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Antiwork

United Way

I need to vent for a moment about this bullshit United Way campaign my employer does every year. It's coming up for us and I know it's really common with office type jobs in the US. I have no problem giving to charity. I have small recurring monthly donations to a couple organizations I believe in strongly and have done so for years. I do have a problem with my employer trying to bully me into donating to a specific organization that gives them fucking kickbacks if I fork over my money. I have a problem with the fact that the employer gets social cred if they bully enough of their employees into donating. And I have a huge fucking problem with giving my money to an organization whose entire purpose is to skim a little off the top and then just pass the money along to the groups actually…


I need to vent for a moment about this bullshit United Way campaign my employer does every year. It's coming up for us and I know it's really common with office type jobs in the US.

I have no problem giving to charity. I have small recurring monthly donations to a couple organizations I believe in strongly and have done so for years. I do have a problem with my employer trying to bully me into donating to a specific organization that gives them fucking kickbacks if I fork over my money. I have a problem with the fact that the employer gets social cred if they bully enough of their employees into donating. And I have a huge fucking problem with giving my money to an organization whose entire purpose is to skim a little off the top and then just pass the money along to the groups actually doing good.

My employer is a “community focused” local business and there is a huuuuuuge culture of donating and charity and volunteering. Which is great, but the issue is this company profits tens of millions a year and then guilts their employees into giving up their time and money “for charity.” Like no, you made 50 mil last year, you can pay a couple people $20/hour to go work that local event you want to advertise at instead of expecting people to volunteer, and you can donate a few grand to the UW on our behalf if it's that important. The worst part is people do volunteer and give, every time, without fail. Because it earns them brownie points with the CEO. It's so gross.

I made the mistake one year of telling coworkers I don't donate to the United Way and I got attacked. Now I keep that to myself but I shouldn't have to walk on eggshells for a month every year in case someone thinks to ask me how much I'm donating from each and every paycheck (which is what they expect) this year.

Ugh. Tell me I'm not the only one absolutely livid about this.

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