"Keep it up and you'll never be more than a garbage man!"

[OICUR12]

Ever hear those words growing up?

We'll I gotta tell ya bein a garbage man in my neighborhood nowadays ain't half bad. The guy wears decent clothes under his yellow flourescent vest. He rides in the heat and AC of his little cab that has fully automated controls for everything.

It is "my job" to make sure the two 95 gallon "trash recepticles" on wheels are perfectly alligned so his automated arm can reach down and grab my refuse with the greatest of ease.

If I dare inconvienience this "One Man Band" in any way I shall be taxed for my insolence.

Too much trash......TAX!

Stones on top to keep racoons out..........."What are you kiddin? Get out of my truck to keep from dumping your stones? What is this room service?"



I used to drive truck. I always liked being on the open road and bein left alone.

Bein a trash man when i was a kid was working with 2-3 other sociatal lowlifes probably with maybe a combined set of 32 teeth among the whole bunch.

They were nice, hard working fellas. They took away stuff that would make a billy goat puke.

They never shamed you for what you threw away.

They may have been "lower class" but they always had a job doing something.

Today those type guys are on "government assistance" and we hire one professional and pay him only enough to give him a bad attitude towards the customers that he services.

If I was willing to sacrifice about another 25 grand or so a year i could do that job.

Ride around in my garbage truck, doing my best not to get dirty. Tax the crap out of anybody that ticks me off today.

What the hell, right? My company has a monopoly in this area! What are they gonna do? Get trash pick up from the city?



Back in "my day" we burned anything that would burn and threw the rest like old cans and bottles in an old washout. Years later we covered that up and came into the modern age by still burning anything that would burn and throwing everything else in the trash for pick up.

Back then there was no "limit" to what you could throw away. And even if it was oversized, as long as you were out there to help load it they would take it away if it fit on the truck.

Not today buddy.

I live in a subdivision with the least valued home at about a quarter million and I think that is mine. I have the only county address. Everyone else is subdivided.


I thought driving cement truck would be a good gig after a summer of pouring foundations and flat work. But they get laid off in the winter and the trash man works year round with the exception of paid holidays off.

I think i am in the wrong line of work. I mean i have plenty of transferable skills. I have cleaned toilets and taken out trash for years. Even as an officer. I can carry bags of trash hundreds of yards! I can carry it over gangways, on skiffs, fuel flats, helicopters, crew boats, .... the list goes on.

That should not be necessary from what i have seen though.

I think i may have found my calling in life today. I mean it pays more than my 100 ton right now.

I can't find any work on my 1600 ton unless i want to go to Nigeria for $160/day and get hijacked or maybe to the middle east to get my head lopped off.

Gasoline went up to $4/ gallon in the city yesterday. Some say $5/ gallon soon.

Maybe if O'bama jumped the oil regulator side of the isle and opened drilling on the East, Gulf, West, and Alaskan coasts all at the same time we would have some decent job offers out there.

American work to be done by American workers. Jones act sailors only. Union, non union. Whatever.



I was watchin the new this mornin and they showed a clip of China with it's big buildings they built with revenue from selling us "iphones" that we just "gotta" have.

What if we would have built those electronics here in the states?

More expensive? Yes. Can they be better built? Yes. QA? Yes.

You gotta pay to play.

Would you rather drive a Korean car or a German built car?

You get what you pay for in life.

I think I will go back to long haul trucking if this next "captains" job becomes too much bullshit and politics.

I am only late 30's but i already don't have the patience to be fighting for a job. If I gotta be an idiot to keep my job I'd rather drive truck.

Garbage truck would still be a last resort for me though. Still a little stinky at times.

But I would dig ditches if i had to for to put food on the table for my family. And i have.

"Do your homework or you'll be nothing more than a 'ditch digger' when you grow up"

[seadawg]

"Do your homework or you'll be nothing more than a 'ditch digger' when you grow up"

IMHO..with the new "ditch digger" technology of today you need a engineering degree to operate the machinery!!