I am posting stories from my job, because I think they're funny. I've done my best to disguise my company name, even the industry, and to keep the people I write about and even some details of the situation anonymous. If you know me, and know where I work, please don't include details in your comments. I'll have to delete your comment and reconsider posting these stories.
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My company receives solicitations for donations ALL the time. Probably because we do, occasionally, donate. The latest one is from the local high school. Of course when the envelope's return address said "Local High School Senior Graduation Committee," I knew it would be a letter seeking a donation, but I had no idea how beg-a-rific it would get.
At the top, the letter says (and I am quoting exactly, punctuation included, just not copying their stylized font):
Class of 2015
Graduation Celebration
"Just Write the Check Campaign"
Yes. They are begging for money, and calling it a "Just Write the Check Campaign." I mean, can it get any more offensive? "Send us the Damn Money Already Campaign"? "Write a Check and No One Gets Hurt Campaign"? Seriously!
It goes on and on about how they're planning a celebration without alcohol, and the school won't pay for it and blah blah blah. They say "approximately" 200 young men and women will be graduating. First, I didn't know the school was that small, and second, they can't pin it down any more than that, because this high school has one of the lowest graduation rates in the entire state and graduation IS still a couple months away, after all.
Anyway, then they explain what your tax-deductible "gift" (oh, but at the bottom of the letter it says that the tax ID is available "upon request," so they don't even tell you unless you ask--WOW) will cover. They're spending $85 a HEAD on a non-alcoholic party. What?!?! How can they possibly be spending that much if they're having it at the school and it's staffed entirely by volunteers (the latter is stated explicitly in the letter, the former isn't, but if they have to ask for donations to host this party, shouldn't they keep the costs down as much as possible?
THEN, at the bottom of the letter, there's a circular seal-like image that says Class of 2015, followed by what must be their class slogan: "You wish you were us." (Yes, with the quotation marks. They're also around the phrase "thank you for your consideration" at the very bottom of the letter. I'm surprised there isn't more mis-use of quotation marks, to be honest.) Wowie. Just...Wow. I don't remember my class slogan, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't as obnoxious as that one.
This whole letter just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But I'm not the one who makes donation decisions--I'll put it on my boss' desk, and I look forward to hearing his comments about it. :-)
Update: We (I drafted, boss signed) ended up writing a letter to both the school principal and the person who signed her name to this letter, complaining about the wording and cost of the party, basically. Weeks went by, and we didn't hear anything. I even asked the boss the other day if he heard anything, and nope. Then this morning, he received a call from someone he's pretty sure was the woman who wrote the letter. She wants to send a STUDENT to our office to talk to him. Um, what kind of cop-out is that? She doesn't want to get yelled at, so she'll send an innocent teenager who had nothing to do with it? Or even if the teenager did write the letter. SHE is the one who signed it. Wow. Wow. Wow.
He brushed her off somehow, and ended up getting a call from the principal's office at the high school, and they made an appointment for the vice principal to come to our office to discuss it. That appointment ended up falling through (no fault of the school), but my boss did receive an explanation that the lady had permission to use the school logo but not to write a letter with that kind of tone, and they'll talk to her. Or something.
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Update: We (I drafted, boss signed) ended up writing a letter to both the school principal and the person who signed her name to this letter, complaining about the wording and cost of the party, basically. Weeks went by, and we didn't hear anything. I even asked the boss the other day if he heard anything, and nope. Then this morning, he received a call from someone he's pretty sure was the woman who wrote the letter. She wants to send a STUDENT to our office to talk to him. Um, what kind of cop-out is that? She doesn't want to get yelled at, so she'll send an innocent teenager who had nothing to do with it? Or even if the teenager did write the letter. SHE is the one who signed it. Wow. Wow. Wow.
He brushed her off somehow, and ended up getting a call from the principal's office at the high school, and they made an appointment for the vice principal to come to our office to discuss it. That appointment ended up falling through (no fault of the school), but my boss did receive an explanation that the lady had permission to use the school logo but not to write a letter with that kind of tone, and they'll talk to her. Or something.
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