So far I really enjoy our new life in Redmond, WA. I enjoy our home, our new church and all of the people I have met with the exception of one – My Garbage Lady.
Now I am not sure if Garbage lady, waste disposal person or sanitation engineer is the appropriate term for the person who drives the garbage truck to my home and takes away my garbage, yet given her disposition I think I will use the term Garbage lady for now.
Here is the back story. The waste disposal company was late in delivering our garbage cans and so they told us to put our garbage out in several bags and that we could set all of our boxes out to be recycled – with no limit.
Yesterday, I heard the garbage lady so I went out coffee in hand to greet her. I thought I might invite her to our church, tell her how my brother in law is in the same line of work, strike up a friendship. This was not to be.
The first thing she did was give me a dirty look, scold me for garbage not being in a container, and for the amount of boxes I had out to recycle. (I am not sure why this was a concern for her, but then again she may be dating the recycling guy. )
I apologized for the situation and told her that this is what customer service told us to do. She was irate and informed me that I must have had four yards of boxes. (I am not sure what that means in “the biz” but evidently it was grievous and potentially unforgivable sin.) I said again I was sorry (more out of fear of her wrath than genuine repentance) yet evidently I was not remorseful enough and she said, “you are not the only customer you know.” While I had already deduced that I thought it best not to share that information with her but rather simply to thank her and explain again what customer service had instructed me to do. She would have none of my foolish talk what so ever, said an expletive under her breath, and drove away threatening to call customer service. I wanted to tell her she could save her time, because that was going to be the first call of my day.
The great news in all of this is that compared to my garbage lady, the rain isn’t so bad.
7 Comments
That is hysterical, a good future sermon illustration I’m sure.
Great story. That would have been a great tie-in for the series we just finished called “Handling Toxic People.” Funny stuff.
Your post made me laugh, because we had a similar experience when we first moved to Redmond. However, our experience ended with the police knocking on the door because the Garbage man accused my husband of fourth degree assault. Customer service got a call from us that day as well and things have been great ever since. You may want to stay indoors next week when the truck comes around :-)
So…how did the invite to church go over with her?
Rick
It’s already raining????
I’ve never seen a garbage lady before. She must have been really scary.
I love Jack!! He’s the best dog.
So when she said you had 4 yards of boxes she was referring to the fact that you could fill up one of those metal containers outside of restaurants….. Ben I will tell everyone at work about this one, specially the Customer Service Manager!!!
Post a Comment