Jack

San Francisco, California

There must be a word for those people that stand in brightly colored vests on busy sidewalks, trying to convince harried pedestrians to stop, listen, and pay up — something beyond obstacles or nuisances.* Like many others, I grimace when I see these folks, a mix of anger at the guilt tactics they’ll take to get me to talk to them and shame that I don’t want to give their organization time or money right this second. But when Jack approached me a few days ago, day-glow orange vest bleating Save the Children and crooked toothed grin preluding his outstretched hand and wiggling fingers, tempting me to give it a shake, I stopped. 

“I’ll listen,” I tell him. “But I want to be upfront that I’m not going to give anyone any money right now.” 

“We’ll see,” he says. 

He launches in, starting with asking me what my favorite subject in elementary school was. I pause and say “PE.” I’m not sure who is more surprised, him or me. 

“I liked recess too,” he hedges, and I can tell this is how he’s trying to develop rapport with me. 

“I didn’t like the freedom aspect,” I continue. “I liked that our PE teacher taught us sign language, and that there was a lot of structure in learning a physical task.” 

It’s a rocky start, but Jack is a pro. He tells me he’s been working for Save the Children since the middle of college - four years ago. “I’m almost 24.” He’s almost proud of that age, like it symbolizes something. “About your age. How old are you?”

I love that he just walked into this. “I’m 34,” I say, and his surprise is genuine, not faked. 

“Well, you look good. Great, you look great.” I roll my eyes, and remember how old I thought anyone over 29 was at his age. 

It’s all mostly irritating. I want him to make the pitch, to get it over with. I’m starting to regret the guilt I felt at seeing how hard he was trying to talk to people, wishing I was someone else who just passed him by. 

He segues into why I should sponsor a child for $35 a month. How much it means to them to get letters from me. How I can travel to see them if I want. How a dollar a day is simple to save, how he’s $35,000 in debt from getting a Psych degree but he’s been writing to a kid and donating for four years. 

“I don’t really know anything about Save the Children as an organization,” I say. “I’d need to do some research to decide if this was where I was going to spend my money.” 

“We can do that right now,” he says, pulling out his iPad and pulling up an article on Forbes. Every time I dodge putting my name in the box he’s pushing at me, he asks why. Every reason I give he has a well-timed, hot off the presses retort. 

It feels like he’s just marketing to me, telling me anything to make a sale. I tell him as much after I promise to think about the charity he gives me another pre-scripted response about how every X number of seconds a child dies. 

“Why do you care so much?” I ask. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just strange our levels of caring are so disproportionate. 

“Save the Children pioneered the Free Lunch program,” he tells me. “And growing up, I was a recipient of that. Because of them, I was able to eat at school.” 

My irritation for Jack melts away. I imagine him as a goofy kid, maybe a little shy, playing foursquare at recess and letting himself in at home while his parents worked until 6. Lunch might have been the only certain meal of the day. 

I wished he'd told me that story at the beginning of our talk. 

I didn’t give Jack, or Save the Children, any money. But I did think about something Glenn Washington says on Snap Judgement sometimes: You can’t hate someone once you know their story.  

Pretty sure I’m not going to hate any of those nuisances from here on out. 

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*I looked it up: Frontliners, canvassers, and royal pains in the neck all seem to be standard nomenclature.