Miss Manners: Respectfully returning a refund

DEAR MISS MANNERS: We received a refund on some meat we purchased from a local rancher. The meat wasn’t the quality we expected, but with sauces and cooking it longer, it was OK.

We received a refund and a nice note stating that the butcher they had hired aged the meat longer than intended.

We don’t want to take advantage of the situation these people are in. We want to return the check, but I am at a loss of what to say.

GENTLE READER: “While it is true that the meat was a bit older than we are used to, as loyal customers, your care for your customers never grows old. We are therefore returning your check, uncashed, with our thanks for your integrity and thoughtfulness.”

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I work for a very large company that gives us some paid time off for volunteer activities. I’m very grateful to be permitted to serve in such meaningful ways and actually get paid! Volunteer organizations in my community are well aware of our policies.

I have been asked to head a volunteer effort for a very worthy cause. However, they have directed me to recruit 40 volunteers for a full day. Forty seems incredibly excessive for what they say they need, yet they are adamant that I recruit 40.

I’m struggling, because around the same time, a local school needs a large number of volunteers for field day. It’s one of the poorest schools in town, and parents are unable to volunteer because of work, etc. In years past, we have filled the gap. If we all volunteer for the first event, then it’s likely the field day will need to be canceled or scaled back dramatically.

I have tried subtle hints, as saying that the first ask is simply too large. Do I just bluntly say, “So, do you understand we can’t handle your (very pushy) request and field day? Would you like to be the one to tell the kids?” The pushiness is fueled by passion for genuinely good works. I might not agree with their methods, but their hearts are in the right place.

GENTLE READER: In this case, etiquette is less concerned with their hearts than with their elbows.

Your company is right to set limits on its generosity – whether because it is also sending volunteers to another worthy cause, it is a holiday and employees need time off, or the company merely wants to get some work done.

What Miss Manners realizes you need is a way to avoid being caught between representing your company and the organization whose effort you are heading. For this, it is time to find a person of authority in your company whom you can quote as saying some variation on “enough.”

You can then tell the organization how hard you fought for them and how happy you are to volunteer yourself, but that the company is only allowing you to recruit another 19 volunteers. So long as you are confident that your corporate heavy will either remain firm – or at least unreachably offstage – this is a more effective approach than bargaining over whose cause is the more pathetic.