Another Reason I Like Unions

[waterdog101]

I've noticed around here, that the garbage truck that comes and picks up the garbage, only has one man in it. and he has to stop the truck, run to the back and push the garbage container to the truck, lift the container and empty it, then push the container back in the yard, climb back in truck and drive the truck to the next house and do the same thing all over again, all day long. it's a two man job and the garbage company must be kinda greedy, to have one man doing a job like this. this isn't right, this is another reason I like UNIONS, the union would have ANOTHER MAN HELPING THE DRIVER. it would make the job much safer. and more efficient. does this happen in any of your neighborhoods.

A UNION is for better working conditions, for the worker's. making the job safer and more efficient.
company's are after the bottom line DOLLAR, and couldn't care less about the worker's.
if KY ever becomes a right to work state, you will see more and more of this kind of abuse.

[jcb]

Are you sure a garbage workers union would be able to say they had to use two people?

[waterdog101]

Are you sure a garbage workers union would be able to say they had to use two people?

no, jcb I'm not sure they would have to use two people, but on the Union jobs I've worked on. if the job needs two people, the job gets two people. and anyone can see that this garbage truck driver needs a guy to help him.

[DJD]

I'm sorry WD but I see it as a one man job that had two men doing it because they were lazy. With hydraulics and innovations the second person is not needed most of the time. I cannot vouch for 100% of the waste management folks but to me it's a one man deal. Two men doubles the cost of everything and I'm willing to bet you don't get twice the production. Face it man your looking at things like it was 10-20 years ago. Things have changed, the economy crashed, companies went bankrupt, companies are scared to hire as readily as before and this world evolved with tools and automation.
My UPS driver hustles and delivers at what 180-200 stops a day?? Guessing that... but he gets it done. He's union as well. I see HUGE difference in his delivery gumption as opposed to the gubment worker or even the FedEx guy.

[GeoFisher]

I've noticed around here, that the garbage truck that comes and picks up the garbage, only has one man in it. and he has to stop the truck, run to the back and push the garbage container to the truck, lift the container and empty it, then push the container back in the yard, climb back in truck and drive the truck to the next house and do the same thing all over again, all day long. it's a two man job and the garbage company must be kinda greedy, to have one man doing a job like this. this isn't right, this is another reason I like UNIONS, the union would have ANOTHER MAN HELPING THE DRIVER. it would make the job much safer. and more efficient. does this happen in any of your neighborhoods.

A UNION is for better working conditions, for the worker's. making the job safer and more efficient.
company's are after the bottom line DOLLAR, and couldn't care less about the worker's.
if KY ever becomes a right to work state, you will see more and more of this kind of abuse.

So the union company XYZ that picks up your garbage, employes 500 people and has really pretty trucks starts to charge you 30% more to pick up your garbage.

NON Union company ABC comes into town, they have not so great trucks, 500 employees, but run double the routes and pick the garbage up more efficiently........computerized routes, no right turns, whatever..........they can to is for 10% less than your existing company.........

WHO are you going to pick. and don't lie..........

Now XYZ is out of business because they lost out most of their business to ABC.....and those 500 employees are now in the unemployment line......

YEP.....that is how it works my friend.

Later,

Geo

[know1]

Unions are a detriment to workers and our economy. They have no place here anymore. The only thing I think they are effective at doing is making a company uncompetitive and possibly shipping the jobs elsewhere.

[Devils Horse]

I've noticed around here, that the garbage truck that comes and picks up the garbage, only has one man in it. and he has to stop the truck, run to the back and push the garbage container to the truck, lift the container and empty it, then push the container back in the yard, climb back in truck and drive the truck to the next house and do the same thing all over again, all day long. it's a two man job and the garbage company must be kinda greedy, to have one man doing a job like this. this isn't right, this is another reason I like UNIONS, the union would have ANOTHER MAN HELPING THE DRIVER. it would make the job much safer. and more efficient. does this happen in any of your neighborhoods.

A UNION is for better working conditions, for the worker's. making the job safer and more efficient.
company's are after the bottom line DOLLAR, and couldn't care less about the worker's.
if KY ever becomes a right to work state, you will see more and more of this kind of abuse.

My garbage guy is alone too.

He pulls up in his truck, operates some controls and these hydraulically controlled arms swing down, grab my trashcan, and dump it into the truck. Then as if in a gesture of disgust, the machine violently hurls the empty can back down somewhere in vicinity my driveway. It bounces and lands on it side, often partially in the street. I've never seen him get get out and put it upright and back where it came from.

He never waves back to me either. One of these days I'm going to run out there and shake my fist at him while hollering "you think you're better than me don't you!". But probably not.

Does he need a union so he just drives and the other union guy operates the lift arms in a kinder gentler fashion? Maybe the union guys will be happier and they'll wave hi back to me.

[SLP]

When I was young I worked at a gas station for a period of time. It was the early morning shift on a busy road where people filled up for their daily commutes, so we were always very busy. It was myself and another fellow that maned the shits, and this was before the current programmable pumps, so we had to stop each pump by hand at the desired dollar amount so it could sometime get hectic running back and forth between cars, keeping them all getting serviced promptly and out quickly.

One day the other fellow gave his notice that he would be leaving. I told the boss that if he gave me half of the other fellows salary that I could handle the shift myself. I told him give me at least one week to prove that sales wouldn't drop before he hired anyone else. This would be a win-win for both of us, I would be making 50% more, and he would be saving 50% on a second salary. I worked my tale off and sales actually went up instead of down, so we kept it like that permanently.

My point is that I am sure that some customers watched me running around like mad keeping pace with all the cars, and concluded the owner must have been taking advantage of me. Of course by judging a situation that they really didn't know anything about they would have been very wrong. So unless you really know all the circumstances surrounding the company, its finances, and its employees I wouldn't jump to any conclusions. Unfortunately we too often form opinions through the prisms of our preconceived views about something instead of actually learning what all the facts are.

[MrSplitshot]

My garbage collection is the biggest joke I've ever seen.

Sometime early in the morning a pickup truck from waste management just drives through the neighborhood. I'm not real sure why. Maybe he's surveying the workload for the day?

Then, a truck comes through with a single driver and picks up the Herbie (garbage can) with the hydraulic arm. It ends up sideways on the ground blocking my driveway most of the time. Then, later, a truck comes through for the Rosie (recycle bin). Then, later, another garbage truck comes through with a couple of guys on it to pick up all of the crap that wouldn't fit in the Herbie (garbage can) and is sitting on the curb. Then, later, a truck comes through for the Yard Waste dumpster full of grass, leaves, or whatever crap I've removed from the yard.

We just moved into a new house and I didn't want the recycle container. (Sue me, I just don't have room for it.) I called Waste Management and asked them to come get it. They sent a guy in a pickup truck with a trailer full of containers behind it on a trailer. I happened to be in the driveway when he pulled up. I noticed him go to the container, open it, then close it and walk away. I hollered "Hey, wait a minute, I wanted you guys to take that." He said he can't take it, because it's not empty. Puzzled, I walked over to it and opened the lid. There was 1 (one) empty plastic milk jug in the bottom. I was shocked. I reached down in there, grabbed the jug, and turned around to tell him that it was now empty...he had already got in the pickup and was pulling off. I called Waste Mangement again and the same dude came back to the house the next day and got it. Waste Mangement spent fuel and salary for this dude to drive to my house twice, not once, because of 1 (one) empty plastic milk jug.

Yeah, he cares a lot about his job.

I'm not real smart, but I know as a business person that you look at the job that needs to be done and you try to find the most cost-effective way to get it done right. I'm not saying half-ass it, but get the job done with the least amount of expense. That saved expense translates to bottom line profits, or more capital that you can use to invest in your business, pass discounts to the customer to meet competition, give your employees raises when they deserve them so that they feel valued and want to do a good job for your company, etc, etc, etc. The cluster-screw above sure doesn't seem like that most cost-effective way to get it done right to me, and obviously it's not producing people that take any kind of pride in their job.

It didn't used to be that way.

My philosophy has always been - Be a rock star at whatever your job is. I don't care if you're a trash man or sack groceries. Be the best **** garbage man or grocery sacker on the friggin planet and it WILL translate into good things. If you don't like being a garbage man, fake it...be a rock star at it...one day you'll become the supervisor of a team of garbage men, or you'll get noticed by somebody somewhere who likes your attitude and offers you an opportunity doing something else. Earn it.

I got a job sacking groceries when I turned 16. Call it bragging, call it whatever, but I was a bad-ass grocery sacker. I hustled, I was polite and friendly to people, I jumped in when some other moron was doing a half-ass job. I thanked people for coming in and was frickin sincere about it. Rain or shine, I was on it...people used to try to give me tips in the parking lot all the time. I never slowed down. When it was slow, I was in the parking lot getting carts back in, mopping floors, whatever. Other idiots were standing around grab-assing and making fun of me. Well, guess what? About a year later, I became a cashier....then later I became a front office supervisor, counting the money, taking care of problems, and telling the grab-asses what to do and when to do it. Legitimate hard work gets rewarded, 9 times out of 10. I still believe it. The crock of it in my case, because we were union, was that the grab-asses got the same pay and the same raises at the same schedule that I did....even though I was working circles around them.

Too many in this country think that they're entitled to everything everybody else has. Earn it? Yeah, right.

[GeoFisher]

My garbage collection is the biggest joke I've ever seen.

Sometime early in the morning a pickup truck from waste management just drives through the neighborhood. I'm not real sure why. Maybe he's surveying the workload for the day?

Then, a truck comes through with a single driver and picks up the Herbie (garbage can) with the hydraulic arm. It ends up sideways on the ground blocking my driveway most of the time. Then, later, a truck comes through for the Rosie (recycle bin). Then, later, another garbage truck comes through with a couple of guys on it to pick up all of the crap that wouldn't fit in the Herbie (garbage can) and is sitting on the curb. Then, later, a truck comes through for the Yard Waste dumpster full of grass, leaves, or whatever crap I've removed from the yard.

We just moved into a new house and I didn't want the recycle container. (Sue me, I just don't have room for it.) I called Waste Management and asked them to come get it. They sent a guy in a pickup truck with a trailer full of containers behind it on a trailer. I happened to be in the driveway when he pulled up. I noticed him go to the container, open it, then close it and walk away. I hollered "Hey, wait a minute, I wanted you guys to take that." He said he can't take it, because it's not empty. Puzzled, I walked over to it and opened the lid. There was 1 (one) empty plastic milk jug in the bottom. I was shocked. I reached down in there, grabbed the jug, and turned around to tell him that it was now empty...he had already got in the pickup and was pulling off. I called Waste Mangement again and the same dude came back to the house the next day and got it. Waste Mangement spent fuel and salary for this dude to drive to my house twice, not once, because of 1 (one) empty plastic milk jug.

Yeah, he cares a lot about his job.

I'm not real smart, but I know as a business person that you look at the job that needs to be done and you try to find the most cost-effective way to get it done right. I'm not saying half-ass it, but get the job done with the least amount of expense. That saved expense translates to bottom line profits, or more capital that you can use to invest in your business, pass discounts to the customer to meet competition, give your employees raises when they deserve them so that they feel valued and want to do a good job for your company, etc, etc, etc. The cluster-screw above sure doesn't seem like that most cost-effective way to get it done right to me, and obviously it's not producing people that take any kind of pride in their job.

It didn't used to be that way.

My philosophy has always been - Be a rock star at whatever your job is. I don't care if you're a trash man or sack groceries. Be the best **** garbage man or grocery sacker on the friggin planet and it WILL translate into good things. If you don't like being a garbage man, fake it...be a rock star at it...one day you'll become the supervisor of a team of garbage men, or you'll get noticed by somebody somewhere who likes your attitude and offers you an opportunity doing something else. Earn it.

I got a job sacking groceries when I turned 16. Call it bragging, call it whatever, but I was a bad-ass grocery sacker. I hustled, I was polite and friendly to people, I jumped in when some other moron was doing a half-ass job. I thanked people for coming in and was frickin sincere about it. Rain or shine, I was on it...people used to try to give me tips in the parking lot all the time. I never slowed down. When it was slow, I was in the parking lot getting carts back in, mopping floors, whatever. Other idiots were standing around grab-assing and making fun of me. Well, guess what? About a year later, I became a cashier....then later I became a front office supervisor, counting the money, taking care of problems, and telling the grab-asses what to do and when to do it. Legitimate hard work gets rewarded, 9 times out of 10. I still believe it. The crock of it in my case, because we were union, was that the grab-asses got the same pay and the same raises at the same schedule that I did....even though I was working circles around them.

Too many in this country think that they're entitled to everything everybody else has. Earn it? Yeah, right.

Watch it........you might be setting a GOOD example and we sure cannot be having that around all these union folks.

[RoadToad]

I'm pretty happy with the garbage collection here. They come by once a week, a guy driving a truck with another guy riding standing up on the passenger side, ready to jump down and wrangle the trash bins when he needs to. I just found out it's the same price for two bins as for one, so I'm going to order a second one, because I have a lot of yard waste sometimes, which, being in Oldham County, I can just put in with the trash.

I have no idea if they're union or not.

[Devils Horse]

Then, a truck comes through with a single driver and picks up the Herbie (garbage can) with the hydraulic arm. It ends up sideways on the ground blocking my driveway most of the time. Then, later, a truck comes through for the Rosie (recycle bin).

Herbie and Rosie?

Come on now dude.

My recycling guy is a whole nother story. I sure get tired of picking up after him. If he drops a plastic bottle or other item, that's where it stays. It's up to me to pick up whatever he drops and and hope maybe it gets taken next week. Perhaps it's in his union contract that he's only required to bend over a certain number of times during a stop.

We recycle a pretty good bit so a single bin isn't enough. After several requests for an extra container, I started putting stuff out there in a bag alongside the container. Dude leaves me a note saying he's not required to deal with bags. So I got a plastic storage container roughly the same size as their bin and started using it. The guy broke it week 1, broke it some more week 2, and finished it off week 3. (Their bins are indestructible, if you watch Wizard of Oz real close you'll see one flying alongside the cow in the tornadic activity scene.)

Jokes on him. I cut up the broken storage container and put it in the recycling in another storage container. So far he's broke that one a pretty good bit, but I keep duct taping it and putting it back out there. He may be a tough guy, but I got a lot of duct tape.