says “anony-scrooge”:
my office is ridiculous about cards and donations. the smallest of occasions warrants cards, money, balloons, flowers, a singing telegram, etc. last christmas was no exception. by mid-december, we had been asked for no less than $150 each in contributions for this and that.
the straw that broke the camel’s back was the sudden appearance of a christmas ‘adopt a family’ program, and the family selected was one of our employees who had very recently fell asleep at the wheel and crashed his car. it was all very tragic (sarcasm), but many people drew the line at putting more money in the hat to replace his giant mystery machine van. so almost nobody gave. well, somebody was pissed…
EMAIL THIS POST TO A PAL!
196 responses so far ↓
#1 Potbelly
Collections at work are so annoying. I just wish they would take a set amount from each person each year, put it all in an account and just give you your money back out of it on your birthday.
Aug 28, 2007 at 10:34 pm rating: +1
#2 southern girl
So true Potbelly, they always expect to give and give, and they make you feel like you HAVE to give something, or else look like the company assh*le!
I also agree, gimme my $ back for my bday! LOL
Aug 28, 2007 at 10:45 pm rating: 0
#3 claw71
I need to check if my employer would adopt my family in the event that I total my car. If so I’m calling that stupid lizard and closing out my policy. Why pay premiums if your coworkers will pony up a fund?
I think if I worked with the jerk who sent this message I would resort to physical violence. Regardless of gender. The only way to respond to a message like this is with a firm slap in the face.
Aug 28, 2007 at 10:49 pm rating: 0
#4 smussyolay
wow. what a presumptuous shit of a comment. (the post, that is.) gah.
Aug 28, 2007 at 10:52 pm rating: 0
#5 LC
I consider myself a christian and as such, I feel that the addition of “prayerfully consider” as a means of inducing guilt is downright obscene. I’ll “prayerfully consider” telling your sanctimonious, smug self where to shove your unwarranted demands for money…
I cannot STAND people asking for donations at work. I mean, if I had so much money to throw around, I’d probably wouldn’t be working at all now would I?
I also thought “adopt-a-family” was meant to help people who are REAAALLLY destitute, not some short-busser that wrecked their car and want a new one instead of hopping the mass transit to work….LAME!
Aug 28, 2007 at 10:57 pm rating: +2
#6 Andy
I like how the writer inferred that people could go without one of their luxurious $10 lunches to donate more money.
Besides, why is Christmas about material things? Is the guy out of work? Did he crash the car with all of their presents? I need more details.
I think this emailer needs to watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and learn what Christmas is really about, heathen.
Aug 28, 2007 at 11:07 pm rating: 0
#7 Potbelly
#2, I know! Nobody likes to have to constantly peel off $20 to go in some pot that is arbitrarily spent on some random thing that the recipient couldn’t give a crap for.
I’m all for everyone taking a little break to sing Happy Birthday, have cake (paid for by the company) and celebrate the birthday person. Being extorted? Not so much. Giving and receiving just loses it’s charm when it’s enforced by bureaucracy.
As for this fellow, it’s too bad he’s without a car but falling asleep at the wheel is pretty avoidable and just a step above driving drunk. I’m also assuming that the person drives without insurance (hence needing the collection). That sketchy combo doesn’t much tug at my heartstrings.
Aug 28, 2007 at 11:13 pm rating: 0
#8 Wry Exchange
I’d be pissed about ‘voluntarily’ donating over $150.00 at Christmastime, especially if I didn’t celebrate Christmas. Whoever wrote that note could jolly well be Secret Santa all by himself for the idiot who can’t sleep and drive.
Aug 28, 2007 at 11:20 pm rating: 0
#9 Anna-banana
Donations….smonations….It does get old!
Aug 28, 2007 at 11:26 pm rating: 0
#10 Andy
anony-scrooge: With the “mystery machine van”, is his name Shaggy? Zoinks!
Aug 28, 2007 at 11:26 pm rating: 0
#11 Katy
If the guy didn’t have insurance to pay for a new car (or repairs to his old one), then he should 1) buy it this time since it’s illegal to drive without it and 2) put in overtime. That’s what your job is for–money to pay for your stupid mistakes.
If everyone in the office chipped in $10 and there’s 40 people, that’s $400, which really doesn’t put much of a dent in the downpayment for a new car. Whoever thought of the “adopt-a-family” idea needs to get their head on straight and try something easier, like asking everyone to donate canned goods to give to a homeless shelter. Those souls need it a lot more than sleepy Homer needs a new car.
Aug 28, 2007 at 11:42 pm rating: 0
#12 joobs
Dear Merry Christmas,
I wouldn’t have to spend so much on lunch if people would stop stealing my turkey and cheese sandwiches from the break-room refrigerator.
I agree with the above-mentions. If I was the sleepy idiot employee, I’d be very thankful if anyone gave me ANY amount. The letter says they’ve collected $200, and about the same amount from another place. Damn, I’d be grateful to get that at Christmastime.
But to call it an adopt-a-family situation and then try to guilt people into giving is wrong. We don’t always know if the big spender at lunch is maybe having soup for dinner at home, or what causes they may already donate to.
Aug 29, 2007 at 12:00 am rating: 0
#13 stephanie
It sounds like someone is trying to buy her (and I bet it’s a ‘her’) way into heaven or something.
Our office has a “social fund” that we all pay into every year. It pays for all the cards, pizza, gifts, etc. that inevitably happen. They beg for the social fund for a few weeks every year, but that’s all. I think it’s a good system. Which reminds me…I need to pay up.
Aug 29, 2007 at 12:59 am rating: 0
#14 spiderflowers
Hey, if you shop around you might just be able to get that guy a nice beater of a car for $400. Some people and their terribly expensive Mystery Machines! The nerve of them. Maybe it would teach him a lesson if he had to drive (or push, more likely) around a cheapo car instead of something fancy.
Aug 29, 2007 at 1:24 am rating: 0
#15 Nanna
200 bucks could buy a hell of a lot of people a Christmas dinner and guilting people into paying out tons of money at Christmastime is lame. I don’t make much and always have to budget carefully. And for the guy’s family, yeah, I can see that, but to replace his car? Hell no! He crashed it because he fell asleep. The husband of one of my coworkers, married since they were kids, over 2 years, died very suddenly of lung cancer and had never smoked a day in his life. We gave to help with funeral expenses. THAT is helping. THAT is a worthy cause.
This person seems like one of those people who LOVES to orchestrate this kind of thing because it makes HER look good, not because she is helping. I hate that.
Aug 29, 2007 at 2:18 am rating: 0
#16 Nanna
I meant they were married 20 years. He died a month after the diagnosis.
Aug 29, 2007 at 2:20 am rating: 0
#17 Jessica
If you have to justify whether a person “deserves” a gift, it is not really a gift. None of us deserve anything. What is wrong with helping our fellow man, just because he made a mistake?
Aug 29, 2007 at 2:38 am rating: 0
#18 Lisa
#17:
It is wrong when you’re forced to, as is with the case in this situation.
Plus, people need to learn to take responsibility for themselves. If I had crashed my car, you’d better believe I would have nixed any “collection/ fund” right in the bud, and raised the money myself.
Collections and funds of this sort should be restricted to kids with rare ailments and debilitating cancers (etc.), not retards without common sense.
Aug 29, 2007 at 3:28 am rating: 0
#19 Joanna
Giving to a charity is personal and it should not be assumed that someone is or isn’t capable of distributing THEIR OWN MONEY where they’d like.
Where I work the company pays for cake on your birthday or a day off with pay. I’ve never been solicited for money at my workplace, ever.
Aug 29, 2007 at 3:37 am rating: 0
#20 Foxtrot
These type of donation Nazis are running rampant in plenty of offices. People are required to act in a civil manner with each other at work. However, they are not required to give $200 to some chump who recklessly fell asleep while driving his kidnapper-esque van. I’ll kick in $5 or $10 for our Boss’s gift at Christmas but if an employee asked for $200 for another employee’s van, I’d give $0.
Aug 29, 2007 at 7:22 am rating: 0
#21 claw71
I hate Christmas Nazis almost as much as I loath those Jesus junkies who are too busy thumping their bibles to take time to read them. The irony is that neither class gets it. You can’t celebrate Christmas at the point of a gun, even the metaphorical ones, and Jesus didn’t take souls by force.
Go Team LEAVE ME ALONE!
It’s crap like this that forces HR departments to draft restrictive policies prohibiting these collections and religious proliferation. Then HR gets characterized as robotic and heartless. NO, HR is tired of mopping up after everybody.
Aug 29, 2007 at 7:25 am rating: +2
#22 ginger
i would be utterly humiliated if people i work with started an adopt a famliy style collection for me. i agree with thr folks who said he should have had insurance. i wouldn’t donate to such a collection. so many more worthy causes.
the person who wrote that e-mail is just an arse hole
Aug 29, 2007 at 7:49 am rating: 0
#23 S.S.
Um…did the a-hole that wrote this letter ever consider that maybe employees JUST DIDN’T WANT TO GIVE MONEY?
Idiot.
Aug 29, 2007 at 8:14 am rating: 0
#24 aliastaken
To #1:
At my last job, someone collected 40 bucks every September as a contribution to the “Sunshine Club”. There were strict rules about what the money in the fund was to be used for… not birthdays, but flowers if someone was sick or someone had a family member die. My finances are tight, so I politely declined to contribute and just told them to skip my flowers if I got sick or someone died in my family. Looking back, it wasn’t a very smart move, since the president of the club talked shit about me to everyone. I grew to care about that less and less, as slowly, as I grew to hate almost all the people I worked with. I think taking up donations should be banned in the workplace. Can’t we all ‘prayfully consider’ making our own contributions should a need arise. I can manage to send my own birthday greetings and sympathy cards, thanks.
Aug 29, 2007 at 8:25 am rating: +1
#25 claw71
The worst might be United Way. It’s like a cult. I had a former director who was bucking for a seat at the heavy hitters table within the United Way organization. He managed to establish an automatic payroll deduction program and would personally review the program with individuals who didn’t participate.
You’ve never seen a human being turn a deeper shade of red than he did when I told him that the United Way was a scam. He actually called me selfish. I WAS MAKING $9.00/hr to his six figure salary. Plus he was on the United Way’s payroll. Looking back I really should have pulled a Jason and sent a pedantic P/A rant to everybody in the company.
Aug 29, 2007 at 8:41 am rating: +1
#26 Mandy (decidedly not christian and HIGHLY amused)
LC says:
“I consider myself a christian and as such”
…..but just a bit later:
“not some short-busser that wrecked their car and want a new one instead of hopping the mass transit to work….LAME!”
What a beautifully Christian thing to say. (=
lmao.
Aug 29, 2007 at 8:46 am rating: 0
#27 Moe
My office is also one of those that is donate-happy. It seems not a week goes by that someone isn’t taking up a collection for someone’s baby, or someone’s aunt’s cousin dying, or a birthday, or a surgery, or someone’s *pet* having surgery, or my personal favorite: someone leaving the project. We have about a third of our floor staffed by consultants. Most of them hop from one project to another for 6 months at a time. It’s their JOB. Most of the time they come back within the year anyway. I don’t see the purpose in a tearful farewell party.
Our HR person also likes to send out emails whenever any current or former employee dies or has a relative die. This happens no matter how obscure the relative. Keep in mind that my company employs 13,000 people. I’m lucky if I know everyone on my floor. 99% of these people no one has ever heard of and could care less if they shuffled off the mortal coil, much less if their great-great-great aunt twice removed just kicked the bucket. There are requests for donations on those as well.
That being said, at least no one in the office *expects* me or anyone else to donate. It’s all strictly voluntary. I simply never volunteer unless it’s for someone I personally know and like.
Aug 29, 2007 at 8:50 am rating: +1
#28 sab
I think the worst part of all is “prayerfully.” If the sender-inner works anywhere but a church or parochial school (or Associated Aid for Lutherans, etc.), that is totally inappropriate.
And to add to the comment above mine: yeah, the United Way thing is really awful. In high school I worked for about $6.50/hr at a place that guilt-tripped us all into automatic paycheck deductions for United Way every year - we had to watch a video about how great United Way was and all the people they helped.
The second year I was there, I quit the job in November, after pledging earlier to donate from my next year’s checks. In January, United Way MAILED ME AN INVOICE for the contribution, after I was no longer working there! They still didn’t get their money.
Aug 29, 2007 at 8:51 am rating: +1
#29 Goldie
Okay this is scary - this is an almost exact copy of a letter everybody in our church got a few years ago concerning stewardship. It, too, listed the total donations, number of families, average donation per family, concluding that we could do better than that and suggesting a 50% increase next year. To top it off, the guy in charge gave a speech where he proposed that we save money for donations by spending less at Starbucks… WHAT Starbucks? Guess what, the following year, people gave LESS, instead of 50% more as they were told… surprise, surprise.
I thought our guy came up with these ideas all by himself, but apparently it’s a whole school of thought out there… they actually use the same language… amazing.
Aug 29, 2007 at 8:58 am rating: +1
#30 Jordan
I am so tired of being asked for money at work. Everyday someone is having surgery, celebrating a birth, getting married etc. Just yesterday I was asked to donate money because a person was celebrating 30 years at our company. Take your “reserved” parking spot and shut your mouth. A party is not in order.
I’ll spend $25 dollars at lunch if I choose- and eat it while passing the envelope without giving a dime.
Aug 29, 2007 at 8:59 am rating: 0
#31 JM
If the company wants to help Mr Sleepy that is fine but to ask his fellow employees to short their own families at the holidays is wrong. As for the “prayerful consideration” perhaps ther writer needs to pay closer attention to the sermon at church (assuming he/she actually attends) to remember the true meaning of CHRISTmas and charity.
Aug 29, 2007 at 9:15 am rating: 0
#32 Susan
I’m with #50/Jordan. It’s none of anyone’s DAMN business how much I spend on lunch or where I eat it!! Mind your own f*#king business and keep your nose out of my lunch AND paycheck!
Oh yeah, and stuff the “prayerfully” comment - the workplace isn’t church and keep your religion to yourself!
(I don’t know if I’m in a bad mood this morning or if this e-mail just flies all over me. Probably a bit of both!)
Aug 29, 2007 at 9:15 am rating: 0
#33 Katie
In my office, we have an army of older ladies that have nothing better to do than sit around and organize the next unnecessary charitable contribution. If contributions are low, it just gives them gossip fodder so they can sit around judge everyone. Ugh!
Unfortunately these self-righteous do-gooders are everywhere. I am all for helping those in need, but sometimes things get taken to the extreme.
Aug 29, 2007 at 9:29 am rating: 0
#34 claw71
In the unlikely event I do trim my expenses at places like Starbucks, I’m keeping that money to buy myself a new set of skis. But I might chip in a buck to buy Sleepy a bus pass.
Team SCREW everybody else.
Aug 29, 2007 at 9:33 am rating: 0
#35 Randi
What a bunch of crap!! Also, you can shove your “prayerful’ consideration right up your nose!
Aug 29, 2007 at 9:36 am rating: 0
#36 jordan
I’m with claw71.
Team SCREW everybody else!
Aug 29, 2007 at 9:40 am rating: 0
#37 Heather
Anyone else reminded of the Seinfeld episode in which Elaine gets too much cake at work? She calls in sick, but upon her return, her co-workers give her…more cake!
Aug 29, 2007 at 9:40 am rating: 0
#38 Hannah
At my work, whenever something like this happens (or if someone has a baby or something) we don’t donate money: we volunteer to bring the family dinner on a night we can pitch in. I think it’s great. It can be really simple, plus you can feed yourself and do it on your own time. And if it’s a baby, you get to see the new baby!
Aug 29, 2007 at 9:52 am rating: 0
#39 Sandy
Ok…so the guy doesn’t have a car…what about the person who has no choice but to walk to work or bum rides because he honestly can’t afford a car for whatever reason (maybe they have health issues or something, I don’t know). I was one of those people once…I didn’t have a car and had to bum rides from people since I wasn’t on the bus route…no one ever donated at christmastime or otherwise to buy me a car…
Maybe I just worked for/with a bunch of slackers…
Aug 29, 2007 at 10:03 am rating: 0
#40 Mierin
for a minute I thought, ooh that’s nice, adopt a family!!! A poor African family gets food and clean water for a year!! Oh wait no…it’s a local guy..Well, they probably lost their house and all their christmas gifts in a fire, so they’ll get the 7-9 year old girl an age/gender appropriate barbie, the 2-4 year old boy an age/gender appropriate tonka truck, and the mummy and daddy some mugs stuffed with flavoured coffee packets from Tim Hortons. Top it all off with a big Christmas Ham! Oh no…it’s just a retarded co-worker who crashed his van, and they’re taking up a collection to buy him what, a new gas guzzling climate changing carbon emitting MYSTERY MACHINE?
Captain Planet is crying.
Aug 29, 2007 at 10:16 am rating: 0
#41 Black Bellamy
I say something like: I’m sorry money is really tight right now but I would love to lead an after-work prayer group to generate positive energy for person X. It shouldn’t take more than an hour, and we can do it three times a week. Can I count on you to come?
Aug 29, 2007 at 10:16 am rating: +2
#42 Goldie
Just buy the man a remote controlled car, two hundred bucks should get him a good one.
Or, or, how about a bike? Get him a bicycle. This way, if he falls asleep at the wheel again, at least he won’t be likely to cause much damage.
Aug 29, 2007 at 10:42 am rating: 0
#43 Jake
Anony-scrooge’s co-worker should see if he’s eligible for a handout from George Costanza’s The Human Fund.
The Human Fund: Money for People
Aug 29, 2007 at 10:44 am rating: 0
#44 Toby
No one has ever asked me for a monetary donation at work. Except for “Fourties at 4 on Fridays.” There is a jar in the kitchen in which everyone puts a few dollars if he or she wants to get hooked up with a fourty. Then, on Friday, a volunteer will take the money and run to the convenience store across the street.
Now that is a donation we can all rally around!
Aug 29, 2007 at 10:45 am rating: 0
#45 Paul
“but some of us have been richly blessed?”
Sweetheart…I don’t know about you…but I actually have to study all the damned time to do what I do. I wouldn’t exactly call that being richly blessed, more like forever in school.
I have a phrase for the author of this email and Rip Van Winkle over there:
Your inability to plan ahead does not my emergency make.
Go pound sand!
Aug 29, 2007 at 10:58 am rating: 0
#46 claw71
I guess the better passive aggressive note in this saga is the lack of donations responsible for triggering a double-barreled blast of guilt from the holier-than-thou gun.
Team Read Between the Lines
Team SCREW Everybody Else
Team Power Nap
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:04 am rating: 0
#47 super_fan#99
LMAO @ Captain Planet is crying.
Toby, good effort but it’s “forty”. Unless there is some weird Canadian/British spelling in which case I still think you are fucked up.
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:18 am rating: 0
#48 Mrs. Bender
What about Adopting the Family of the person who was crashed into by a sleepy driver? (if there was another car involved) Makes more sense than covering for some fool who didn’t know enough to pull to the side of the road and rest or possibly NOT DRIVE! Dumbass! And I agree about buying him a bus pass instead - dude shouldn’t be driving!
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:22 am rating: 0
#49 Zelda
The second someone busts out “carefully and prayerfully” they lose me.
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:32 am rating: 0
#50 Mierin
Speaking for lovers of Canadian and British spelling everywhere - It’s forty. Our obsessive use of U doesn’t extend THAT far.
That being said, what does the forty refer to? Is it like…the alcohol? You can get that at convenience stores? And who gets the forty? Is it like a lottery?
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:35 am rating: 0
#51 super_fan#99
Forty refers to a big bottle of beer, 40 ounces.
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:37 am rating: 0
#52 guidomann
I once worked for a company that used to take donations for the needy, that was bad enough but I usually gave in and contributed something. One day my boss walked in and said he needed 20 dollars for a woman who had taken sick (she was our receptionist). The caveat was that this woman was the OWNER OF THE COMPANY’s wife! He was getting ready to sell the company for several MILLION dollars. I just looked at him and said “Fuck NO”!! That was the end of that!
I was asked no more.
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:41 am rating: 0
#53 CA Girl
I worked for a few companies that asked for a donation weekly to be “allowed” to wear jeans on Casual Friday. I found that kind of messed up, I’ve never before or since been asked by a company for money to be able to dress down on Fridays! But at least most of the time they didn’t go around and collect, they left a jar out by the mail stop and people would add to it - most of the time I didn’t add to it though (not like I should have to dress “up” anyways, like the accounting dept actually ever comes in personal contact with pretty much ANYONE ever anyways!)
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:48 am rating: 0
#54 Rachel B.
Team “None of your business where I make charitable contributions and where I choose to eat lunch!”
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:50 am rating: 0
#55 CA Girl
BTW i’m looking for a nice man in CA to keep me warm at night. So if any of you fellas want to hit me up go to my myspace page. My U/N is goatlover.
XOXOXOXOX
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:51 am rating: 0
#56 jordan
CA Girl-
We have to pay a dollar if we want to wear jeans on Mondays and Fridays! I just LOVE working for the State! It goes to charity but I wouldn’t pay to wear jeans if cost a penny.
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:53 am rating: 0
#57 Captain Planet
*cries*
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:54 am rating: 0
#58 CA Girl
What the heck was that about #55? What did I do to you?? @Jordan - I totally agree with you, but at least it goes to charity… so they say!
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:56 am rating: 0
#59 mere
no wait.. did that note say ‘PRAYERFULLY consider’?!!
just for that, i would take $10 OUT of the box.
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:57 am rating: 0
#60 DuCe
I prayerfully hope that CA Girl isn’t serious about the username “goatlover”. On the main subject I think the whole idea of in house charities is fine I have no problem with them. However, trying to make other feel guilty for not giving is a bad idea, I say this because I would be one of the people that replies, “well you only donated 2 bucks so what does that say about you?” just to return the trouble he/she caused.
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:58 am rating: 0
#61 hannah
Our company has a policy against soliciting at work. Any cake we have for birthdays is paid for by us out-of-pocket. There are less nicities but at least there is not pressure to give. It’s not right to tell other people how to spend their money, not to mention “un-Christian” to judge.
Aug 29, 2007 at 11:59 am rating: 0
#62 CA Girl