Do you buy things your coworker's kids are selling for fundraisers?

[sbj405]

Poll question: Do you buy things your coworker's kids are selling for fundraisers?

Gift wrap, cookies, candies, cheesecakes, Girl Scout cookies, popcorn. It must be that time of year. Everywhere I turn there seems to be someone selling some overpriced item for their kid. But what's actually even more bizarre is that there are adults selling stuff now for their own activities (an adult choir and a football team).

[CrispyQ]

1. I use to . . .

At the time I sat in the executive suite (their admin), so EVERYONE came into the office to try & get them to buy stuff & they would hit me up too. I ended up with so much crap I never use or eat, I finally said no to everyone. I have issue with the fact that the KIDS aren't out selling this stuff. Now if a kid comes to my door to sell something, I usually buy whatever they're selling -- even if it's something I don't want.

[sbj405]

4. Yeah I pretty much feel the same

I guess the safety factor has all but ended the door to door sales. I got an email from a friend. Her daughter's school was doing their fundraiser through a website - lots of crap I didn't need and I'd have to pay shipping.

[zoeb]

2. no child left behind cause I fund it...

just bought three rolls of wrapping paper!

[Iris]

3. Only if it's something I would actually buy even if it wasn't

for a fundraiser.

[TlalocW]

5. Sometimes

But I always berate my cow-orkers for doing the kid's work for him or her, and on the occasions that the kid was with the parent (mom, usually), I made the kid give me the spiel... Before I crushed his or her spirit by saying no. :) Just kidding.

Once instead of buying cookies, I gave a cow-orker's girl scout daughter 2 bucks and said just give it to your den mother - that after everything was said and done, they got a bigger profit from that $2 instead of my buying the over-priced cookies. She didn't understand (and neither did the mom - sigh) so I made them stand there while I diagrammed things on my cubicle's white board. :)

People stopped trying to sell me things after that. Hmmmm...

The girl scout would come visit me and my friend in the next cubicle everytime she was in the office though because she thought we were funny; I did magic, and we taught her math tricks like easy ways to multiply by nine with your fingers.

TlalocW

[Hand]

6. Never, and I mean NEVER!

As far as I'm concerned, this amounts to harassment and intimidation, especially when the seller is from management. I flat out will NOT do it.

:grr:

[UdoKier]

7. I'm against making kids sell crap philosophically

Most of the stuff should be paid for by the school or the students' parents. Kids' time shouldn't be wasted hawking crap to people.

[Left Is Write]

8. Not generally, no.

I am not currently gainfully employed (I'm a stay-home mother), but the only things I buy from coworkers' children or my husbands' coworkers' children are Girl Scout cookies. And that's only sometimes.

The stuff they make children peddle for fundraisers is EXPENSIVE. It's EXPENSIVE CRAP I do not want or need. And everyone knows, if you buy from one, all the other expect you to buy from them too. It gets too damned expensive. I have occasionally bought from a neighbor kid, though.

I hate that they make little kids sell stuff. I hate that school budgets are so tight they have to have these fundraisers. I would rather just: A) Pay more property tax so that the schools can have what they need (assuming the budgets will be properly handled by the school boards) or B) Write a check at the beginning of the school year to cover my kid's share of fundraising.

[Digit]

9. Only from one neighbor who supported my child.

She calls me ahead of time. Luckily, he only has two more years left of high school.
I think I have enough wrapping paper to last me a lifetime.

[x-g.o.p.er]

10. At my old office we all would...

buy one relatively cheap thing from each other's kid. It helped the schools, and it was a pretty good system. But I was in a small office of four people, so it was pretty doable.

[L84TEA]

11. NO NO NO!!!

RIP OFF!! I would rather give them 10-20 bucks for their organization then to give 5 bucks for cookies and they get 25 cents of the profits (if that) plus all the time and work they put into it. NO WAY!! I have said that at 100 PTA meetings!! They need to have silent auctions or have a children's art auction...or just plain ask for donations. UGH I HATE THAT CRAP...WRAPPING PAPER!! OR CHOCOLATE TURTLES MADE IN GOD KNOWS WHERE AND WHEN!!
No.

[NaturalHigh]

12. Everyone around here

sells bacon and/or sausage, so I always buy some. I'd be buying it anyway.

[Samurai_Writer]

13. Hell no!

It is patently unfair for these kids have their parents helping them sell stuff for fundraisers so they can get the better prizes. Let the kids go door-to-door with the parent accompanying them like we used to have to do way back in the 60s and 70s. Hell, back then our parents didn't even have to accompany us, as we knew everyone who lived in our neighborhood.

[CornField]

14. I hate that

My kids do not sell for fundraisers... nothing, never, nada. We're happy to donate materials and/or give money, but our family does not do those types of fundraisers.

[procrastinator]

15. Once in a while.....

[progmom]

16. Yep, sometimes.

Especially now that my 2 yr-old's day care center expects us to fundraise for them.
Seriously.

:wtf:

[Beware the Beast Man]

17. Mmmmmm...Band Hoagies.

[chiburb]

18. Only if it's candy sitting on their desks with a little sign

stating the cause. But not if they're going office to office to peddle it...