Co-workers' Kids "Fundraisers"

Boy that seems a little harsh. For years I bought whatever was being sold to help whatever fundraiser it was for. When the time came that I had a kid that needed to this I had no guilt sending her out for some payback. I guess in the old days we could just send them out door to door to sell, but not anymore. You make it sound like my 6 year old selling girl scout cookies is the equivalent of a cold caller from some boiler room

 

I've made it pretty clear to the people in my office to NOT bring me their fund raisers. My reason is simple, if I do it for you, I have to do it for everybody on the floor. There are 150+ people there, you do the math. In return, I don't bring my kids stuff. The ONLY thing I let my kids sell is the popcorn for Boy Scouts. And I only let them go to houses of people who's kids I've bought from.

You can't imagine how many girl scout cookies I have at my house right now.

 

Not accepting a check is BS! Sounds like she needed the cash and she would cover it later. You should update your employee handbook to bounce situations like this out of the office.

 

Your right on that. My wife helps in my daughters troop and could not believe the sales pitch by the rep from the Girl Scouts about selling. They set sales goals and then tell troops anyone not meeting quota will not get a badge. Then found out about another local troop that was going to have a party at Build a Bear, But only for the kids who met sales goal. And to Jim, I guess it could become a pain in a large office but I only have 8 people in the office part of my company and we all have kids, so it pretty much evens out.

 

No, it's not the 6 year old. It's the bloody parents who insist on strongarming the coworkers. Frankly, the implication is always "buy my kid's stuff, or things get nasty around here."

Hell, we had turf wars at workplace because people were selling girl scout cookies outside of "their" department.

I'll buy cookies from the girls themselves, outside Home Depot or whatever, but don't tell me that hauling their signup sheet up to work teaches them salesmanship or responsibility.

 

Dave.

Never too soon to try and get the rules outlined for all.

The office may only be four people, but any office with more than one person is gonna have some conflict, and should have a small employee handbook outlining the do's and don'ts of the place.

We have a five person office, but we have a handbook. (I also have 30 manufacturing employees, they use the book too.)

Simple stuff like this.

1. No weapons in the workplace.
2. No sexual harassment
3. Don't be late for work or you're fired.
4. Don't try to sell your kids fundraising **** at the office, 'cause it makes your co-workers uncomfortable, and it's just plain annoying.
5. Never use the office phones for personal calls.
6. TURN OFF YOUR FRIGGIN' CELL PHONE WHEN YOU GET TO THE OFFICE.
7. Don't park in the boss's parking space.

That should just about cover it for you and your co-workers.

DM

(Note, I'm not a lawyer, you might want to get these rules reviewed by one before posting them in the workplace.)

 

I guess different set of rules for every work place. My office it totally wild and sometimes seems out of control, but when things need to get done I can count on every person to do a great job. Seems rule's #1-6 would not last a week at my office, But no one would dare break #7

 

I hate when people do this. I used to do contract work for the feds and I worked in an office with about 2,000 people. I floated around 3 different departments each with 200+ people and in EVERY one around the same time of the year there were emails soliciting people to ante up for cookies, people coming to your desk, forms left in the break room, money packets circulating asking to donate, etc, etc. The part that bugged me was it added up to an easy $100 if you did it all, which for many was a decent chunk of coin. And as a consultant, you had to schmooze a bit and often didnt have a choice.

But the real kicker was that it's the KIDS who are supposed to be doing this stuff. They aren't supposed to just pass it off to their parents. If my kids came home and said they needed to raise money and could I take this to work, I'd tell them to get out in the neighborhood and start knocking on doors.

 

I don't tend to be forced into buying stuff from people for fundraising or dontaions, but if you think about it most of the money going to these organizations are spent on collecting more money........Hell if I am going to pay $2 for a candy bar that tastes like crap.......the most worth while organization to donate to, is the American Red Cross, they use like 91% or so of the money they receive for actually charty........plus I donate blood, more worthy and guarantees to help save lives.....

 

I get a lot of that in my office. There are a bunch of young mothers and fathers running around.
I have bought wrapping paper, muffin mix, cookie dough, chocolate, sponsored walk-athons, skip-athons, 30 hour famines...the list goes on. I don't mind for the most part. The cookied dough is delicious with a spoon as I am far to lazy to make cookies. The muffiin mix and wrapping paper I just give to my folks. Muffin mix doesn't taste good raw and I get the mall to wrap gifts. The charity events are fine with me, I give 20 bucks and am done with it. I have a bunch of thankyou cards from the kids, so at least it is appreciated.

 

Actually, sanity now reigns at my kids' school.

They send you a notice when your child first enters High School, Or Middle School. It tells you how much money you have to "donate" towards graduation, party, prom, etc., and offers financial assistance to anyone who can not afford it.

It works out to like $120 per student, per year in H.S., but frankly, I was spending more than that on fund raising junk that only probably paid 20 cents on the dollar to the school.

DM

 

At least the damn Alumni's dont call you every month asking if you want to donate to the school that you send your son to for $12,600 a year.

 

Patrick.

True enough.

But wait 'till college, when the school you're only paying $40K+ a year to comes calling for more money every year in the form of a variety of fund raisers. Now multiply that times four years, times four kids...

That's where I am right now.

BTW, they ain't lookin' for fifty bucks, either.

DM

 

The women I used to work with in a nursing home used to bring in their kids' fundraising papers, but instead of going around to individuals and putting on the pressure, everyone just left their materials on the table in the breakroom and picked them up after a week or two. It was rare for more than one person to have a break at the same time, so we could peruse at our leisure.

 

The key here is WHO is doing the selling. I'll usually buy from the kids because they're trying, but I won't buy from the adult.

 

David--

When I worked at a larger arch. firm it was no problem--against office policy. In business for myself, no problem, then in the last few years working for a very good friend I didn't mind an occasional purchase from his sons, and donated to a couple of his church projects as well. The stuff they sold me was actually useful, too.

What really bugged me was in my very early working years when I worked for a very large homebuilding company and then a large developer. They would herd all the hapless sheep into a projection room and show some idiotic film, go thru the schtick, and then inform us that we had the "choice" of having our checks garnished for the United Way. In 1974, that hurt with the few bucks an hour I was making.

What irks me now is this relative whose daughters call on me to donate for school and church stuff, I do it, then get no thank-you of any kind for that or for any Christmas or birthday presents (I quit giving them those years ago). At least the oldest did have it in her to send us a thank-you for the relatively substantial graduation present we gave her.

 

Dave this is very true! Imagine being a freshman in college paying a cool $36k a year for and they call you asking for money. The minimum my mom said was like $500. It is nuts.

 

Personally, ANY situation where I feel forced to buy ANYTHING is an UNCOMFORTABLE situation not just with fundraisers; there is nothing more uncomfortable and annoying than walking around the mall and getting cell phone plans shoved in my face or having to buy warranty that I dont need from a persistent salesman.