I admin the office for a landfill. I pay the place's bills, make sure people pay us, handle payroll and personnel files, take minutes at commission meetings, etc. I like getting to impact local government, recycling, and prisoner outreach, but this job comes with its own unique and unbelievable garbage, both figuratively and literally.
The public we receive at the landfill is by far the worst public I've ever had to deal with in any job in my entire work history. There are more people than teeth. Complete lack of education coupled with a sense of entitlement makes them belligerent when enforcing the most basic of rules. None of them know how to drive.
Businesses come in and pretend to be citizens to try to dispose of commercial trash on tax dollars instead of paying us like they should. People who live in counties with stricter regulations pour in and drive up the tax rate for people who actually live here. They will continue to lie to your face after you've exposed them and there's no recourse left but to turn them around.
I don't mind taking this kind of heat, because that's part of my job description and I have thick skin. But when they start talking to our guys digging in trash, driving trash trucks, inmates, and most especially our scale house attendant who has an intellectual disability the way they talk to me boy I get mad. It's not their job description to be treated like shit, direct it to me, I can handle it.
There is a city in our jurisdiction whose public works department knowingly, intentionally brings commercial trash in and then charges it on tax dollars with zero way to track how much is residential and how much is commercial, and it has forced us to just make them pay for half of all of it.
There is a company who has never once paid for a dime of their dumpsters, trash disposal, mulch deliveries, not anything, and the solid waste director gives them a pass because his son works for them. There are customers who I have to keep on a monthly route to knock on their door just to collect their payment. We got a call from a landfill in a neighboring county who warned us about a customer who has six checks bounce who was heading to us directly, because they knew we wouldn't do anything about it. Pretending to not hear me during collection calls is standard.
A former employee fooled us all into liking someone he was not, only to leave abruptly and file a fake sexual harrassment lawsuit against us, and the he said she said nature of it is such that, regardless of the reality of the situation, we're going to be forced to pay this crook $300k. He not only welcomed the kind of horseplay you would expect from grown men who work with trash, he dressed and acted in ways that retrospectively were designed to bait any and everyone into giving him grounds to sue. We are not his first victims and we won't be his last.
We run a yard sale where we salvage perfectly reusable items from being buried and then sell it back to the public, which not only helps us save landfill space, but it also generates us about an extra $80k a year in recycle revenue. Ever since our solid waste director had the idea, the state has fought it tooth and nail claiming we're illegally pilfering through trash when actually we're recycling.
I try to remember what a great fit for this role that I am, as I don't shy away from confrontation and few people are as passionate about trash disposal as myself. But the constant pouring on of horse shit everywhere you look makes me lose my mind.
It does, however, make it that much more rewarding when you're the asshole who ruins someone's day. Someone has trash flying out of their trailer and onto the road? I'm the guy who informs them they either have to pay us an unsecured load fee of $40.00 for the privilege to cross or they turn around without service. Someone puts their household trash in a business' dumpster? I dig out their mail to find their name and address, drive it to their front door step and put it there with a $500.00 fine and my business card. But you have to choose your battles, because if you try to fight them all, you will lose them all.
The public we receive at the landfill is by far the worst public I've ever had to deal with in any job in my entire work history. There are more people than teeth. Complete lack of education coupled with a sense of entitlement makes them belligerent when enforcing the most basic of rules. None of them know how to drive.
Businesses come in and pretend to be citizens to try to dispose of commercial trash on tax dollars instead of paying us like they should. People who live in counties with stricter regulations pour in and drive up the tax rate for people who actually live here. They will continue to lie to your face after you've exposed them and there's no recourse left but to turn them around.
I don't mind taking this kind of heat, because that's part of my job description and I have thick skin. But when they start talking to our guys digging in trash, driving trash trucks, inmates, and most especially our scale house attendant who has an intellectual disability the way they talk to me boy I get mad. It's not their job description to be treated like shit, direct it to me, I can handle it.
There is a city in our jurisdiction whose public works department knowingly, intentionally brings commercial trash in and then charges it on tax dollars with zero way to track how much is residential and how much is commercial, and it has forced us to just make them pay for half of all of it.
There is a company who has never once paid for a dime of their dumpsters, trash disposal, mulch deliveries, not anything, and the solid waste director gives them a pass because his son works for them. There are customers who I have to keep on a monthly route to knock on their door just to collect their payment. We got a call from a landfill in a neighboring county who warned us about a customer who has six checks bounce who was heading to us directly, because they knew we wouldn't do anything about it. Pretending to not hear me during collection calls is standard.
A former employee fooled us all into liking someone he was not, only to leave abruptly and file a fake sexual harrassment lawsuit against us, and the he said she said nature of it is such that, regardless of the reality of the situation, we're going to be forced to pay this crook $300k. He not only welcomed the kind of horseplay you would expect from grown men who work with trash, he dressed and acted in ways that retrospectively were designed to bait any and everyone into giving him grounds to sue. We are not his first victims and we won't be his last.
We run a yard sale where we salvage perfectly reusable items from being buried and then sell it back to the public, which not only helps us save landfill space, but it also generates us about an extra $80k a year in recycle revenue. Ever since our solid waste director had the idea, the state has fought it tooth and nail claiming we're illegally pilfering through trash when actually we're recycling.
I try to remember what a great fit for this role that I am, as I don't shy away from confrontation and few people are as passionate about trash disposal as myself. But the constant pouring on of horse shit everywhere you look makes me lose my mind.
It does, however, make it that much more rewarding when you're the asshole who ruins someone's day. Someone has trash flying out of their trailer and onto the road? I'm the guy who informs them they either have to pay us an unsecured load fee of $40.00 for the privilege to cross or they turn around without service. Someone puts their household trash in a business' dumpster? I dig out their mail to find their name and address, drive it to their front door step and put it there with a $500.00 fine and my business card. But you have to choose your battles, because if you try to fight them all, you will lose them all.
