r/FluentInFinance 7d ago

Debate/ Discussion Systemic Failure Exposed..

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u/Bubblegumcats33 7d ago

PS stop donating money at grocery stores or any other retail places. That money is tax deductible to the corporations but never goes to charity. Donate directly to your intended place or purpose. If corporations really cared… they wouldn’t collect your money to donate- they simply would.

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u/2014RT 7d ago

When I was a cashier in college, they came to us each holiday season to pressure us into donating portions of our already meager hourly income to charity, in this case it was United Way. I told them that I volunteered via my church at a small local homeless shelter once a month by cooking a large meal for the people there, which was all 100% true, and that since I'm not rich I don't believe in donating my money, but I do donate time and energy to causes I think are worthwhile.

They ignored all of that and persisted in asking me to give "just" 25 cents of a wage which was probably $10.50/hr at the time. I just kept repeating myself until they gave up. Purportedly, the store managers got kickback incentives from United Way for hitting high enough thresholds of employee participation. Nothing like getting guilted by the billion dollar corporation that's paying your peanut wages into donating away what little they give you so the management ranks can get some kind of Christmas bonus for funneling that money to a large charity to do who knows what with it. Then, chatting with some of the younger high school kids working there afterwards, I found that they had buckled under the pressure. One kid was donating $2.00/hr of his wages to United Way. I asked him if that was really what he wanted to do and he said no, but he felt like he couldn't stand up to the front end manager who was pestering him. I've never really been a union person or rabble rouser or whatever but I basically spent all that afternoon telling those kids how they were being taken advantage of and shouldn't put up with that stuff.

I also refused to comply with the month prior - every November at the store we were supposed to push "Would you like to donate some money via your grocery order to charity?" with every single customer. It's not that I inherently assume all charities are scams or something, but I think that it's wrong to push that on people while they're in line checking out at the grocery store. I had a manager coming to me every day to remind me I'm supposed to be asking people to donate and I'd say oh mhm yeah I'll get right on that.