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at Thu, 28 Oct 2004 03:19:32 GMT in >,
(Dave Smith) wrote :

>Franfogel wrote:
>
>> I just spent some time with my daughter and grandchildren and found
>> out, to my surprise, that when their elementary school has a bake sale
>> no one can bring homemade baked items. They must all be bought at the
>> store. She was told that this was to prevent anyone getting sick (and
>> presumably to prevent the school from being sued).

What I wonder about is, why do so many companies and institutions fall into
going to obsessive lengths in order to avoid being sued? It's obvious that
some of the measures they recommend are clearly absurd, like the above
situation, but to me it seems that the deeper absurdity is people worried
about being sued at all. Yes, we have a litigous society, and yes, if some
accident, no matter how trivial, occurs, somebody will sue, but if they do,
so what? You're being sued. Big Deal! I'd think that the organisations
involved would be big boys enough to be able to absorb a lawsuit. The
world's not going to end, even if you lose. Anyway, it's not guaranteed
that you'll lose. And if either the bosses/shareholders of a company or the
public in the case of an institution are going to demand that heads must
roll over one lawsuit, it is *they* that need their heads *examined*. What
we see in this "bake" sale situation is a classic example of how paranoia
leads to irrational behaviour.

>... I used to bake
>stuff for the bake sale at my son's school. Then I found out that the
>were selling the stuff for less than it cost me to make them. Nuts to
>that. All I was doing was providing someone with cheap baked goods and
>the school was getting the money.

Isn't that the idea? You give freely of your time and resources so that
someone else may benefit. A bake sale isn't being run for your profit. What
the school does is price things according to a reasonable margin they might
wish to make, so that every dollar somebody spends on the baked goods goes
into their coffers. You provide the baked goods for free, which means they
don't have to pay the overhead involved with materials, labour, and
facilities, that would otherwise cut into the amount of direct money they
made off the bake sale. And they stand to make more than they would if they
priced it at some margin above the cost to produce the items, because more
people will be attracted by the opportunity to buy quality baked items at
cheap prices. Thus the school achieves its goal and raises maximum funds.

I don't know about you, but I *like* the fact that my baked fare is being
sold for less than it cost to make them. It warms my heart to know somebody
out there is going to be able to get and enjoy high-quality baking for less
money than they could do it themselves for, much less buy it at some
bakery. In some cases, I'm sure, this means the difference between somebody
being able to enjoy an item and not being able to afford it at all. How can
I complain?

--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)

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