Comments on: Girls and money

By: Another Damned Medievalist

Another Damned Medievalist — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 03:07:03 +0000

I realise that the world is much more dangerous than it was when I was younger, but when I was a kid, all of the sales that we were required to do door-to-door are now carried out by parents at work. Obviously, I can’t imagine sending my child out alone to sell cookies to strangers, but if the goals are as stated, then there must be some way to get the kids to do much of the actual work. Selling is hard. Talking to strangers is hard. These aren’t bad skills to have.

By: Don N

Don N — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:27:39 +0000

At work people hawk their children’s wares, such as Girl Scout Cookies, throughout the year. All the work is done by the parents; such as guilting colleagues to buy, distributing the goods, collecting the money. I think most people would rather just give a dollar or two for a smiley face pin instead of actually eating, wrapping, drinking, etc. whatever they felt forced to buy. Girl Scout Cookies and school candy bars are especially bad. The hallways get lined with opened boxes of cookies begging somebody to eat them.

This whole fund raising thing seems strange. Many parents seem to essentially just be exchanging money with other parents for their kids programs and the winners are the people who actually make the candy bars, cookies, wrapping paper, etc.

Don N.

By: J Edgar

J Edgar — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:33:34 +0000

Bemused, life girl scout, here’s my story. I visited Hong Kong and was besieged by school girls selling a sticker. I kept saying no, and still was constantly besigned. They were swarming like bees. I asked how they knew I hadn’t bought a sticker, and they just laughed and pointed at a sticker on their shirt collar. So,I bought a sticker, put it on my collar, and wasn’t bothered again.

It’s blackmail, but at least it shows some cleverness. Why is the girl scout thing only about boss-pressure and mom-power? Jesus C. Christ, sell a stamp along with the crappy cookies and stop bothering me.

By: bemused

bemused — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:07:20 +0000

Former leader and life Girl Scout here. Cookie sales money mostly funds the GS council (regional org). Some goes to the local association (town org) and a much smaller amt to the troop. Girls are given incentives to sell in the form of prizes for reaching cerain numbers of boxes. Typically the girls do individual sales (often resulting in the aforementioned parental sales at the office) and then the troop can organize group sales, like tables in front of local stores. When I had my troop, there were certain sites known to engender high sales and these were given round robin to troops that signed up for group selling. From my perspective cookie sales were a dreaded part of the year, since it is a lot of work, takes away from the program a leader wants to deliver, and despite the marketing speak, I don’t think that most girls derive much direct benefit from it. Also, in my council at least, a troop can’t do any troop-only fundraising until it participates in the fall selling event (less active than cookie sales) and the cookie sale. This makes it difficult to raise money as a troop for such projects as troop travel.

Unfortunately, Girl Scouts are not nearly as well funded through endowment income as Boy Scouts. So the councils have to self fund summer camps and other expensive parts of their program through cookie sales. So it is a necessary evil until the old girl scouts bequeath some big bucks to the organization.

By: Gary

Gary — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 22:29:02 +0000

Eszter’s story doesn’t have the ring of truth. I mean, who ever saw an actual girl scout selling girl-scout cookies? The cookies are passed on to parents who bring them to work and coerce their colleagues into buying up a couple of boxes. Not much harm in that I suppose—except that the cookies are inedible—but spare me the stuff about “goal setting, decision-making, customer-service and money management”. Even if the occasional girl scout hits the streets to sell a few boxes I’m sure mom and/or dad are the ones getting the money management experience.

By: Tyro

Tyro — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 14:40:26 +0000

I put an order for 10 boxes of thin mints from my cousin’s daughter ever year. Lasts me all the way until the next buying season. They’re great if you keep them in the freezer.

Thankfully, I don’t have an supervisor above me extorting me to buy cookies from his or her Girl Scout daughter. However, if I did, then I’d be able to use the “I already ordered them within the family” excuse.

By: Tracy W

Tracy W — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:12:31 +0000

No worries, I don’t eat most of these cookies myself, I give them to the students in my lab. I also try to make some healthier snacks available as well, but these cookies tend to be pretty popular.

All successful lab work is done at 2 am in the morning, fuelled by an unholy alliance of sugar, salt and caffine.

By: J Edgar

J Edgar — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 04:59:07 +0000

In too many offices, the cookies are a racket to buy something from someone in management. On the streets, I’ve never encountered a girl scout displaying any sales skills or presence of mind; they’re just thrown out there as a object of pity, or prop for a mother who is running the show.

Of course, there may be some place in America where the situation differs.

By: Megan

Megan — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 03:29:06 +0000

Since Ms. Hargettai was there and had the read on the situation, I’m inclined to trust her take. Even if her read were wrong in that instance, it is a likely and interesting enough prospect to warrant a blog post.

Blogworld has seemed especially full of knee-jerk defensive critical analysis recently. I suppose that is better than the McArdle-bashing that swept it last summer, but it is awfully predictable.

By: David Wright

David Wright — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:50:04 +0000

At first I was willing to give Eszter the benefit of the doubt that she had just overlooked other possible intrepretations of what she observed. But after reading her condescending non-answer (#5) to Chris (#3), it’s clear that she is just intent on finding annecdotes to support her narriative of female victimhood. If the roles had been reversed, I suspect she would have complained that the girls had been relegated to the roles of cashiers.

By: Crystal

Crystal — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:49:07 +0000

Mmmm. Thin Mints.

By: WillieStyle

WillieStyle — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:53:16 +0000

The real purpose is raising money for the organization. They are shamelssly using these kids. And just like the schools sending out kids to sell junk, only a small portion of the money paid actually goes to the organization. It would be far better to simply ask for donations.

What portion of the money paid actually goes to the organization?

By: DennyCrane

DennyCrane — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:28:08 +0000

I admire the way people have taken time from their busy, action-laden schedules to comment on this topic of such world-shattering importance. Get the cookie biz sorted and then, who knows, world peace, global lukewarming (you heard that first here), school grades…

By: bigTom

bigTom — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:21:13 +0000

By: Bernard Yomtov

Bernard Yomtov — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:00:02 +0000

I think this is a major overreaction.

#3 sounds about right to me, though IANAP. What is the mother supposed to do with the younger brother while she is supervising the cookie operation? Leave him at home? Bring him along and tell him to stand quietly by the whole time?