The staff were pretty kind all around, facility was clean.
The dystopian aspect was how many people I saw denied, because they had donated yesterday. You can give twice a week, but have to wait a day in between. I saw at least four or five people get turned away, and they were all pretty upset. The line was extremely long - there are tons of people desperate enough to wait in line for hours to go through the painful process of having their blood sapped out.
I also got a preloaded card as my payment, which has a ton of fees associated with it - I’ll get charged if I use it at an atm or check the balance. I know these cash cards are often also used to pay people who work at like McDonald’s - it just seems like so much of the US is designed to nickel and dime the shit out of the poor.
It’s wild this is a paid thing in the US. As far as I know, in Canada, you can only donate for free. Blood, plasma, sperm, doesn’t matter. Can’t be paid for surrogacy either.
Honestly, in the US at least, I’m annoyed that you can’t be paid for regular whole blood donation. I could go donate blood for free, get in a car accident on the way home, need a transfusion, and be billed thousands of dollars for the privilege. That “putting a price on medicine is unethical” only applies to donors apparently.
As an American I respect why thats the case, but when I was dead broke fuck I needed that money.
Yeah, but the snacks are great. But I miss the pre-covid era of soup and Cookies by George.
They have Hard Bite near me which are arguably the best chips to come out of Canada since Lays Ketchup chips (by like a lot).