A day in the life of a bellringer

I am sure all of you have seen the bell-ringers that stand outside of the stores this time of the year. I have been one of those bell-ringers for the past 19 years (except for a few year I took off for school). In all the years that I have done this job, which I enjoy doing, there have been some observations I have made that I would like to talk about. We all know that listening to the bell can get on your nerves but you only hear it for a few minutes and we have to listen to it 5 to 10 hours a days. We get just as tired of hearing it as you but it is part of our job. While I can't speak for all bell-ringers I try to keep it toned down to the point that I get more complaints from people that tell me to ring louder. I have had many people go all the way to the other side of a store and many other things to avoid us. I am not really sure of some of the reasoning. If it because you can't or don't want to donate we don't expect everyone to put money in the kettle. In fact we know most of you won't and for various reasons, such as, you already sent a check, you are broke, you only use plastic, and several other reasons. One example of something unnecessary that I witnessed someone do to avoid me was they loaded up their arms with their groceries, which there was too many for one trip, and walk out on to an ice covered parking lot. Just to have an excuse to not have a free hand this person risked their own safety when they should have just wheeled the shopping cart at a safe speed. We love hearing people tell us there stories about their experience with the salvation army but if it is something negative please don't take it out on us.