Charity Donations - I may have BU

[BathshebaKnickerStickers]

Just done a bit of a clear out - the first of a number needing done in this house over the next few weeks.
Today it was coats and toys from the garage. I always separate into "sellable" and "rags" and send anything unsellable to fabric recycling.

So - 6 black bags into the car.

Went to my charity shop of choice (shop A) - my friend volunteers there - bum, I forgot its closed on a Monday - however I'm out now, need to not carry these things in the car for weeks - I'm in a fairly big town/city - we have a goodly choice of charity shop, even if most in the city centre aren't easy to park at.

Anyway - I find another - Shop B. Pull up outside, road is wide enough to not obstruct the traffic but I'm not "parked" - Grab a couple of bags, take them in, head back to the car for a couple more - I can then hear the front of shop assistant say to someone "Are we taking donations - she's just dumping things"....I take in 2 more bags to be met with the manager from the back office "We aren't actually taking things I mean, I can take this lot but no more - we don't have many volunteers you know, and the charity shop down the road has closed so everyone dumps everything on us".....

I was a bit perturbed - I did say something along the lines of "Sorry, I was just doing my best trying to help...." and left - in a bit of a daze as to the conversation I had just had.

Round the corner to shop C (more main road so I really hate stopping outside but again - its a wide road so I'm not actually obstructing anyone. Popped in, asked "Are you accepting donations?" - the assistant replied Yes - thank you so much, we LOVE donations and we are happy to accept them"....

So I gave her my last 2 bags and explained another shop had really not been very gracious about accepting things.

Now - this may be where I get unreasonable - I was still so upset at Shop B that I went back, stopped the car, and went back in. I said (politely, honest) "Hi, I dropped some bags off about 10 minutes ago but I got the feeling that you weren't happy to accept the donations - I have found another shop that is happy, so if I can have my 4 bags back, I'll take them round there".

Front of shop went to get the manager. She came out of the office "We are happy to take your donations - but there are only 2 of us."

I replied "To be honest, I felt that you accepted my donations really ungratefully - these are items that my children wore and used - I really would rather they went somewhere that my donations weren't seen as a burden"

Manager "Well we are happy to take them".

Me "Well, I haven't been led to believe you are happy to take them, and I feel really upset by the way my donations have been grudgingly accepted. So Can I take them back - I'll relieve you of them and I'll take them to somewhere that has said they would be thrilled."

Manager "We are always happy to take them"

Me - "well, that's not how I've been made to feel - maybe make yourself a cup of tea as I can see you are not happy today but please have a think about how you have made me feel".

Manager - "I don't have 5 minutes for a cup of tea"....

I left, with my bags, took them to shop C who were absolutely thrilled.

I am incredibly non confrontational. I am very shy and quiet but also very generous and have a background in charity volunteering and in customer service.

(I also hit my head really badly just before I went out with something I was taking to the tip and I'm wondering if I've done my head some damage).

For background - 1 of the charity shops is a national chain, 1 is a local charity with 2 shops in our town/city.

The contents of the bags were jackets - good named brands like Regatta, Helly Hansen and Next - as well as some baby born toys and a couple of bags.

Am I the mad evil woman of charity shop donations...???

Makes me not want to bother honestly. Except my local shop is grateful and I appreciate their time - I shop there as well as donate. They recognise that I don’t have time to hang about and that I donafe each month. If they referred to it as dumping, just because i go back to the car while they are dealing with other customers, I’d be fucking furious

Of course it's different if you are local and have a relationship with the shop, and they know you. That's brilliant, and pretty ideal.
They know that what you drop off is quality and saleable and you are
their absolute dream. Still, it's not ideal just to walk in and dump stuff in the middle of the shop floor and leave, while the staff are busy with customers. Please try to look at it from the pov of the innocent volunteer.

We often get dumped on by people who's elderly relative has died, and they just pull the sheets off the bed and roll them up and drop them off with us. If you are of a delicate nature, please read no further.

I've unrolled a sheet to find turds hidden within.
I've unpacked a binbag of 'nightwear' to find it urine and crap stained.
I've found used sanitary towels, I've found heavily soiled adult incontinence pads. This is from people who are clearing out the house of a deceased elderly relative. They can't be arsed to sort and clean it up themselves, so they put it all in a bin bag and give it to us.
I've even turned up life size blow up sex doll. I don't know if it was brand spanking new, or used. It went straight in the bin.

I've opened up a boxful of lego, only to find that they are squirming with maggots and bluebottles. When we get given boxfuls of lego bits, we have to go through it painstakingly, because there are often bits of food, peas, sweetcorn, old bits of pasta. When you give us lego, it has to be gone through piece by piece. Yours might be clean and that makes it dead easy. But more often than not we have to fish out stuff that shouldn't be there. And then when all the flotsam and jestsam has been weeded out, then we have to have someone wash and dry it.

Lego is quite lucrative nowadays, for a charity shop. But every £5 bag you buy has taken at least a couple of voluntary man hours to make sure it's clean and hygienic.

When you complain about the charity shop staff, just have a thought that they're doing it for no monetary reward. And that they are doing stuff that you wouldn't do, even if they paid you for it.

Please look at what I actually said I did

And I’ve never complained about charity shop staff. Nor have I mentioned complaining.

Nor have I indicated I wouldn’t do it; I just don’t have time right now.

I’ve volunteered for far worse things than sorting through other people’s donations.

Incidentally this is usually what happens, which I mentioned upthread.

I go in to my shop with 2 bags
They are often busy
I go back out, get more -repeat
Put all by the till
I wait until someone is free, say it’s rags/books/baby clothes/whatever
Apologise for not being a gift aider. They say thanks, I say thanks, I leave

The reason I do this, is because I’m not a twat. I recognise that there are people who dump stuff who are twats. But it is unfair to tar all with the same brush, and it will put people off donating. There are posters on this thread who have actually said not to donate.

Being a volunteer doesn't give you carte blanche to be as rude as you like. She didn't have to be grateful, just have basic manners. 'Great, thanks, bye' like anyone else would do.

Not unreasonable to feel that way but unreasonable to act on it and say that, especially the cup of tea bit!

I had a big clear out recently and bag after bag came out of the boot and the charity shop workers were admiring things and kept saying "are you sure you don't mind giving us all this stuff!" gratefully and excitedly like it was Christmas! I felt so good and positive which is what you should have been feeling

Oh give me strength. Charity shops are so overstaffed with enthusiastic volunteers that this is likely to happen. Not.
They are all in the back shop sorting through shit, steaming. washing and tagging stuff while the manager is upfront pricing it. There's one bloke on the back door managing the donations. And somebody on the till, who also has to fill the shelves and the rails inbetween serving customers.

And half the volunteers who should be there have not turned up.
Charity shop volunteers having the time to stand around admiring the stuff in the binbags? In everybody's dreams.

However, I'm rather hopeful that, having read this thread, some people will step forward to give a couple of hours a week to the very worthy cause of helping out in a charity shop. A couple of hours might not sound much, but if it's a really reliable couple of hours then it's worth it's weight in summat or other.

It helps recycle stuff and prevent waste. And also help people who haven't massive amounts of cash to spend on clothes, to get some really very nice quality gear.

I think you were very unreasonable when you spoke to the lady after going back in. I get that you were annoyed but you were incredibly patronising . You have no idea what is/has been going on in her life, your comment could have been the last straw and the shop may have lost a valuable volunteer. I know its cliche but two wrongs don’t make a right.
If I read your post correctly you walked in and started putting your bags down without even saying hello or asking where they wanted them. That is pretty rude!
A friend of mine is a manager in a charity shop and it has really opened my eyes. Its busy, short staffed, some people donate disgusting things, people steal and talk down to the staff all the time. Staff are either on very low pay or they volunteer. Maybe you should spend some time volunteeeing in one so you have less of a one sided view.

All the woman needed to say was "sorry, I'll just need to check if we're taking donations today as we're busy" - directly to the OP, not talking about her as if she wasn't there

The OP 'wasn't' there. She dumped the bags without a word, while the till woman was serving somebody, then went straight outside for more bags. OP says that on her way out, she overheard the till woman (who had obvs by now finished her customer transaction) call to the manager to confirm they were unable to take donations, because there was somebody just dumping bags in the shop. OP didn't speak to anyone in the shop before she deposited her donation. She gave nobody a chance to say anything.
The woman on the till was busy serving a customer when OP entered with her donation so was unable to engage with her at that moment.
OP was obviously badly parked, not so much concerned with giving her donation to a charity of her choice, as she only went there because the first one was closed, just wanted to unload it 'somewhere'. Then got a bit miffed later on and thought she'd go back and give the unpaid volunteers a bit more stress in their lives, without giving a thought to their generosity of heart and spirit, these people who are working for no reward, for a worthy cause.

And having to put up with a load of shit they don't deserve.
Make yourself a cup of tea, indeed. If only there was time to do that.

YWBVVVU.

You were patronising and rude, and totally out of order. Your attitude was very poor and you should be ashamed of yourself.

Donating isn’t about how grateful the shop is to receive your cast offs and unwanted things, it’s about helping others. You clearly wanted to be made to feel special, but it isn’t and shouldn’t be about you.

They lost out because the OP removed the offerings from their ungrateful mitts and donated them to a shop where the recipient was pleasant, polite, grateful and working properly for the charity

Trust me when I say that they've not lost out on anything.
They were obviously full to the gunnels with donations.
I work on a road where there are three very different charity shops very close to each other. We are all inundated with donations. When we are full up, we re-direct people to the next shop, and oftentimes they re-direct them to us. There is no shortage of donations and not one of us ever 'loses out' as such.

And not one of us has 'ungrateful mitts' We are always very grateful, for donations, but sometimes our storage facilities are full to overflowing. It saddens me that people would badmouth a charity shop simply because the people in them, who give their time and services freely and without pay, are limited by storage space and have to decline donations.

The shops who are pleasant and polite, and 'working properly for the charity' are the ones who have a little space currently.
Just don't catch them on a bad day.

I imagine they are more appreciative when people come and politely ask if they would like what they have, rather than pulling up outside and throwing the stuff at them

I suspect you have done time in a charity shop

If they felt she was dumping stuff, how did she do wrong in removing it from them?

She expected them to go find it out of the ten million bags they'd had chucked at them in the last hour. One black bin bag looks much like another.

slithytove

It occurs to me that you think I've been posting in response to you particularly. I really haven't. None of my posts have been directed at you personally. I've been popping in and out. It's a thing that's close to my heart because I've worked in the same charity shop for a very long time. Just so you know, I'm responding to comments. I don't look for the poster's name. Maybe I should start to do that!

I don't think you were wrong at all OP. I think it's awful when charities aren't grateful for all donations. If they really don't have room - really? - why not pass it on to another shop, either a different charity or one of their other branches.
Ultimately if you rely on people's donations, and you act like you don't appreciate them, you'll soon stop receiving them.
As for people "feeling like heroes" - actually yes. If you give your stuff to a charity job rather than sell it for your own profit then actually that is very generous. It is, at the very least , worthy of thanks and politeness.

I think it's awful when charities aren't grateful for all donations. If they really don't have room - really? - why not pass it on to another shop, either a different charity or one of their other branches

I can't understand you expecting a charity to take your donation to a different charity and be grateful to do so. If they don't have room (and they often literally don't - fire regulations on fire load and needing to keep escape routes and exits clear mean they can store less than you might expect), then they can't keep it for another charity to pick up. They would therefore have to take it and either immediately carry it or drive it to a different charity shop for no profit to them, thereby costing the charity in terms of time, money for petrol and leaving the shop a volunteer down. Your donation will actually cost the charity.

Even taking to one of their own branches will cost in terms of time/money (as another branch will often be a significant distance away) and decrease the value of your donation if they eventually sell it.

No one should be rude to you, but why is it unreasonable that they would ask you to take it to a different shop yourself? That is what you need to do if you actually care about benefiting a charity.

A lot of people saying the charity shop workers were rude … really? that's not how I read it - OP parks (illegally, by the sound of it) and dashes in and dumps 2 bags. Runs out. Volunteer thinks 'woah, hang on' and asks colleague if they are accepting donations as someone has just dumped and ran - volunteer doesn't know OP is coming back. So manager says they will take this stuff, but really can't take anymore, and explains why. None of this is rude, except what the OP said when they returned.

I get the feeling that those praising the op and going on about how "grateful" the charity should be are the types to treat shop staff like shit because "I pay your wages".

I think the OP was hoping for a handshake & a biiiiig medal.

Maybe they should have taken her address & should send her photo's of "unfortunates" stood there in her cast-off frillies????

Must you?

Maybe they should have taken her address & should send her photo's of "unfortunates" stood there in her cast-off frillies????

Pmsl!

The OP was patronising and rude. Telling someone to have a cup of tea is so fucking rude. She was obviously expecting grovelling gratitude for her amazing cast offs outstanding donations.

As for people "feeling like heroes" - actually yes. If you give your stuff to a charity job rather than sell it for your own profit then actually that is very generous. It is, at the very least , worthy of thanks and politeness

Nonsense. People give to the charity shop because they either can't be bothered to sell it or they know its not worth it. It is not very generous, its a receptacle for your crap, generally. You don't get a medal for clearing out stuff you want rid of.

grin I suspect you have done time in a charity shop

Indeed yes.

Oh op. I'm cringing for you but this is what is good about mn. You've been brought down a peg and I'm sure you will act differently in future. Enjoy your cup of tea.

I don’t think I’d have done what you did in this instance, but I definitely choose the charity shops with the nice courteous and grateful staff rather than the sour faced misery guts (regardless of whether they are actually grateful, they seem it and that’s what counts) to take my donations to. Just choose more carefully in future.

I volunteer in a charity shop and sometimes we don't just have room for any more and we will have to rag it . Maybe the used a poor choice of words but I can understand the frustration as sometimes there are so many donations that they actually become a hazard. But as always we are grateful for any donations

I volunteer with a large charity shop and we're very fortunate in that we are in an area where people are very generous with donations. We are often swamped to the stage we literally cannot move in the back shop for bags and boxes. And of course you inwardly groan when you know you're deluged with stuff and someone pitches up with another dozen black bags. We very rarely refuse donations though, and recycle what we can if it's unsellable.

In our shop we have one paid member of staff who works 35 hours a week. If she's not there, everyone else is a volunteer. Some have special needs and there is at least one who I can think of who has Asperger's and says exactly what she thinks. She can often be perceived as rude or abrupt.

I think OP you should do a couple of shifts to see just what tat people do offload on charity shops. I'm sure OP's stuff was all good quality and in great condition but it's impossible to tell that from looking at OP and her black bags. We get so many bags filled with broken crockery, empty DVD cases and headless dolls that it's untrue - quite what people expect us to do with a headless doll other than put it in the bin i'm not sure.