Thursday, March 3, 2011

Minor Overreaction...


As it turns out, my juice-box couple were actually just hiding in my garbage drawer. I might have put them in there myself, in fact I definitely did, because I keep that drawer locked lest my co-workers see what's in the drawer and think I'm more insane than they already do. Allow me to explain.

My office doesn't recycle. I mean a system by which one could recycle simply does not exist. As a decent human being I find this repulsive and uncomfortable andI am physically incapable of putting perfectly good recyclable paper into the garbage can. I used to work at an office where I convinced a conservative politician to put scrap paper back into the printer so we could use the other side. I belonged to a compost club at university (it was really less of a club and more of smelly people carrying their rotting food garbage to school in buckets). I really can't throw out paper.

My solution was to save all my recyclables and take them home and put them into my own recycling bag. I don't actually mean my own, becuase my school didn't get one for me, so I steal my neighbour's from time to time. Anyway, the problem here is twofold: first I'm both lazy and forgetful so I have a drawer in my desk that's full to the brim with recyclables, aka garbage. Secondly, the drawer was actually intended for my purse so I could lock it away safely from the children's sticky fingers, but apparently I think used paper is more important than my wallet.

I work in an office with three other people. I assume they catch me from time to time shoving fistfuls of paper into the drawer, and I imagine I must look like a crazy badger to them. It's even worse when I have to empty the drawer and shove all the paper into a reuseable bag and then carry it out the door with me. "Why is the foreigner hoarding garbage?" "It is probably to cure her aids."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

If your school is like most schools. then they do recycle except they make the students sort out the garbage when they pick it up. It just doesn't seem like recycling at first glance. Koreans are pretty big on recycling as they don't have enough land for landfills.

bisforcookie said...

The students don't pick up the garbage in our office, and the bags are tied shut before my co-worker takes them down. They might recycle in the rest of the school, but not in the English room.

Anonymous said...

Love your humor!

I will return...

HJW