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Garbage shoot damage was a prime example of a repair that would blossom into a series of situations and incidents that needed to be contained. The chute would get plugged on one floor from over-sized items being forced into it. As more garbage was forced in from the upper floors, the chute would split and the whole system would get shut down. This meant finding the floor the plug was on, getting it unstuck, usually from underneath. This meant the man doing the work had to get out of the way quickly. Is the zaniness obvious? Because the garbage chute was installed upside down the connecting rim edges were facing up on the inside so things would catch and bend the rims innward causing more problems. When the garbage chute needed to be repaired it meant tearing out the block wall in front of the repair area. This created more debris and havoc that had to be managed. People would actually try to get into the garbage chute while it was opened up. They did this so they could pass on their uneducated stoned opinions. We tried to close off the chutes so the people above would not use them but that did not always work. The tenants would ignore our signs and attempts to keep the chute from being used. They would break any method we tried to use to keep the chute inactive while it was being worked on. One day one of the dealer’s wives ignored the out of order notice and shoved a large garbage bag into the chute on the floor above the guy repairing it. He yelled not to use it but she ignored him. The bag landed on his head and split open. Along with the household garbage cascading over him another package of a different shape came with it. The worker caught the package then got out of the chute. The package was the dealer’s cash stash. The worker immediately packed up his tools and split with a $5,000.00 bonus. We knew nothing about the incident until the next day. The dealer came down to us in a panic the next morning needing to get into the garbage compactor room. He had come home that night and realized what his wife had done. He had been all through the garbage that was jammed in the chute and now wanted to get into the compactor. We let him rummage around the compactor and bin until he was exhausted. Of course, he wouldn’t clean up the mess he had made. At this point in time none of us in the maintenance department knew what had happened. We knew nothing about the money until the dealer came down. We knew the worker left early but just thought he was getting a special piece of material for the job. He was not suspected and said he knew nothing about the incident. He came back a couple of days later with a custom made section of chute and finished the job. We figured it out when the guy came around to his boss’s house with a brand-new motorcycle a couple of months later. Not a word was said because she admitted to hearing the worker yell and ignored him. We had to dump 7 bins of garbage every 2 days. Most buildings that size had 2 bins per week. Every day the 2 garbage runs filled the elevator from floor to ceiling as well as what went down the garbage chute. The compactor at the bottom of the chute filled a bin that was changed twice a day and it still couldn’t keep up. The overload switches would break down, the compactor would run continuously over filling the bin. Packing it so full it would break the retainer chains and sometimes shoot the bin out through its loading doors. The room would fill with garbage and nobody would clean it up properly. So, one day me and Mike, the head at the time, went to clean it out. It was waist deep in loose garbage; Mike and I waded in to deal with it. At some point, when I was deep in the trash, a mouse ran up my leg. I grabbed my leg at the knee with both hands to stop it. Then started running around yelling, freaking out, stomping my foot trying to get it out. I didn’t stop freaking out and jumping around until the mouse fell out of my pants and I had stomped it flat on the floor. Then I instantly settled down and gave a sigh of relief. Mike was standing in the corner with his eyes bugged out holding his shovel in a defensive mode. I stopped my freak out and got a couple of deep breaths and told Mike about the mouse up my leg. He burst into uncontrollable giddy laughter. I asked him what was going on? He told me he was cowering in the corner because he thought I was going berserk. When I had freaked out Mike had panicked also. He thought I was yelling at him because he wasn’t working hard enough. He thought I was attacking him while I was stomping my leg to get the mouse out. I’m just glad he didn’t swing the shovel. Mike still laughs almost uncontrollably when he remembers the story. One of those unforgettable moments in a person’s life. Keeping the drive open for the garbage trucks to empty the bins was a constant problem. People thought they could park anywhere not caring about the signs and logistics of the building. We finally resorted to a blob of tar and a sign on the windshield, that got some interesting results. I remember one incident in particular that brought the police, 2 race activists and a crowd to see me get a punch in the face. Previous Exit Next |