Sanguine Tenacious Tidings

Books, Bread, and Dragon Droppings

Wednesday, February 03, 2016

You finally landed your dream job, You drop everything you were doing and change career directions immediately, to become...trash collector. Tell us about your first day on the job.

Things You Can Find in Waste books, bread and Dragon Droppings

If you had told me this 25 years ago I might have done it. It is actually called Waste Management now.

The average yearly pay is about $43,000 a year. If you plug in overtime it can run as high as $60,000. In New York City it is listed as $80,000. That is because it is a 24 hour a day job there.

There are two types of Waste Management jobs that deal with the actual pick-up of waste. One is the driver. Your skills may include driving a truck or a fork lift. Each of these jobs require training and special driving licenses. The driver will most likely be maneuvering a very large truck around city streets. He will have to know how to back up to those big city dumpsters, hook up and lift them up to dump into the compacting back of the truck.

The other job is the helper. The helper is the one who picks up the waste in garbage cans or by hand and puts it in the compacting compartment of the truck. The helper rides around in all kinds of weather hanging on to the back of the truck or in the cab. They jump off grab the cans and dump them into the compactor then ride to the next stop. They are also some what responsible for those cans. Denting them or treating them to roughly can bring down management on your case so be careful how you treat them and where you leave them when they are empty.

There are probably lots of these jobs available if you look for them. They carrying a type of stigma all their own. For one thing the job is odoriferous. Odors can cling so you will need to be a very clean person off the job so the odors don’t follow you home. Cities do make rules and regulations that home owners need to follow concerning trash receptacles. To one extent the city may be on the side of the Waste Removal service.

Another plus when looking for one on these jobs is it does not require a special school yet. Most training is on-the-job type training. In an interview for the job you should find out what type of clothing; boots, steel toed shoes, gloves, rain gear, etc. might be required and who pays for it.

My first day on the job:

It was sunny. Lucky me. I wore full length coveralls with a long sleeve turtleneck shirt under it. I wore a net on my hair and wore a hard hat fastened securely under my chin. And, I invested in some steel toed shoes. I also had a really great pair of gloves. Since I don’t have a yen to drive a bulky truck around I ended up as the helper, riding in the cab from customer to customer because it is a rural route.

The Waste Management company gives a large bin to each customer. The bins are sized according to the amount the customer is paying. The bins are on wheels so they can easily be dragged to the back of the truck. Then, I open the lid and hook the handle onto a lift. There is a lever with gears on the back of the truck attached to a motor. When I hit a button the lift pulls the bin up the truck and dumps it into the compactor. Then I return the bin to the customers property with the lid closed. The driver goes to several different customers and I dump bins at each one until the compactor reaches a certain level. Then, the driver hits the button inside the truck which compacts the waste and actually crushes it forward deeper into the truck. This goes on all day until the truck is full. Then, we go to the land fill. All the mechanisms reverse and push the waste out into the landfill.

If a customer has paid to be on a list that can dump any amount of waste I may have to lift regular garbage cans up and dump them by hand. So, I keep up my weight lifting just in case.

The customers are divided into routes according to how many bins we may have to pick up. A certain amount of full bins fill the truck.

Some people put out recycles in different colored plastic bags. Recycles are picked up and thrown into a different kind of truck and the recycle route is done on a different day.

At home after work I take off my coveralls dump them in the laundry and jump in the shower. Just to prevent odors from my job from clinging. Some of my coworkers tell tales of finding treasures on the job. But, I,m just glad to have a job that I am relatively capable of doing.It pays the bills and feeds the family.