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Dear Sodexo, Thank you for Wasting my Money

By: Michael Caffrey

Sodexo, the company responsible for feeding the bulk of the student population recently conducted a survey by e-mail and claimed that the survey taker would be rewarded at the end of the survey. (What follows is the actual e-mail recieved)

Dear student, faculty and staff,

Today we are requesting your participation in an important online
survey about your recent dining experiences on campus. You will
be rewarded at the end of the survey in return for your participation.

We are collecting this information on behalf of Sodexo. At no
point will pass your information on to any marketing
company. No personally identifiable information will be collected in the survey; we will only use
your responses in conjunction with those of other survey respondents.

This survey should only take approximately 7 minutes to complete.

I have no issue with Sodexo doing a survey; gathering information is a vital part of 21st century business. What I do have an issue with is the reward at the end of the survey. (Screen shot of actual survey end)

Spending My Money

Sodexo Decides to Spend My Tuition Dollars

For your participation, Lehigh University will donate $1 to The WORLD FOOD PROGRAM – earmarked to providing needed food supplies to the people that have just survived the tragic earthquake in Haiti on your behalf.

Why is LEHIGH UNIVERSITY donating money on my behalf? I pay them for an education, not to provide philanthropy. Furthermore, the choice of charity offends me. As I have previously discussed, I disagree with the disproportionate aid for Haiti.

Looking into the charity benefiting from my “donation,” the Better Business Bureau reveals they are an outreach of the United Nations. Why is my money going to such a cause, besides to give Sodexo a very nice tax write-off?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 9:04 pm and is filed under Briefs, Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • William Thode

    You have a point. Do you agree with Milton Friedman’s view of social responsibility?

  • MMA

    Wow, do you have any idea how greedy this sounds? It is literally $1 that they are taking. You can’t buy anything in the cafeteria for $1, but if they take that amount from everyone, a lot of good can be done.
    Perhaps if people like you weren’t so tight wadded and hard hearted towards their fellow human beings, Sodexho wouldn’t have to take the dollar because you’d have given it of your own free will.
    I don’t agree with school sanctioned morality, but I’d rather see school sanctioned morality than none at all.

  • Michael Caffrey

    MMA,

    This is not about greed, or me wanting the $1 back. Instead, I disagree with the manner in which the money was taken from me. If Sodexo said in the opening e-mail that $1 will be donated to the World Food Program, I would make a conscious decision to take or not take their survey.

    Furthermore, I do indeed donate my time and money to local charities. However, I choose which charities I wish to support and which I don’t. If Sodexo had given an option of which charity to donate to, I would be fine with it.

  • Damien Duff

    Monsieur Caffrey-

    Since you are so adamant about your selection of charities, I for one am quite curious as to your actual charities to which you contribute? Since you imply in your article that you do not agree (essentially do not believe that giving to Haiti in her time of need is a charitable cause) with the choice of giving aid to Haiti. I’m sure there are many of us that are eager to know your lists of worthy and unworthy (in this case you have already given us one) charities. Methinks that personally, the loss of over 200,000 human lives in a single event is worthy of at least a few quid.

    You are, of course, entitled to whatever donations you may wish to give to whomever you wish them upon. I consider your philanthropic efforts quite noble that you should donate time and money during your academic career. I hope that you centre your donations upon what you find important in this life. As those in the east believe, remember, that Karma is a spiteful dame.

    Looking forward to reading your response over tea, my good sir.

    Charitably Yours,

    Damien Duff, Esq.

  • Michael Caffrey

    Mr. Duff,

    I prefer to donate to local groups where possible, to create an impact in my local community. Organizations like soup kitchens, which have an immediate, tangible impact close to home are those I choose to aid. Additionaly, I took part in a fundraiser for Angel34, a childhood cancer charity in the Lehigh Valley.

    The overarching point I am trying to make is that charities I support are not the same that you support; everybody is entitled to support the charities they choose to support. I would rather have been given the option of a variety of different charities to donate to, rather than just the one.

    I am not against donating to Haiti, and I would encourage my fellow citizens to donate to worthy causes. I would just prefer to donate to causes closer to home.

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