Operation Recycling

Before I tell the story let me preface by letting you know that I choose to pay extra money every month to participate in my city sponsored recycling service...and we actually use it. And furthermore, I even let John throw his recyclables in my bin so he doesn't have to pay the fee.

I work at a software company in Austin. Some of my co-workers would be classified as hippies that live by the Keep Austin Weird mantra. They also believe it is their duty to recycle (which again...I have no problem with). These same people have setup some separate bins near the trash can in our break room for cardboard/paper/cans/etc. There is not a pickup service for recycling at our office so several of the hippies have volunteered to take care of it.

As you can guess, this means nobody actually ever takes care of the recycling which means we end up with full bins and a bunch of 'trash' piled up around the bins. Some time ago my boss decided to take matters into his own hands. Each Friday afternoon, after most of the employees are gone, he takes the contents of the recycling containers and the crap piled up around them to our dumpster. I laugh every Friday when I see him doing this and two weeks ago I decided to ask him about it.

He said that those hippies are disgusting and don't take care of this crap so he will. We went on to discuss that they probably assume that one of the other hippies is always taking care of it so the disappearance of the 'recyclables' will never be questioned. Yesterday, my boss was out of the office and as I was about to leave I noticed the full bins and trash piled in the corner of the break room. So I went ahead and 'recycled' the stuff for the hippies by putting it in the dumpster.

My boss is happy there is not a rat nest in the corner. The hippies feel good that they 'recycled'. And I got to laugh to myself as I perpetuated the shadow operation. Everyone is happy.