Girls Scouts of America Leadership: Major #FAIL
I was teaching in mid-town New York City this week at a major client’s location. In the hallway during break, I noticed there were large banquet tables setup, where cheerful little girls were busy hawking their Girl Scout Cookie wares.
There was one little 10 year old that was a pretty good sales person, too. After I selected a couple boxes, she grabbed a third box of a different kind and said, “These go REALLY well with hot tea!” How did she know me so well?
I went back to the classroom, opened the boxes and started passing cookies around. Nice to relax a bit and talk with everyone during break.
At the end of the day, I was doing a little work before leaving, and glanced at the side of the cookie boxes and was shocked to see Partially Hydrogenated Oil as part of the ingredient list. Wait a minute! Are you kidding me? The Girl Scout Council of the USA hasn’t figured out that half the country is obese, dieing of heart disease and one of the main culprits is Partially Hydrogenated Oil?
This is just plain lack of leadership on part of the GS Council. They are using young children to sell products that contain ingredients that are killing half of America. In New York City, it is against the law for restaurants to use Partially Hydrogenated Oil. It’s not like the GS Council doesn’t know that. It’s not as if there are not alternatives as ingredients for your cookies.
I threw the remaining boxes in the garbage can on the way out the door.
I am now boycotting Girl Scout Cookies until the leadership of that organization steps up and does the right thing. There is absolutely no reason for them to be implicitly teaching young women that it’s ok to sell this garbage.
Step up Girl Scouts of America Council and lead by example. As of now, you are rated a big #MAJOR #FAIL.
Ehh – what has this got to do with SharePoint ?
Agreed, this isn’t appropriate content for this site and belongs on a personal blog somewhere else.
But this IS a personal blog :-)
Life and family first… SharePoint second. — Mark
Sure, it doesn’t have anything to do with Sharepoint, but it has made my Friday! Why? Because now I have something more to defend myself against the press-gangs of parents hawking their kids’ wares outside the supermarket than just a mumbled “sorry I’ve got no cash”. Thanks Mark!
Everyone dies eventually, so enjoy the cookies while you can!
Quality over Quantity! Who wants 36,500 days without girl scout cookies?!?
For me, I’d rather have the cookies. It’s trans fat, for pete’s sake, not drain cleaner.
Et tu, Brutus?
I knew I’d take heat for this one, but it really is a pet peeve of mine after reading Ominivore’s Dilemma. I’m raising two children, ages 5 and 7, and I’m extremely concerned about how the mass production of food for efficiency sake is draining nutrition and health benefits from food. In addition, trans fats have a deadly affect because of the amount of food products that contain them. If Girl Scout Cookies were the ONLY product that had them, I might just walk away, but the teaching lesson here is that a major influencing factor in young women’s growth is saying that it’s ok to consume this stuff. It’s not ok… it kills you.
I think I should move this topic over to SharePointHardball.com :-)
Mark
He he – I didn’t think that transfats were that bad.
I know some health authorities have banned them as allegedly “a bad thing”, but given the debunking of the 5-a-day fruit thing this week, that could change ;)
The sharepoint articles are really cool btw
@Mark: I agree with Joc and Strausy.
For some bizarre reason I expect SharePoint-related content from a site called EndUserSharePoint.
While /you/ might see this as your personal blog the majority of the SharePoint community sees this as a SharePoint site. And if this is a personal blog – where are your posts about what a great easter you had or how refurbishing the garage cost you twice as much as you expected?
Get yourself a proper personal blog where you can rant about whatever you like. Using the popularity of this site in order to push your personal beliefs on as many as possible is just unprofessional.
Haha, ok, my friend.
I certainly admire your passion and hope you never change.
Mark — SharePoint sites need to be about SharePoint and not whether or not Girl Scout cookies has something you don’t like. What if I were to post a strongly worded reply that I am furious with such-and-such make-up company because their whole approach to accounting is part of the dark ages. And then they blame “computers” because they can’t change their charging methods. Which by the way is a very true story — but it does not belong under EndUserSharePoint.
This is a fast way to lose users. I’m sure you have a Facebook or Twitter where such comments could be made. Please don’t ruin what I have always championed as a GREAT resource site because it is technical.
> Using the popularity of this site in order to push your personal beliefs on as many as possible is just unprofessional.
It’s interesting that I had no negative feedback when I wrote “The Power of Believing“. In fact, Martin was one of the people who left a nice comment about parenting on that post.
There have been numerous times in the life of EndUserSharePoint.com where I have published something that was on my mind for the day, something that didn’t have to do with SharePoint. Is taking a poke at the Girl Scout Council what’s got everyone up in arms? I’m not sure.
> I certainly admire your passion and hope you never change.
And that’s the way I’d like to leave it. I have a long relationship with most of the people leaving comments on this post. Let’s keep things going.
Mark
I actually enjoy your “observations on life” post more than the regular sharepoint posts. They are a nice change of pace, and your observations on life are always appreciated by this subscriber… BTW, don’t throw any of the girl scout cookies away. Send ‘em to me! I’ll dispose of them properly!
Not sure what this has to do with Sharepoint, but allow me to add a bit of info to the post topic — several of the girl scout cookie varieties are now being made trans-fat free. This year, two new flavors were introduced and one was reformulated, all three are trans-fat free. In addition, the oldest recipe is also trans-fat free (”trefoils”, or the sugar-cookie style).
You can go here for more information:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/www.littlebrownie.com/downloads/CookieFlyer.pdf
and here
http://www.abcsmartcookies.com/cookies_nutrition.asp
(note, there are two different bakeries that supply the Scouts on a regional basis, so your box may vary depending on which supplier is providing your cookies.)
Hope that helps
Nicola (a GS Leader, but NOT an official “spokesperson” )
Nicola – Thanks for responding. It’s good to know that something is being done. Evidently there is an awareness somewhere in the chain. Regards — Mark
No offense guys but if you dont like the subject why not just avoid reading it. There is nothing forcing you to read (all of) it and hell it’s not even about SharePoint.
I don’t personally care much about trans fats. The ingredients are listed and anyone with a half a brain knows they aren’t healthy. I’m all about choice which is what you exercised by chucking them. Plus I highly doubt it would come as a surprise to anyone that chocolate cookies aren’t healthy – whether they have trans fats are not.
I suppose if the Girl Guides wanted to show real leadership they wouldn’t fund raise by selling cookies in the first place but I’m certainly not going to judge them as on balance they do a lot more good than bad.
But again, you boycotting them is your choice. Just like boycotting this great site because you don’t like the odd personal post is everyone’s choice. I know I certainly will be coming back daily as I have been doing for a long time now.
Mark,
While I agree with SOME of what you said, I think you have a couple of lessons learned here.
Lesson Learned #1 – Realize that your purchase of the Girl Scout cookies was a contribution to the Girl Scout organization, which is a well respected group for young girls to build solid character traits and life skills (disclaimer: I have a daughter currently in Girl Scouts). Girl Scout cookies taste great and we can’t wait for cookie season to begin, it’s their biggest fund raising effort of the year.
Lesson Learned #2 – Read the nutrition labels before purchasing! While I defer to my first point about contributing to the organization, just with any other food product (if you’re concerned about nutritional content), read the labels and decide.
Lesson Learned #3 – Purchase the cookies then donate to a homeless or other type of shelter. While some of us are concerned about having too much to eat, donating these to a shelter would be welcomed.
Lesson Learned #4 – Take personal responsibility. People are too quick to blame someone else for their own actions. You had opportunity to review the product before purchasing but failed to do so. Why should the organization be at fault for a failure to fully evaluate before purchasing. Only after did you read the label did you decide that it was their fault and not yours. Just like with anything else in life, take ownership of the things you fail to do and alter your steps in the future.
Lesson Learned #5 – Great way to initiate feedback and comments to your site! :)
As always, love the site and the content you provide, especially when they’re related to SharePoint. While we may not all agree with some of the comments or posts, we can all take personal responsibility and actions to respond or ignore.