demanding tone* What is this for?!
Me: We are raising money for *local cancer charity* today. Every penny we make today gets donated to them.

I then showed him all the appropriate paperwork.

GM: *growling* I want to see your I.D.
Me: I.D?
GM: Yes, I.D proving you work for the charity and that you are not a CON MAN WHO IS OUT TO GET MY MONEY!

He looked around to see how many people’s attention he had got.

Me: I don’t work for the charity, I work at this pub, and we are raising money for them. I could call a manager over to verify this.

He simply stared at me, making a random growling noise every now and then.

GM: I want your I.D.
Me: The only I.D I have is my driver’s licence, and you are not privy to that information.
GM: *growls*
Me: *All patience gone* Are you going to buy some tickets or not?
GM: I think I will leave it, I don’t want to risk my money ending up in your dirty pockets.
Me: Fine. I hope that helps you sleep at night, now go away.

I could not believe it. The fare had only been opened for five minutes and both those things happened. Thankfully nothing else happened, and the rest of the day went smoothly.

I do not know the final figure of what we made, but when I left it was at least £500.00.

[AtDIelement]

Deity forbid that people do anything for charity anymore without there being some underhanded method to our madness.

*Sigh*

[Geek King]

Deity forbid that people do anything for charity anymore without there being some underhanded method to our madness.

The problem is that there are a number of fakes out there, so I can understand a bit of paranoia. Hell, I get calls for those fake solicitations for "Children of slain police officers" almost every week (funny how they never send the paperwork they always promise, huh?). Granpa Jerkus stepped over the line, especially since he was shown the proper paperwork.

[Seraph]

MG: But that will drive people away from my business in the future!

Would be hilarious, if slightly revengeful, if someone hypothetically put out flyers on a pole near her store: "Wouldn't help out the charity, demanded 50% of the money that was supposed to go to kittens orphaned by warlocks." Or something like that.

Just hypothetical. She'd flip her lid, but it'd be a nice lesson learned. ^^

[PepperElf]

Would be hilarious, if slightly revengeful, if someone hypothetically put out flyers on a pole near her store: "Wouldn't help out the charity, demanded 50% of the money that was supposed to go to kittens orphaned by warlocks." Or something like that.

Just hypothetical. She'd flip her lid, but it'd be a nice lesson learned. ^^

not to mention it wouldn't even be libel since it's the truth.

[Tama]

"Goes to children whose parents were either burned to death or died on toxic gas shot at them by heads on tripods" (get that one)

They would still complain.

[Little Retail Rabbit]

In the case of the old guy, even though he was very unreasonably snotty, he wasn't entirely in the wrong to be concerned about where his money was going- it has happened before that people raised money for unregistered charities and the like. Heck, I can remember such a thing happening when I was at school where a parent was pretending her daughter had leukemia and trying to get people on board to raise money for her "illness". However, in this case, all you have to do (I think) is just ask to see the charity's registration, or something like that. I don't know the exact details, but charities have registration numbers and fund-raisers will get official documentation from said charity to show they are officially raising money for a good cause. The manager no doubt would have been able to do that.

I can't think of any reason why that makeup-woman was such a...gonna just say it...elitist uncharitable bitch. Doesn't it look good if you state that you did free work for a charity? (Especially cancer charities, people support those a lot!). It would have been a completely different matter if she had said that she would do it for a fee from the very beginning* but you can't just show up on the day and change your mind. What an awesome co-worker you have



(* Slightly OT but related: my bellydance teacher frequently does charity gigs, and recently, she was asked by a charity- I don't know which one- to perform and she agreed- but they were rude, messed her about, and then decided to just drop her with no warning. She was mentioning it on FB and one of her fellow dancers said she'd had similar problems with the same charity and doesn't do free gigs anymore as people no longer seem to appreciate free things. But what they do like to do is ask for a small fee, but give it back at the end of the night as a donation- if the people running it aren't douches

[Teysa]

Sad thing is with the make-over lady, she probably could have drummed up enough future business to make working for free the one day worth it. I'm sure there would have been plenty of women who would have liked their new look enough to visit the lady's shop.

[tropicsgoddess]

How noble of them... not! That Makeover girl really showed her ass demanding 50% of the profit when it's all for charity.

[Mr Hero]

Off topic, but what's a lucky dip?

[MoonCat]

The old guy was nuts. Look, if you were standing on a street corner soliciting donations it would make sense for him to be suspicious or at least careful. But you were part of an event at the pub, with other people there doing other activities specifically for that same purpose! Am I right in guessing that you advertised it somewhere beforehand, or at least had signs up at the pub for a while before the date? It's not very likely that if you were some random scammer with no connection to the pub, you would just be able to come in and set up a booth to steal people's money. I wonder if he thought everybody else taking part in the event were also scamming people?

[dawnfire]

Off topic, but what's a lucky dip?

In a lucky dip there is a container of non descript wrapped presents (usually cheap trinkety stuff). you pay your few bucks and you get to pick one package.

[Nyoibo]

I can understand the whole bit about money not going where you expect or want it, money raised over here for bushfire appeal to help people who had lost their homes and such has apparently been allocated to building bike and walking trails, in places hardly affected by the fires.

[BeenThereDoneThat]

I certainly hope that Makeover Lady loses business because of her EW-ness. She's greedy and selfish and kudos to the manager who wouldn't let her stay even after she tried to backtrack.

As for Gramps...he didn't need to be there if he was afraid of giving money to an unknown source. GTFO.

[TheCheerfulTreeRat]

I can't think of any reason why that makeup-woman was such a...gonna just say it...elitist uncharitable bitch. Doesn't it look good if you state that you did free work for a charity? (Especially cancer charities, people support those a lot!). It would have been a completely different matter if she had said that she would do it for a fee from the very beginning* but you can't just show up on the day and change your mind.

Call me Mr. Cynical, but I suspect that she wasn't particularly dumb. If she'd asked for a fee up front, they'd have said no. When they said no, at the time, she was ready with "But you've already advertised it". She thought she had them over a barrel...