charity handI don't know how to write this in a nice way. Every now and then, a random person (sometimes two people together) walks into my office, looking for money for the charity they collect for.

Typically it works like this...

The person(s) walk in, look around, walk past the front area where 3 people sit. They peek into the various offices and find me. They find me, I guess because of my door sign and then they don't ask me if I have a minute, they just close my door and sit down in the chair(s) on the opposite end of my desk.

No matter what I am doing, they just sit down and start talking to me.

They ask about me, where I grew up, etc. It is often hard to be not nice to them and yell at them to leave. Why? Well, often they are older people and I have this strong thing about respect, especially respecting older people. So I try to be nice and patient.

In fact, I am not too nice to sales people who solicit when there are no soliciting signs. But in a sense, these people looking for money for their charities are soliciting as well and yes, there is a no soliciting sign posted in the building.

After they are done talking, I try with the utmost respect to tell them that this is not the right place or time to do this. Some times I tell them they cannot just walk into an office, unannounced, and take up people's time. But I only do that if they keep coming back.

I rarely ever give money to people who ask for charity in my office. I do in other places, i.e. outside super markets, in synagogue, my home, etc but not in my office.

Also, I give a nice amount of my money to charity. At least 15% of my income goes to charity of some sort. It is called צדקה Tzedakah in Hebrew.

There just seems something wrong with someone walking in without calling, asking for money. But I always feel bad turning them away.