picky food pantry people

[KellyHabersham]

*this actually isn't a regular occurance, just pisses me off when it does happen*

I've probably mentioned this before, but one responsibility I have as the church secretary is to distribute things from our food pantry if we get such requests during office hours. This is stocked by donations from congregation members, and while occasionally I will put an insert in the bulletin with a list of requested items, what we have really depends on what people are willing/able to bring in.

Anyhow, where I get frustrated is that occasionally I'll get someone come to ask for help, saying that they don't have food at home, but they fuss/mildy complain about what I've got in the food pantry to give them. Like this one guy who'd come in awhile back and was complaining because I just had canned soup on hand, when he wanted canned pasta. And earlier this week, I had a guy who seemed miffed because we didn't have boxes/packages of cookies.......upon his asking when we were getting more in, I almost had to explain that the food pantry was NOT a store where I can order more supplies, and what we have is what people donate.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

General knowledge and worldly awareness... their doing it wrong...

In the end, there's always going to be people who aren't satisfied even with the perfect. You could have a hundred packages of cookies and they'd wonder why you didn't have more

I overhear many similar conversations at the local airsoft shops. They rotate inventory, it's a niche market and very little is in anything like regular demand (except for CA M4s, for no apparent reason...) They have what they have, if it's not what you want, there's the internet. But that's just not good enough, the store should obviously psychically stock exactly what each person wants when they want it.

I called ahead to ask if they had what I wanted, and was rewarded when they let me buy it and have it tweaked to be field-legal over the phone! Walk-in stores just aren't practical past a certain point (most usually servicing those who use an associated field) and it's not going to change. But I guess that's poor customer service to these types

[jackfaire]

Jesus those people should go to Cafe Diem and leave the charitably donated goods for those who obviously need it more.

[KellyHabersham]

Jesus those people should go to Cafe Diem and leave the charitably donated goods for those who obviously need it more.

That's about how I felt regarding the "canned pasta" guy, whereas I'm thinking the "cookie" guy wasn't trying to be sucky, he just wasn't aware of how/where we get food pantry items from.

Of course, it would help if I was "allowed" to let people into the main office area and let them choose what they wanted/could use for themselves, but that's a different rant altogether.

[MaggieTheCat]

I could see someone being picky about what they got if they were on a restricted diet. For example, if someone had a food allergy like peanuts, or if someone had diabetes, or celiac disease. But other than that...yeah...don't be picky for the sake of being picky if you really need to go to the food pantry.

[KellyHabersham]

Well, one thing I've started doing is when these people come in, I ask if there's anything in particular they need/are looking for.

[fireheart17]

Restricted diet I can understand, but I remember that a bit before I started working at old store, the company originally would give out leftover products to charities. However, those needing the charity turned out to be somewhat greedy, so therefore we had to stop.

Recently, we HAVE set up a newer program that allows us to donate stuff that's slightly damaged but still edible and that's done through a third-party company, rather than going straight to the charity in question. We donate any food from the free gifts as well that you get in magazines.

[KellyHabersham]

As far as I know, these people aren't being picky because of restricted diet issues, they're just fussing because we don't have whatever food they want at the moment.