Charities Soliciting Donations Via the Phone

People must respond positively to charities that call and solicit donations over the phone or else they wouldn't do it, right? I received a call this morning at my business phone number from a charity looking for a donation from my company. The caller spoke clearly and did a nice job reading from her script; however, she wouldn't let me get a word in until she was completely done with her spiel :-)

Once she (finally) finished, I told her I didn't respond to phone solicitations but was happy to receive information about the charity via e-mail. No, she couldn't send me information via e-mail (!), but she could give me the web site address of the charity.

The charity seems aboveboard and was certified by the Independent Charities of America as being one of the "best". I understand that in these difficult economic times, charities need help more than ever. I'm a sucker for kids selling door-to-door or those that approach me at my local grocery store. However, I do have an issue with charities (or any for-profit or not-for-profit organization for that matter) who solicit people directly via the phone. Is it just me?

But they keep YOUR hands clean...

Earlier this week, I dropped off my car for servicing at my local Honda dealer. This dealership went through a big renovation a few years ago, and one of the things they added was a small deli in the waiting area. The deli offers the usual assortment of soda, chips, cookies, crackers and even fresh fruit. In addition, the deli has a grill and is able to offer breakfast sandwiches, hamburgers and other hot food while you wait for your car to be serviced. I was feeling a bit hungry (and bored), so I decided to order a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich on wheat toast. The woman working at the deli was in the middle of moving drinks from one refrigerator to another, asked me if I was waiting for my car (which I was) and offered to bring the sandwich out to me once she finished moving the drinks. OK, I thought, I can wait.

When I came back a few minutes later, I noticed that my sandwich was on the grill and the woman was making change for another customer with her disposable gloves on. After making change, she reached over to my sandwich, cut it in half and plated it. Ewww... I really, really wanted to ask her why she was wearing the gloves in the first place, if she had no intention of taking them off while handling money, but I decided to best thing to do was to pay for my sandwich, eat it and hope that I wasn't going to get deathly ill afterwards (which I didn't).

So, how dirty is money? According to this article, the long-held belief that you can catch disease from handling money may be exaggerated.