When I got to work, I noticed that the trash can around my desk had no bag inside of it when I was about to toss some garbage into it. I looked around, and it turned out that nobody’s trash cans had any bags inside any of them. I was perplexed by this.
It turns out that the building in which my office is located in has adopted the ever-clichéd “let’s become greener” approach that so many individuals and conglomerate entities attempt on a regular basis. The recent passing of the latest Earth Day seemed like a convenient date in which to launch this initiative, and for all intents and purposes is effective on a permanent basis.
That’s fine with me, as I do not see any objection to trying to be somewhat more green and conservative with waste. I don’t care for the fact that I’m not supposed to have leisurely use of my waste basket for empty coffee cups and any other trash that I would normally have tossed in there, but I can play by the rules, if everyone else is willing to. It is a little obnoxious, but it’s certainly not the end of the world.
However, what I do find a little bit disturbing are the things written between the lines of this entire program. Through scuttlebutt, I’ve heard that anywhere between 20-30% of the entire building’s custodial staff has been let go. I interpret such actions as the building wanting to cut corners and reduce perceived “overhead,” so they let go of custodians, and try to hide such deplorable penny-pinching measures under a veil of Earth Day conservation and self-servicing bullshit.
I mean, looking back at the last few weeks, the writing was kind of on the wall. Not seeing the custodians that always magically appear when you have to use the restroom really, really bad, numerous instances where there would be no paper towels of toilet paper, and the lack of vacuuming sounds when I leave the office. I suppose I figured it was new custodians or alterations of schedule, and not necessarily the 86-ing of them outright.
So in order to appease the remaining custodians, the building attempts to put the onus on the tenants and employees themselves to become greener and more mindful of waste, so that the now-stretched thing custodial staff can have a (hopefully) slightly easier time with their increased capacities. Meaning because the facility’s overlords are getting greedy and want to penny-pinch by cutting overhead, all tenants lose out on niggling little things taken for granted, but ultimately make us comfortable.
First world problems, I know, but it just kind of disgusts me the transparent tactics the building has employed, ultimately to pinch pennies, and probably to line someone’s pockets at a higher level. Using Earth Day and a bullshit made-up initiative preaching greener practices to try and hide the fact that they simply don’t want to pay custodians to have jobs is shitty and greedy.
I’m saying I’m going to deliberately throw disgusting food waste and still-full cups of coffee into my waste receptacle out of defiance, but I’m certainly going to laugh if other people negligently do, the trash bins all start stinking and becoming gross, and the building is forced to re-hire more custodial staff in order to restore upkeep to the facilities as a whole.
