GARBAGE COLLECTING
"We're actually nice guys, as we take our frustrations out on garbage. It's kind of fun watching things get squished sometimes. Especially the occasional dead cat!! Just don't stick your head in hopper if cat is bloated as you may get splattered!!" [Rob Click, garbage truck driver]
Interview
(continued)
Q: If you could change one thing about your job, what would it be?
Paul Jones: I would eliminate last-minute changes that get called out over the radio.
There should be a deadline of say 3:00 p.m. the previous work day for any
changes to the route. That would allow sufficient time for those changes
to be incorporated into the route sheets before I pick them up in the
morning. When such changes are called out to me, it almost always
involves an extra 1/2 hour to an hour or more. And then I don't get home
until 4:30 or 5:00 or later. If I had any plans for the evening, they're
shot. If I scheduled an appointment with the doctor or dentist or
what-have-you, I can't make the appointment.
Larry Harvey: The thing that I would like to change would be the
elimination of unlimited residential service. The are beginning to phase this
out. They are switching to 1 cart plus 7 bag service instead. Most
people don't put out a whole lot, but I've picked up as much as 200 bags of
leaves from 1 stop.
Q: What change have you seen in your profession in the time you've been employed as a garbage collector?
Tauna Bohlmann: Recycling and recycling. It was enforced here not
too long ago. I think it is going to extend to rural single residents in
the future. We need to have the equipment to take recycling at customers
homes.
Q: The general populace doesn't always maintain the same degree of respect for your profession that they might towards more "white-collar" professions, although there are certainly exceptions. What do you think about that?
Why do you think this is so?
Paul Jones: It is certainly annoying. Any you're right, there are exceptions. There
are those customers who treat us as normal human beings. It pays off with
special treatment. They don't have to pay extra for putting out extra
garbage. If they forget to put out the trash, it is quite likely that
I'll ask dispatch to call them on the phone to remind them to put their
trash out. Then I'll swing by later and pick it up for them.
[As for why this is so] my best guess is that people do not even think about us. I know that
before I became one, I never gave the garbage man a second thought. The
cans go out in the morning and are brought back in the evening. Sometime
during the day they get emptied.
Tauna Bohlmann: Can't exactly count my experience with the general
populace as the same as yours. I mean, here you must be able to recite
every member of your family back 4 generations if an old lady asks who you are
at the post office. Most everyone raises pigs and cattle. If not
for sale then for their own consumption. I'm still trying to talk the general
populace into using my
services instead of burning their garbage in barrels and burying it in the
back forty acres. Here, [you're] respected if you stay out of trouble,
pay all your bills and take time to smile and say hi even if you are late for
the doctor. So I cannot answer that question.
Larry Harvey: To most people we are the invisible, but noisy gnomes that come around and make their trash disappear. To some we are near human, and to some we are the scourge of the Earth, and they hate us. The latter are the ones that I spit on their trash can handles whenever I have a cold.
Q: Modern
society has come up with various names for your profession - for instance,
other than garbage collectors, you have also been referred to as refuse
retrievers, sanitation workers, and material movers. Do you have a
preference as to what you'd prefer to be called? Do you think there is a
need for so many euphemisms? Why?
Larry Harvey: I prefer Garbage man, though many of the children call me Garbage guy, which is ok too. That's another good part of the job. The kids love me and love to watch me crush up things. I think society has made up little nice names to call us to make themselves feel more comfortable discussing what we do.
Paul Jones: I call myself a garbage man, trash man, or garbage truck driver. All the rest seem pretty silly. No [I do not think there is a need for so many euphemisms]. They tend to insult the intelligence.
Tauna Bohlmann: I
personally like sanitation engineer. Just sounds better. Like calling a
stripper an ecdysiast. I had never heard of material movers but it is a
good term if you don't want the other party to know what you do for a living.
I guess those terms are needed, depending on the amount
of embarrassment a person feels about their trade. I feel that as long as I am
a PROFESSIONAL,
it doesn't matter.
Carl T.: I prefer the term "Sanitation Relocation Specialist".
Q: If you could have any job in the world, would this be it?
If not, then what?
Paul Jones: I greatly enjoy baking bread. Lots of different kinds of bread. Almost
[every time] I bake bread and someone who hasn't eaten any of my bread
before tastes it, they say, "You should open a bakery." I want to open a
bakery.
Larry Harvey: No, this is not my ideal job, but because of my many
mistakes in life, this is where I ended up, and this seems to satisfy me for
now. I generally have come to hate mankind, and this job keeps me apart from
most of it.
Tauna Bohlmann: Myself, I'd go back to working for the sheriff but this
takes too much time.
Q: With all the technological advancements of the Information Age, do you think your job could ever be taken over by machines and/or computers?
Paul Jones: No. At least not until we get "Star Trek" type transporters.
Tauna Bohlmann: That is something I will never have to fear in my lifetime.
Larry Harvey: Not a chance.
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My profound thanks to the garbage men and women of the Garbage Truck Driver group for answering all my questions.
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