It has been a hectic few days at work and something has sparked me to blurt out about street fundraisers in London and how they work on my nerves. I have nothing against these charity street fundraisers you will find in and around central London but they’ve now driven me to a point where I want to avoid them with vengeance.

A lot of companies have these funny rules about five minute smoke breaks or forty five minute lunch breaks, that is why we treasure every minute we do not have to be working where we are free to stroll around, grab lunch or talk with colleagues, not to be plagued by a different street fundraiser. I currently work very close to Waterloo Station in Central London, which means if I ever should go for lunch I would run the risk of bumping into a street fundraiser as they pick areas where there would be a lot of people. Some of these street fundraisers are so pushy, yet they do not understand that you’re not in the position to help them with a regular donation via a direct debit or that you only have a set amount of time to do your personal things before you have to go back to the office.

A few weeks ago I was waiting for my bus close to the station and this guy with a clipboard approached me. I smiled at him and politely said that I am not interested. Not that I do not support the needy but I prefer to help animals as fewer people tend to help them. Anyway he got all annoyed with me and said it would only take a minute. I then looked at the form he wanted to complete and noticed that they wanted a lot of personal details that I was not willing to dish out left right and centre due to me being a previous victim of identity fraud. Said to him that I preferred not to complete the form because of this, got a smuck answer back from him saying that he could get those details from the electoral roll anyway and walked away. I was so disgusted with him; he put me off being nice to anyone else asking me for charity with a clipboard! *arghhh*