Apr 07, 2008
By Duncan Stockwell Links
Safety training
Before I could become a fully ordained garbage man, I had to complete my safety training. I assumed that we would learn how to handle and properly dispose of dangerous types of waste, but I was shit wrong. We watched a ten minute video about ladder safety, despite the fact that we wouldn’t be using them at all on the job. Admittedly, the tape was very comprehensive. It even included a section about avoiding ladder-related bad luck. Following this, our instructor demonstrated the correct way to put on rubber gloves. “Slide your fingers into the corresponding finger openings?” “Really?”
Rejection?
When I applied to be a garbage man I assumed that I would be welcomed with open arms, seeing as though it’s not exactly a dream job. This wasn’t the case. Surprisingly, garbage collection involves more job rejection than couture modeling. I was informed during my interview that the city always hires more people than it actually needs, because, generally speaking, the people who apply to be garbage men aren’t very reliable. With our ladder training complete, we were expected to meet every morning at 6 a.m. in the spacious parking lot of a Wendy’s. The garbage trucks would rumble in around half past. The drivers would park, get out, and skeptically survey the ragtag collection of dreamers who had showed up that morning with hopes of slinging trash. There were teenage wiggers, tattooed biker nomads, drug addicts, new immigrants, a lesbian mom, and me. Every trash truck required two garbage men, and it was left up to the driver to pick his winning team. The drivers each had their favourite workers and were initially unwilling to take a chance on a short, bespectacled wild card. Despite the fact that convicts are made to pick up garbage as punishment, it wasn’t till my fourth day on the job that I was actually chosen to do it. It was like middle school all over again. Though it hurts to be chosen last for recess soccer, that’s nothing compared to being told that you aren’t even good enough to pick up somebody else’s trash.
Special garbage days
Unfortunately, my first day on the job was a “special” collection day. Basically, that means that people can put to the curb whatever the fuck they want. We fed thirteen couches to the truck that day. I counted. The compressor chomped them with ease, shooting splinters into the street, crushing forever the foam memory of every sleep-over guest and teenage fool-around. I wondered how many secrets were buried between those cushions. On normal days, it wasn’t unusual to encounter things that we just couldn’t collect, but on “special” garbage days, the uncollectable garbage achieved new heights of weirdness. Here are a few of the things that we tagged and left:
a) propane tanks
b) a deflated outground pool
c) bloody rags
d) a family of dead raccoons
Santa v. Garbage men
Having been a garbage man, I have little faith that we can right the ship when it comes to the global warming. If the north pole started to melt tomorrow, no sensible person would shed a tear for the potential destruction of Santa’s workshop, because sensible people simply don’t believe in him, right? Right. But while commonsensical adults don’t believe in the boogeyman or Father Christmas, they sure as fuck believe in the garbage man. In fact, garbage day is for adults what Christmas Day is for small children. A man in a suit shows up without being seen, but instead of pulling nice presents out of his magic sack, he whisks away bags upon bags of your rotting waste. In the myth of Christmas Day, you will receive presents if you are good. Similarly, if you separate your recyclables from your waste, than the jolly garbage men will make sure that global warming doesn’t happen.
I hate to break it to you, but, in my experience, most garbagemen could care less. You see, the thing about garbage collection is that there aren’t really set hours. Instead, you have routes that you have to collect, and your day isn’t over until your particular route is done. Our trucks were retrofitted to pick up both garbage and recycling, but as the workday neared dinner time, a lot of drivers and veteran garbage men would encourage you just to throw everything in the back of the truck. I was shocked when this happened for the first time, and it truly felt like discovering that there was no Santa. I always did my best to ignore their urgings, but it made for a very tense, uncomfortable working environment when you were thought to be holding things up. I was told by one driver that sometimes whole loads of recycling were dumped at the landfill, because the drivers were trying to finish early.
Garbage juice
There are few things in this world that I hate more now than garbage juice. I know some people think they are doing garbage men a favour by getting their bags to the end of the driveway the night before, but I can promise you that they are not. Raccoons rip at the bags, and then they leak garbage juice. Furthermore, when you compress the garbage in the back of the truck, the pressure sprays garbage juice like a disgusting elephant. Since the driver controls the compressor from the cab, it is up to the garbage men to get out of the way and sometimes I didn’t make it.
The “perks”
Riding on a truck stops being fun after about half an hour.