Looking Back

This was a chapter in my diary called: Highland Days.
During one of my "underemployed" periods in the early 90's
I worked at the now defunct Highland Superstore in Natick.
I think I lasted there for a few months...

". . . At least the Christmas shopping season will soon end.
Not much longer will I have to present my sensitive soul to
the terrors and rampages of Retail shoppers - or as we call
them, "tire-kickers, lookers, and other swine."  I have come
to dislike shoppers who take too long to make up their mind,
and are too fussy.  I have learned to hate the words, "just
looking..." and find ecstasy in the phrase, "I'll take this
one."

Nor will I be forced to endure the constant query of my
fellow sales "associates" as we stand, like sentinels in a
desert kingdom and ask each other, "So, are ya makin' any
money today? I'm dying here.) Somehow it seems more
palatable to be dying as long as everyone else is dying too.
If one salesman does better than the others, we all stand
around grousing about how he is a filthy customer-thief
or how silly he looks in a toupee, or why doesn't she lose a
few pounds and wear less make-up.

Hey, it's human nature.  We are commissioned retail salespeople.
The bottom of the food chain.  We feel superior to no one -
except the cashiers, even though they are smarter than we are
and make more money and get more breaks.  We salespeople
shamble through the store, like vultures in search of a
carcass.  When we find an unsuspecting victim, we swarm,
nipping at others who try to beat us out.  We get into
fistfights and shouting matches, while poor confused
customers flee from the madness, only to be pounced upon by
other roving gangs of salespeople.  I'm telling you, its a
jungle."

See, I Told You So

The other day, The Boston Globe published a  piece about the amount of donated money that finds its way to the intended recipients.  [Mass. AG: Do homework before donating to charities, 11/29/13]  

"Just 34 cents of every dollar collected by professional solicitors in Massachusetts in 2012 ended up with the charities they were representing, according to a new report by Attorney General Martha Coakley."

In response to my past annual screeds on this topic, many of you have called me cynical.  But, as it turns out, my cynicism fell way short of Reality.  The greed of people who run non-profits is just as insatiable as that of the most self-aggrandizing capitalists.  Many leaders of non-profits are paid over $300k per year.  

I don't think this is right at all.  The missions of these organizations have changed from  doing something good to fund-raising.  And don't get me started about the grandiose salaries of college presidents (funded by overworked and underpaid parents trying to insure that Jr gets a sheepskin.)

Only 34 cents out of every dollar donated is going to the real mission of the organization.  This is a scandal that ought to be fixed.