Okay, I figured first and foremost I should ask some frank advice.
I work for Sunoco, and during the month of October we’re having a drive to raise money for St. Judes Children Hospital I’m all for it, I don’t mind wasting my time asking people for donations at the check out line, in fact, I’d gladly do it for the the kids. Y’know, because I can be a caring human being once in a while too.
What I DON’T like is the fact that the company and my immediate supervisor threatening my co-workers and I. You see, when we started this drive, on Oct. 1st a memo was sent to our supervisor and printed out for us to read and sign. It basically said the company had made a commitment to the hospital and that we, as employees, were expected to help them hold up to that commitment by offering people the chance to donate to a worth while cause.
At the last bit of the memo, it turned very sinister, as it began to detail for us what would happen if we were caught not offering people the chance to donate. What started out as a rather endearing and almost heartwarming memo suddenly turned into a cooperate monster that basically told us, Sell or get fired.
It said that if we were caught not offering every customer a chance to donate, the first time was a suspension and the second time we’d be terminated, no questions asked. I signed my name, I had no issues with the whole thing to start with, what I had an issue with was being threatened before I’d done anything wrong.
More so I was bothered by the fact it felt more like I was being held at gun point by my employers, figuratively speaking. I understand that the company, such as it is, made a commitment to St. Judes to raise money for their cause. I’m also not naive enough to think that, without proper “motivation”, most people there would’ve brushed the whole thing off as trivial and never mentioned it to a soul. Though this seemed like they’d jumped from being very sweet to nearly biting our heads off.
I understand times are tough, and everyone needs the money, organizations like St. Judes is no different. Yet, not everyone is going to feel like, or be able to donate! In fact, recently a new memo was posted, this time from our manager which basically said:
“Everyone should make no less than $20 in donations, if I watch the camera and see you’re not asking everyone for donations you will be suspended. Selling $1, $3 or even $10 worth is UNACCEPTABLE”
Okay, so far I’ve managed to sell $147 and counting, that includes the menial $16 I managed to somehow sell tonight (10/16). So now I have to worry about my job security because I didn’t make the $20 quota set down by my boss lady. In fact it was an amazingly slow night, Sunday’s never see a whole lot anyways.
So the big question is, besides how morally screwed up it is, can a company legally suspend and/or fire you for such a thing?
I dunno, it just seems like a very underhanded way to enforce something, and I really don’t think the whole thing is so DIRE that they must threaten the employees into doing it. They’re paying us to do a job, and if part of that job involves asking people to donate at the check-out so be it. It’s part of the job, but to threaten us so heavily seems absurd and really makes the company a HUGE douche bag.
Such an experience has made me less sympathetic to St. Judes and their cause. In fact, I feel nothing for the cause at all after being shoved between a rock and a hard place just so they can squeeze more money out of our poor customers, who already spend enough in our store as it is.
Anyways, that’s the beginning and end of it, and maybe I’m just the type that doesn’t like being threatened so easily by their employer. In fact, I’ve NEVER been threatened by my employer before to push something like this. I worked for Exxon for nearly 4 years, and we raised money every year as well but my employers never threatened me into doing it. They did, however, encourage us to raise as much money as we could and we’d get prizes if we did so much, which was a better incentive than “Push or be terminated”.
