So I (f20) work at a daycare for low-income parents. Today my friend (f19) was telling me that decided to donate her childhood stuffed animals that were in storage and she dropped them off at the daycare yesterday. She brought it up cause she was hoping to see me but I wasn’t working yesterday.
The daycare has stuff saying it takes donations but we get more in toys and stuffed animals than we need and they’re usually not in great shape. My supervisor says to just accept donations no matter what and we can decide to get rid of whatever we don’t want. I told my friend that unfortunately the most likely thing was that the stuffed animals went out with the cleanup trash at the end of the day.
She’s mad at me for saying that and says she feels bad now because she thought she was doing a good thing. But I don’t feel like it’s my fault for just being honest with her about how it works. So AITA here? I feel bad for her but I don’t know what would make sense to help her.
Honesty isn’t always the best policy. Just not saying anything was probably the right play.
Soft YTA – It would have been much better to just thank them for the donation and the never bring it up again.
But why did you have to tell her anything? “Hey OP, I donated a bunch of stuffed animals!” “That was nice of you. Where should we go for lunch?” You didn’t have to say “They’re in the city dump by now.“ She’s picturing “Toy Story 3” without the happy ending. YTA.
One of the rare occasions its okay to tell a little Lie – You should have Said “im sure the kids were so happy for the teddys”😊
As far as we can tell from the post she didn’t ask. So YTA for volunteering this information when you could have just said nothing.
Yea you’re kinda TA if I donated my old stuffed animals and someone told me they just ended up being trashed I’d cry and regret giving them away in the first place
YTA kind of….You should’ve just said that that was sweet/kind of her and left it at that. Definitely shouldn’t’ve told her they most likely went to the dump with the rest of the trash even if it were true because now she DOES feel bad about it while not accomplishing anything else.
Sorry YTA. Most of everything that gets donated anywhere is trashed. But people don’t talk about it because it’s emotionally difficult. And these were your friend’s childhood toys. You could have said nothing or “that’s nice” and moved on. 100% transparency is not always necessary.
YTA. She was clearly sharing with you something she felt good about. Then you shat all over it. The polite thing to do was to smile and nod and not tell her that it was prolly tossed like garbage.
YTA.
Stuffed animals are sentimental. You should have treaded carefully.
You could’ve said, “Great! I’m sure the kids will love them.”
I know there are people who will say your friend’s an adult and she should get over it, but that’s not how people react with things that are near and dear to their hearts.
Your director has this policy, I’m assuming, because taking people’s donations and then tossing whatever isn’t needed is easier than dealing with people are upset because you won’t take their old stuffed animals. You went one step further and not only implied that her donation was not appreciated, but that her stuffed animals that she loved and wanted to share with kids actually ended up in a dumpster. You were honest, but you hurt her feelings. You could’ve done better.
YTA what would it accomplish to tell her? Nothing. She’s already donated them.
So let me get this straight. Your friend tells you about her donation, and then without her specifically asking where the stuff ended up, you opted to tell her it was all throw out? Why say anything like that? Why mention it at all? You could have just thanked her for her donation and left it a that.
Did you want to make sure your friend didn’t feel too good about herself for donating? Did you want to knock her down a peg?
You sound like a shitty friend.
YTA. The reason the daycare accepts all the donations is so the givers feel good and continue to be the kind of people that donate things to good causes when they can. Follow their example, making people feel bad should not be part of the donation experience.
YTA, seems like you just wanted to punch back at her———
1) how did you know the condition of her toys? Doesn’t matter about the ‘odds’ lmfao. Did you SEE them? Did you see them get culled for the trash?
2) your boss literally has the kindness to shelter *random strangers* from this info, but you choose to tell one of your friends? I get it just talking abt your work or whatever, but she came up to you telling you she donated them——this isn’t the time to just ‘tell her how it really is,’ lol———I don’t think you even ‘know how it really is’ when it comes to HER box of donations??
3) did she piss you off somehow? Or is she spoiled or doesn’t have to work hard? Is she always virtue signalling? Feels like you have this urge to belittle her (telling her her good intentions don’t mean much and probably wound up trashed *even though you don’t know if that actually is the case* and give her some sort of ‘cold awakening’ or something. Seems like you licked your lips at the chance to ‘knock some sense into this friend’——honestly feels retaliatory