Do you find it annoying when a cashier tries to upsell you into making a donation to some group? Well, what if the money was going to a good cause–like another employee at the store?

Here’s what our tipster Marc sent in recently:

I had what I consider an unusual experience while purchasing three greeting cards at a Party City store in the Chicagoland area. When I went to checkout at the register, the cashier asked if I wanted to make a donation to ‘one of their workers that had been in a bad car accident.’ I declined.

I have several problems with this type of request:

-If Party City paid its employees a living wage and provided health insurance, this worker probably wouldn’t need a donation. I’m assuming here, but I don’t think it’s a stretch.

-Why should I as a customer of a store be asked by an employee of the store to give money to someone whom I have never met, don’t know, don’t know the details of the incident, etc. I found this rather offensive. To me, this amounted to panhandling within a retail environment by the employees.

-This could easily be a scam thought up by store management and/or the employees. See how much money they can raise and then split it. Call me cynical, but I wouldn’t put it past people these days.

What do you think of this request? I chalked it up to ‘nothing surprises me anymore.’

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