Admiring Ebenezer Scrooge

There’s something we can admire about Ebenezer Scrooge.  No, not the post-third ghost Scrooge, but the original Scrooge, the miserly Scrooge.  He’s had lots of faults, but one thing is sure:   He didn’t let people push him around to donate.

Somewhere, there is a law of human behavior that says Everybody thinks whatever they can wheedle out of you, by hook or by crook, they can do much better things with it than you can.  That’s not even a criticism (much).  You’re working for a good cause, you need money, you don’t have it, so you wheedle for it.

Hurricane relief?  Gimme.  Stocking a new school library?  Gimme.  Coffee for the troops?  Gimme.  The Children’s Hospital?  Gimme.  That’s the story for every charitable organization.  Well, maybe not American Pedophiles Support, until they change there name to “Love the Children Society,” at which time a few ignorant morons will donate.  [1]

I’ve been pitched for the first four recently.  In one, I happily forked over some money.  In the first two, I admit I acted like a bit of a jerk.

Each of these were variations on a point-of-sale donation, in other words, getting hit up at the cash register.  

The way the scam - let’s be honest about this - works is that you go to the cash register.  The clerk scans your items.  Then comes the pitch.  Speaking in a normal tone of voice, the clerk asks you to donate to XYZ.  So there, you can publically show a pre-Ghost Scrooge or a post-Ghost Scrooge.  Either let them die and decrease the surplus population or pay the doctor to fix Tiny Tim’s legs.  Surprise!  And that’s the whole idea.

My worst experiences with point-of-sale donating has come at Books-A-Million®. [2]     I prefer Waldenbooks®, but there are some things I can get a Books-A-Million a little cheaper and it’s also on the way to places I go frequently.   

So the last two times at Books-A-Million:

1 - “We’re trying to stock the library at the new Cheat Lake Elemetary.  Will you donate a book?”

2 - “Would you like to donate Coffee for the Troops?”

There are several choices.

One is to grimace, say “Oh, my, yes,” and get out of there. [Hint: That ain’t me.]

Another - the one which is seldom used - is to ask logical questions.  For the library: How much do you want?  Are we talking Dr. Seuss or a first edition Dickens?  Is this at your cost or at retail?  Have you already made the donation?  If I donate, does that REALLY add one more book to the library?  Tell me those things and I’ll consider it.  Coffee for the Troops - Huh?  What the hell are you talking about?  Do you plan to give the money to the Department of Defense and tell them to put it down on coffee?  Do you plan to prepare something piping hot and send it in a Thermos® in a real fast plane?  Are you bearing any of the cost of this?  Is this a gimmick to obtain future good will from educated people who may become future customers?  Or are you just taking advantage of the public’s patriotism and the fact that we pay troops poorly?

Understand, I don’t act like a jerk with the clerks.  They may hate to ask as much as I hate to hear them ask.  But they’ve been ordered to.  Managers?  That’s a different subject.  Sure, they were told to do it, but part of their duties is to report customers’ reactions and complaints.  When I ask for the manager, I’ll politely tell him or her that this approach really ticks some customers off and that I’m one of them.  

Sorry, school kids and troops.  Nada from me today.

Walmart does it differently, which is decidedly less intrusive and less likely to annoy me.  At the self-check-out-stations, you scan your items and before the payment screen comes up, you see a “Will you donate to the Children’s Hospital?,” with a yes/no option.  I don’t feel particularly bad about hitting no, because owning a hospital is the nearest thing to being able to print money.  But even I’ve been known to bite on that one.

Then there was my experience today at Sheetz.  Sheetz is a regional company that operated convenience stores - you know, gas, groceries, coffee, food, a bathroom.  This morning, I pulled into Sheetz to top up the Batmobile.  I did not intend to go inside.  Sheetz has music and ads playing inside the store and on speakers at the gas pumps.  Today, I heard “We’re collecting for relief from Hurricane Harvey.”  Well, OK.  And then, “We’ll match your donation.”  I went in the store, got coffee and a paper, and chipped a 5 into the box.  You see, they had answered the question of whether this hurt them a little.  A problem shared is a problem halved, so I was in.

There are others who do point-of-sale donation with a little dignity.  Every McDonald’s has a slot beneath the drive-up for donations for the “Ronald McDonald House,” which are places for families to stay near children’s hospitals.  We know that they actually operate them and that they are expensive, so change goes in the box.  A Morgantown restaurant just advertised a “Scout night,” where 30% of the gross goes to the Boy Scout council.  It’s good for the council. [3] It’s good for the restaurant, because some people who haven’t been there will come and hopefully come back in the future.

Charitable donations are good.  I like to make them, but who I make them to and how much they are are none of your business.  Years and years ago, at a particularly tough time in my life, I swore I would NEVER walk by a Salvation Army kettle without putting in a donation that hurt a little bit.  And I’ve kept my promise.  I don’t supposed I’d mind walking by the bell-ringers if I didn’t believe in them.  Lots of people do, but they don’t annoy the non-givers.  But that was MY decision and not forced on me.

I have to wonder.  We have vague assurances that the Post-Ghost Scrooge became generous and showed the spirit of Christmas 24/365.  But I wonder whether even the Post-Ghost Scrooge would be hornswoggled by surprise point-of-sale donation tactics.  He became pleasant, considerate and reasonable, according to Dickens.  But, so far as we know, he didn’t become stupid.



[1] That promises a blog post about misleading names for organizations.

[2] This is not a good time for bricks-and-mortar bookstores.  Amazon is the unkillable giant.  There are about 250,000 people who live within 30 miles of here.  10% of them may go into a bookstore once a year.  The bookstores really depend on the 1 - 2% of people who are READERS.  So my access to convenient bookstores is quite limited.

[3] A post on girls-in-Scouting will follow anon.