ORANGE COUNTY VOICES : Can’t Buy the Idea of Colleague Vendors

This isn’t going to make me popular, particularly with Girl Scout parents, but I’ve finally reached the boiling point. No more Mrs. Nice Lady; no more polite ignoring of the computer messages (“I’ve got Girl Scout cookies for sale” . . . “I’ve got Little League chocolate bars” . . . “It’s for a good cause”); no more giving in and hating myself for it. I’m going to say it and take the heat.

The last straw was when a colleague stopped in my office to offer me part of a chocolate bar. You know, those wonderful, thick, “World Famous” things with almonds. I love chocolate, but I wasn’t hungry and politely declined. He said he didn’t really like them, but after the second computer message from another colleague appealing to one and all to buy the chocolate bars to help out his son’s sports team, my friend gave in.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think there is anything wrong with youth organizations selling candy, cookies, magazines, whatever, to help raise funds.

I think it teaches the kids several lessons: They learn that things aren’t free (If you want the end-of-year dance, you need to sell magazines; if you want the water polo program to float, you need to sell tickets for the carwash, etc.); they learn to feel good when they make a sale; they learn about disappointment when they don’t.

I’ll admit it’s very difficult to watch your cute Cub Scout--all decked out in his bright blue shirt and gold neckerchief--go to a neighbor’s door and be turned down as you stand inconspicuously (you hope) at the end of the sidewalk. (What do you mean she wouldn’t buy a $2 ticket to the Scout Fair? You think: She doesn’t have to go. After all, it’s just $2. Well, you’ll never feel the same about her. Humph!)

But not all of his efforts meet with rejection, and when you return home and he shows Dad that he sold 20 tickets, you are proud, and so is he. Wow! Look what I did, he says. He has a feeling of accomplishment. He did it himself.

Sure, his dad or I could have taken the tickets to work. What’s $2 to your colleagues? So what if they were hit up last week and the week before and. . . .

I won’t buy Girl Scout cookies from my co-workers. But I will buy several boxes from the Brownie who comes by to ring my doorbell and take my order and who says, politely: “May I please have your money now?” Good for her. It probably isn’t easy to ring all those doorbells, but it’s a learning experience for her. She learns about people; she learns about achievement; she learns about handling money.

I won’t buy chocolate bars from my co-workers, but I will buy peanut brittle from the youngster who’s selling it for his soccer team. So what if we don’t like it? I’ll take it to work and share it there.

I will ignore a lot of the pleas in the office, but when someone who works for me asks, it’s difficult to say no. But what really galls me are the supervisors and managers who sell their children’s cookies and candy at work. Haven’t they even thought about the propriety of that?

Two or three boxes of cookies may not seem like much money to the boss, but what about to the single mother of two in a clerical job? If she says no, will she incur the displeasure of her boss? Probably not, but she doesn’t know that.

It’s not just that. The workplace isn’t the place for this kind of activity. If you don’t want your child to go around the neighborhood (I realize some may not be safe), and if you don’t have lots of relatives to whom to appeal, then maybe you have to make the donation yourself. Or, maybe, you give your child some extra chores to earn the money. There’s got to be a better way.

I realize that my son has never been the top seller of Scout Fair tickets or magazines or (of all things) Mary Kay Cosmetics as a school fund-raiser. But he’s done it himself . . . one way or the other.

One day he announced to his father and me that he had done a “bad thing.” Well, believe me, we were all ears. Turns out he was supposed to sell $25 worth of tickets for the water polo team fund-raising carwash in the high school parking lot. And, guess what? He had thrown the tickets away (in other words, he didn’t want to go out and sell them), but the coach had made it clear that everyone had to come up with the $25.

Now, why do you think he was telling us? I’ll bet he thought we might help him out. Wrong. That $25 sure made a dent in his comic-book money . . . he should have sold the tickets.