topaz119 | (no subject)

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oh, ffs, the guy I sit next to at the new job is horrified that I handed out candy last night to kids who didn't live in my neighborhood. "But candy is so expensive," he's telling me. "They're taking advantage of you."

SERIOUSLY?

2 $14 bags from Costco? (which, for non-USians is about 11 lb/5kg/~500 pieces)

I mean, I know there are a lot of people for whom that *is* an issue, but it's not me, and it sure as hell isn't him.

ugh, people just suck, you know?

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...because the right, just, and honorable thing is to ensure that poor kids never get a treat even on Halloween?

ptui

Yes, I should have made them feel bad so they won't come back next year. ugh.

wut.

It was a delightful start to the day. /s

Does that guy not know how trick or treating works?

He thinks their parents are cheating because they're not handing out candy in return (which, how do we know that ?) I truly horrified him by telling him about my friend's neighborhood, where if she doesn't get a thousand kids, it's been a slow year.

Jesus fuck.

I live not that far from a big housing project up the hill, low income people, mostly people of color. It's…at the edge of one of the dodgiest areas in the city, and there is a lot of trouble over there, sadly. Many parents bring their kids down here to around our neighborhood to trick or treat, and I think that makes total sense and I don't fucking begrduge them candy from a place that's safer for them to walk and knock on doors. I've had kids bang on the door ceaselessly, try to push in or see if they can open the door themselves, but it's always, always the white kids who live here--well, boys, I recognize them--who do things like grab into the bowl to take more, or the one older kid who stepped into my house and made a grab for the bowl so he could take extra helpings.

I guess we can tell who your co-worker is probably voting for.

Yep, we're the first really big neighborhood near a bunch of immigrant churches, so we get kids from their congregations, because the custom is hit-or-miss in their own neighborhoods.

It was a dispiriting start to the day.

...? what does he do, ask for proof of address and slam the door in the face of any non-local kid?

wtf? It's HALLOWEEN

That was my first reaction. How the hell would he know? And where does "the neighbourhood" end?

Oh, I know. It ends at the wall...

Yeah, he never quite said that white kids were okay but I should watch out for the rest of them, but it was close. I suppose not actually saying that is something to be grateful for given the current political situation but still.

I did chill him to the bone by describing my friend's neighborhood where she gets upwards of a thousand kids (and loves it!)

He didn't quite come out and say that I should have turned away kids when I could see their parents in a car following along behind, but he did say I should make them feel ashamed of trick-or-treating in someone else's neighborhood or "they'll just come back next year with friends."

ugh.

... I hope they do come back?

part of the fun of halloween is handing out candy?

I hope they come back, too--they're part of my community & a handful of candy is hardly an undue burden on my budget. Plus, like you said--fun!

"They're taking advantage of you."

??? It's trick-or-treating, which is basically a free-for-all (so long as the kids made the effort to put on some sort of costume), not a social contract. O.o

The whole deal is that kids come to the door and you give them free candy

How can there be cheating??

As near as I could tell, it's because their parents aren't giving out candy, too; they're just exploiting my liberal guilt to scam candy from me.

I left at that point, but I doubt it got any better after I was gone.

how do we know that their parents aren't handing out candy??

This guy is making an awful lot of assumptions to half-assedly justify his scrooginess.

I know! By his reckoning, I am also scamming the system as I am sending out 3 kids rather than whatever the average number of kids might be.

He knows he's being a jerk; he's just desperate to justify it.

I gritted my teeth and tried to engage on some sort of a civil level (i.e., I didn't call him a racist asshat but I didn't go to any effort to hide how not in the spirit I found him) -- as nearly as I can tell, he views it as a quid pro quo sort of thing, where I give your kid candy & you do the same to mine & it all comes out roughly even. So the parents/church groups (YES, HE HAD AN ISSUE WITH CHURCH YOUTH GROUPS) who are coming into my neighborhood are cheating because they're not paying out with an equivalent amount of sugar.

I kind of made up a meeting and left at that point.

Huh. It never would've occurred to me to think of it that way. Because, who does a balance sheet on Halloween candy, first of all, but also because it seems like around here the people who decorate their houses and make sure they attract trick-or-treaters are NOT the families with t-o-t-age kids themselves, but, like, retired couples, or empty-nesters, etc. I guess one could argue that, sort of like reverse social security, where they collected 'their' candy earlier and are now paying it back, but, like. It's probably not terribly likely that they're living in the same neighborhoods, and...

BUT GIVING OUT CANDY IS FUN

HE IS MISSING THIS CRUCIAL POINT

"and it sure as hell isn't him." I really don't get why people who usually have a lot of money are the cheapest of all. I'll be forever amused that Aldi, one of the cheapest supermarkets here, always has the biggest parking spaces, seriously, those are HUGE. It's because the people with the biggest cars shop there... I mean, hey, everyone can do what they want, but this weird judging of other people for spending money, I don't know.

So cheap & miserly on a spiritual level, too. Begrudging kids candy on a holiday that's wide open like this one is as bad as the Grinch, to borrow from the next massive holiday.

Say what? So are you supposed to ask for the kids ID's and make sure they live in your neighborhood before you give them candy? That guy is weird ...

I should have made them feel bad for coming into my neighborhood so that they wouldn't come back next year, especially if I could see an adult in a car following along behind them.

I've only worked with him since August but it's not making me want to stay long-term.

I don't understand people like that. For one, nobody is forcing you to purchase candy. You are free to not hand out candy at all, or to close your door and turn off your light when you have given away the candy you can afford. More importantly, if kids are coming to your neighborhood to trick-or-treat, it's probably because their neighborhood isn't a safe place to knock on stranger's doors. It's lovely that they can go somewhere else to participate, and it's lovely that they are choosing to have fun without getting in trouble.

Yes, that's it exactly-- an extra $15 out of my budget is not a lot to make kids happy & safe & have fun myself. But if it was, it is totally simple to turn off the light & not participate.

I invented a meeting to leave & then kept my earbuds in the rest of the day.

I gave out full size candy bars to almost 75 kids last night. Didn't know a single one of them. Next year, I'm doing the same thing, maybe from his front yard!

Yeesh!

Edited 2016-11-01 23:01 (UTC)

I told him about a friend who gets upwards of 1000 kids (her whole neighborhood gets into it & invites churches & youth groups to come) and he was even more horrified.

What a bizarre attitude, it's for little kids, who cares what area they come from!

It's such a nasty attitude, that I should only want to celebrate a fun little holiday with people who live in exactly the same circumstances as I do, and even worse, that I should make children feel bad about coming to my door. Some people have such a chip on their shoulder!

People can be so... selfish. If you can do it, do it! It sounds like you were generous, even if kids are greedy little things. Maybe he just didn't get enough candy. :)

Yes, maybe someone made him feel bad as a kid & he just internalized it... Or maybe he's just lacks social skills. If only he were the only one who thought that way.😟

You know, I don't think I ever once trick or treated in my own neighborhood? Someone's parents *always* ended up dropping us off in "the rich part of town". And it never even occurred to us that we didn't belong there!

But see, for every petty d-bag out there, there's someone cool and reasonable like you to balance things out! I have to believe that! I HAVE TO!

Yeah, my kids have trick-or-treated all over the city, depending on who they were hanging out with or who was having a party... There's no telling where they'd end up from year to year.

The real cool person is my best friend, who gets close to a thousand kids every year & just goes out & gets more candy the next year so they don't run out!

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