• MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
    0·
    4 months ago

    I had a similar issue at my job a few years ago. They started marking all the accounts with military discounts and told us we had to thank them for their service whenever they called in.

    I would never do it and my supervisor asked me about it one day. He was ex military and didn’t seem to understand what the issue was. I told him my father and my uncle both served in the military because they wanted to serve their country, not so that some poor schmuck would be forced to bend over and kiss their asses every time they wanted to check their balance.

    No one ever asked me about it again and the program was discontinued 2 weeks later lol

    • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      Speaking as a veteran (US), it’s always awkward to be on the receiving end of our weird-ass military worship culture.

      Like, if you want to support the troops, then vote some cash over to the VA so they can afford to replace those sketchy fucking elevators… don’t just stare at me like you’re ready to suck my dick every time I try to buy some lunch from your business; I already feel like a weasel for taking that 10% discount, but I’m too broke to let shame get in the way of that.

      But yeah, people feeling obligated to thank us, via cultural norms or employment mandates (yikes), kinda goes against the whole freedom shtick anyway.

      So, thank YOU for pushing back against that BS.

      • Serinus@lemmy.world
        0·
        4 months ago

        There’s a little of each that’s appropriate. Of course people have issues with anything that isn’t black and white. The worship has gotten to be a bit much, but we don’t want to go back to the way people handled it during/after Vietnam either.

        But corporate mandates certainly ain’t it. It’s not respect if I’m forced to say it in a customer service role. It’s kind of the opposite.

    • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
      0·
      4 months ago

      Company receives $1 donation. Company donates $1 to charity. Company writes $1 off of their income for the year.

      It comes out net-zero, this is a stupid thing for people to get upset about.

      • KoboldCoterie@pawb.socialEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        However, a not stupid thing for people to get upset about is what CVS did a couple years ago. Basically, they pledged to donate $10M to a charity, then collected donations from customers, and put those donations towards that pre-existing pledge.

        To illustrate why this is shitty (in the event that someone misses the point):

        CVS pledged to donate $10M. Effectively from that point, they were giving the charity $10M regardless of what else happened. At that moment, CVS was spending $10M and the charity was gaining $10M. CVS then asked for donations from customers, stating that the donations would be going towards that charity.

        If they collected (for example) $1M in donations, they would cover the remaining $9M, so the charity gets their $10M, so what’s the problem?

        The problem is that the customers weren’t donating to the charity; they were donating to CVS. In the end, the charity didn’t get any more money than they would have without those customers’ donations; CVS paid less, instead.

      • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
        0·
        4 months ago

        Yeah, my question was more rhetorical. There is no tax break really, they don’t pay tax on the donation because it’s not income

      • Serinus@lemmy.world
        0·
        4 months ago

        Kind of. They’re still claiming a PR thing, but that’s probably worth looking past to benefit the charity.

        They’re absolutely not getting any kind of tax break from these.