I’ll Take Goodwill over Salvation (Army)
It feels like I’ve been moving for years. Moving from one floor to another. One house to another. One state to another. I just moved again.
Through all of these moves, Goodwill has been my re-purpose facility of choice. If a particular item was a duplicate, or had the stigma (smell) of a former wife, or for some other reason did not make the cut of items packed-I found the nearest Goodwill to shelter it.
I believe the TV ads that say donating to Goodwill provides good things for people. I hope that a lot of my trash has been another man’s (or woman’s) treasure. To complete the cycle, when I’m not donating stuff to Goodwill, I’m scouring every one that I pass looking for antiques and bargains. It’s the ‘circle of junk’, similar to the circle of life except inanimate things don’t die, rot and provide nourishment for other inanimate things. It just seems as if they do when you go to Goodwill all the time.
Other than someone working for Goodwill, there may not be a person alive that has been in more of them than me. Let’s further qualify ‘being in’ them as dropping off or picking up stuff there. The 2nd Ex has probably been in as many as me, but in terms of sheer mass, has not moved the pounds that I have in and out of them. Dammit, there’s another useless distinction to add to my list.
Yea Goodwill. I know what to expect when I go there.
Okay, so I went to a Salvation Army store to drop off some stuff a few weeks ago and their business model is completely different. Instead of friendly people helping you to unload your crap and giving you a receipt, there is a gestapo-like sergeant (armed with Wyatt Earp’s 12″ barrel colt revolver I think) standing at the door. Once you proudly motion towards, scan and verbally list your valued possessions that need new homes, he yells out, “We’ll take the silver bars and the perfect furniture, get the rest of this useless crap off of my lot. You have 8 seconds. One…” 
If you’re like me, you will still be in a mouth open, glazed eye state of shock when you think that you hear the unmistakeable snap of the leather strap holding the hog-leg in it’s holster being loosed and the reverberating staccato of the hammer being pulled back. I would not be far afield to say that my son-in-law soiled himself during this interaction, to which he was only peripherally involved.
Friends, frogs and knuckleheads, I won’t go back to a Salvation Army…ever…for any reason.
The person that your customers interact with is the face of your business.