My job as a recycling worker, Part 1
For the past four years I have been working for a small recycling hauler in the city of Boston while waiting for my writing career to take off. Surprisingly I’m a better recycler than a writer, o well. Quick side note- I decided to do this one in two parts, because I soon realized for a blog this was going to be a little to long. I’ll post the second half in a week or two.
On a weekly and many times daily basis I pick up recycling from a range of different types of businesses. This includes small non-profits, startups, large law firms in town and commercial warehouses. Depending on the day I may spend most of my time going in and out of offices in Downtown Boston or dodging forklifts in over-packed warehouses in East Boston.
Before I started the job I wondered what people, especially customers would think of the “recycling guy”. Would people just think of me as a grubby janitor? Once I started I quickly began to see how people perceived us (my co-workers and myself). After about a year my idea of what people thought of the “recycling guy” had changed greatly from before I started the job.... read more