Company “Contact Us” webpages with disabled Submit buttons on the webform.
Also, JavaScript validation scripts limited to document.write in red text “Invalid format” without a guide to the webpage visitor on how to properly format phone numbers.
Also, when the user is “automagically” directed by a bank or CU she DOES have a check reorder history with by its own automated voice menu to a “valued partner” that will prompt her, after she follows flawlessly prompts for speaking routing number and account number, with “I’m sorry. I misunderstood your input because you don’t have an account with us. Please input your account number with us now.” Pressing 00 does not allow the caller to escape the loop to be connected with a customer service representative.
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My cube at work has been meatwalled for the past 10 minutes. It shows no sign of letting up.
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As soon as my child leaves me in the parking lot, a man approaches me asking me for money so he could “get something to eat.” I had expected to shop at the post office (a different one where no one yet has declared I had insufficient funds before all coins were counted) with the only currency I had, coins of insufficient value to get anyone anything nutritious, but I did plan to make drugstore shopping my first visit, so I tell him I will buy a protein energy bar for him at the drugstore. He says he appreciates it, he’ll be waiting for me when I come out.
I spend five minutes, I can’t find energy or protein bars in the aisle marked “energy bars”, it’s all candy. But I find some almond trail mix discounted. I buy it and my listed items. When we re-enter the parking lot, my son and I look for the man. I’ve given a description to my son, but I for sure know what he looks like. He’s not in the parking lot. We walk to the car, deposit our bag in the hatchback, close the door. I wait twenty seconds. I still don’t see anyone.
I open the door, retrieve my receipt, take it to the cashier for reversal of charge. If I had bills on me, I’d have paid in cash and bought a Real Change newspaper from a licensed vendor. But I didn’t have change. I bought something for someone who said he needed money to get something to eat, I told him what I’d get him, and for hours afterward I wondered if being alone and female in a parking lot means to many, many people without mammalian protuberances that I must have stupid on my face.
Why do people have to be terrible.
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Whenever I’ve offered to buy food for panhandlers, they’ve always refused. Even when I’ve had food with me to give them, they’ve refused. I’m sensing a little bit of a pattern.
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Did they explicitly ask you for money to buy food?
About 200 feet away from him at eleven o’clock one morning I was asked by a woman with no eyebrows for $2 to get a drink. I told her I was on my way to coffee and I’d get her a beverage (coffee, water or pop) if she came along. She told me she “was hoping for a brewski.”
Once I was asked by a street kid for money for food. I invited him to come with me and I’d buy him a hot dog. He did, and I did. He then asked me for a place to stay, which I sadly couldn’t give him. So once in a while the need is genuine. When people panhandle or beg, they must understand that they scheme to take money that could otherwise go to a registered charity, or to a food bank, or to feed someone impoverished and homeless who actually is hungry. One can be kindhearted without being stupid or naive.
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Yes, they asked for money to buy food, but when given actual food, they’ve always turned it down.
I get approached by so many of these people, I guess because I look like I just got off the Greyhound from Hicksville or something. I don’t trust them, and even if I did, I am not in the position to give to each of the literally dozens of panhandlers I see each day. I hope that doesn’t sound too heartless, but if it does, oh well.
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I like to give money to the discretionary fund for my Temple’s rabbi. This is a fund a lot of religious places have, and I’ve found that it’s a pretty cool way to give funds to needy people but also not get totally fleeced.
These religious organizations keep tabs on the people who often float from one to the next looking for freebies. So, they have a network with each other to be aware of who is genuinely in need and who is working the system.
The discretionary fund is also useful because it is at the rabbi’s discretion, so he or she can give as much or little as they want and use it on an ad hoc basis.
Keep being a kind person. I have a belief that even if people don’t use the funds wisely, the act of being treated with generosity is important to them, and to you.
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I can’t either. I don’t know how people give: do they go to the first panhandler they see, do they pass a few by before they find someone they view to be sincere, or worst off of all they’ve seen that day? Do they give a penny or a dime, and say “hey this city’s thick with beggars, I want to be fair to everyone.”
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He may be just impatient and gave up on you before you returned - probably he’s been promised stuff before by people who never delivered. He may have been run off by a store owner or the police. He may, as @LearnedCoward suggests, not have really been interested in food. At any rate, him being a terrible person is only one possible explanation.
Kudos to you for being caring and generous.
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I give food, never money.
I’ve only had one instance where it was not accepted graciously; I was running for an oncoming bus and even though the spanger in question saw I was in a hurry, he asked for a handout.
I had some left over pasta, so I pushed the container into his hands and prepared to take off again to catch my bus.
I’ll never forget the guy kinda turned up his nose and asked me: “What is it?” That floored me so much that I almost forgot I was in a hurry, and I had to pause.
“What does that matter?!?” I asked incredulously, before resuming my previous sprint.
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Gluten intolerant? 
But seriously, one time my family and I were leaving a pizza place with a good-sized box of leftovers, and were approached by a young man who asked if he could have them. We gave them to him, and he seemed genuinely grateful.
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I invited him to come in so he could pick something out. That is my MO so the money goes where requested.What if I got something with peanuts and he had an allergy or something? He didn’t take my offer.
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Some people are. I remember someone who asked me for money for a cup of coffee, and when I quite honestly said had no cash, but she could have the hot chocolate I hadn’t started (just cheap, fast food hot chocolate) she looked shocked at the fact that someone was willing to give her anything other than “fuck off”.
While I have never given outright cash, I have sometimes given bottles and cans if I see someone digging through the garbages for them. Sure, they may not use the proceeds for healthy meals, but while people might get hostile if you don’t give them enough cash, I have never heard of a picker freaking out on someone who gave them more empties. And whatever gets you through the day, sometimes.
OTOH, people who hang around ATMS and ask for handouts, they can fuck right off. I find another ATM if people loiter around or are clustered near it, or the entrance to the bank. That situation does not make me feel safe.
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A lot of homeless people are Type 2 diabetic because cheap carbs is all they ever eat. I had a homeless guy turn down a spare breakfast cookie I had on me for that reason.
Remember that alcoholism and heroin addiction, among other addictions, can mess up one’s ability to digest regular food as well.
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Some dirtbag in a SUV with Oregon plates ran a red light and headed to us pedestrians crossing with the light. I yelled “ISIS!!” to alert people. Considering the alt-right are demonstrating this weekend in my city my son says I should have yelled “Charlottesville!” Who’s correct?
Why do people hate me todsy? I did nothing wrong. Crossing with the light isn’t a crime.
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Yell “fire!”. That way people will react to the danger.
As much as it’s in the news, “Isis” still makes me think of the ancient Egyptian goddess and the 70s TV show first, and the Middle Eastern authoritarians second. I probably would have stopped in the middle of the road and tried to figure out who the retro TV fan was.
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I have severe food allergies. If God forbid I was in the position to beg for food, I wouldn’t eat it unless i was sure nothing in it could kill me.
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That makes sense. Asking someone who’s obviously in a hurry instead of just looking for yourself does not.
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I am severely allergic to shellfish. I can’t eat anything that has even been cooked with the same utensils as shellfish, and I avoid fried foods as a rule because of the cross-contamination risk. If there is shellfish in the broth, sauce, or powdered and added as an ingredient, I could very well die from eating it, and I can’t “just look” because it doesn’t look like anything.
I’ve seen YouTube videos where they couldn’t get through a simple fucking hamburger without adding shrimp powder to it, and grilled red meat is what I’d trust if I had to trust anything. Besides vegan food, obviously.
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I hear the concern; and I’m glad that neither one of us is homeless.
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