By Paul Hendrickson – <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every Tuesday night we roll our garbage cans to the curb, knowing the garbage man (or garbage collector as some liked to be called) will be there at first light on Wednesday to haul away our refuse from the past week. He is consistently punctual and leaves us a signed greeting card around the holidays. I know his name because of that simple act, but never really thought about him otherwise. That changed yesterday when I struck up a brief conversation with him a few subdivisions away while I was walking our dog. It was not a long conversation, but well worth the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man we\u2019ll call Chris was loading a large sofa into his garbage truck. I stopped and told him I wanted to watch the giant claw in action. The trucks his company use are side loaders. They have a mechanical arm that grabs the trash bin (or sofa in this case), and then hoists it into the top of the truck. Chris worked the arm with precision using the small joystick on the dashboard. I felt myself begin to geek out. I recalled the scene in Aliens<\/em> where Ripley, strapped inside a giant power loader, fights off the queen alien. Sofas likely weigh less than a queen alien, but curiosity got the better of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After bringing myself back to reality I asked, \u201cIs there\nanything that can\u2019t pick up?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Chris smiled. \u201cNot so\nfar.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt must save you a lot of time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh yeah. It saves us a lot of time \u2013 and backs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chris paused and stepped out of the truck to check something\non the side. \u201cThere is a downside though. That mechanical arm cost a lot of people\ntheir jobs.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n He stepped back inside the cab of the truck. \u201cThere used to\nbe two or three people working a truck, now only one. There are a lot more\nadvances than just the arm too. Everything is computerized and tracked closely.\nYou have to go through a load of training.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We went on another few minutes talking about his job and how\nthe garbage collection industry had changed over the last twenty years. I explained\nwhere we lived, and he recalled seeing my truck parked on the driveway. He thanked\nme for the card we gave him during the holidays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, I\u2019ve got to get back to it,\u201d he said as he climbed into\nthe truck. \u201cIt was good talking with you. Most people just walk on past.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI appreciate what you do. Plus I don\u2019t want to get on your\nbad side and end up with a month\u2019s worth of trash sitting in front of my house.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He laughed. \u201cGlad to do it. Take it easy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n With that he drove to the next house and the dog and I continued our walk. I started to think of all the other people I encounter during the course of a day. We get so busy with our own lives and careers we often forget about people like Chris. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Who do you overlook? Maybe it\u2019s someone in your office that you count on for a myriad of repetitive tasks, but no one engages or thanks. Maybe it\u2019s your garbage collector or mail carrier. Maybe it’s a neighbor. What can a few minutes of conversation hurt? You might even learn something. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now when I drive by his truck and exchange waves I will not see the garbage man, I\u2019ll see Chris. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Paul Hendrickson – Every Tuesday night we roll our garbage cans to the curb, knowing the garbage man (or garbage collector as some liked to be called) will be there at first light on Wednesday to haul away our refuse from the past week. He is consistently punctual and leaves us a signed greeting Read More …<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paBBVc-5r","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/paperbackdragon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Old-Sofa.jpg?fit=1920%2C1356","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions\/342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/paperbackdragon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}