I am now a whore.

And not in the good way.

I have had a very personal defeat this morning. On campus, October is the only month that a certain charity, SECC, can offer incentives and things to urge people to donate (in either a lump five dollar sum or in two dollar increments every month from your paycheck). A couple of people in my office have thus been HARASSING us to donate, ostensibly because the first office to have 100% participation will receive $1000 (which I later found out from Dr. Dex is in the form of a scholarship).

Now, when I say they have been harassing us, I want to be clear.

They have come into peoples' offices and stared them down until they agreed to donate.

They asked one of my best friends here at work if she would donate if everyone else did. She said she would, and they told her that she was indeed the last person. She donated, then found out that there was about 50% of the office that had not yet agreed.

I was one of two holdouts that made it this long. I'm all for charity, but it pisses me off to no end how these people FORCE people to give. I decided that I would not donate, not to be a dick, but to silently protest the treatment everyone has received. Its not anybody's place to tell me what I should do to be a good person. Furthermore, I dont like to be bothered at home with people asking for money; why would I at work? This has been met by different reactions. On the surface, many were saying "Come one, Nutcase, go along now." But underneath, and on the surface of a few, I felt like everyone understood my point. I felt pressured, but stuck by my guns.

This morning, one of the two Donation Nazis came into my office and sat down. I was working on something (my blog, actually) so she stared at me in silence until I said, irritatedly, "Yeah? Can I help you?"
"Nutcase,dont you want to donate $2 each and every month to SECC?"
"Um...no, not really."
"Cmon, theyll take it right out of your paycheck."
(I have no idea why that would be a selling point for ANYTHING.)
"Id still rather not.
"What about a lump sum of $5?"
"No, Id still rather not."

This went on for about 5 minutes, until I finally agreed to let someone else make a donation in my name.

Later on, one of my coworkers told me that she had had the chick in her office for 15 minutes, and it was getting "ugly". The Donation Nazi actually had to be "came and got" from the office by the other Charity Pusher. I told everyone what I had finally agreed to, and I have to say I feel like I saw a bit of disappointment in her face, as well as in a couple of otherpeople's. We then immediately got an email from the head of our department thanking the donation nazis "for their hard work".

I feel like I havent stood up for my convictions. I feel like, despite the fact that I dont care what people think most times, and the fact that I am revolutionary by nature, I have sold out.

Fuck this place.