The Garbage Valet from hell

Published Sun, Nov 11 2007 20:48 | William

When I first moved into my place, I remember posting about the insanely obnoxious note I got from the 'Garbage Valet'.  In terms of services, it's beyond useless.  I mean it, it's worthless.  Theoretically it could be helpful for the elderly or handicapped or tragically lazy, but in it's current implementation, it isn't.  Personally, I feel like  a loser when I use it so I typically just walk over to the garbage shoot and dump my own garbage.  Since I'm frequently gone for long periods of time, I can't simply put my receptacle outside the door b/c then I get Nastygrams telling me they are going to beat up my mom if I leave my trash thingy outside again.

I was leaving early Friday and was in a real hurry, so I went through the absurd number of steps needed for the garbage valet to actually pick up the stuff and sat it outside on my way out.  I honest to god thought I had everything covered. Apparently not.  I didn't "knot" the twist ties on my garbage bags, Nor did I cover the lid. Nothing orgainc was in my trash so in a million years I couldn't have dreamed it would have been an issue. But nope, it was.  In fact, I failed a whopping 4 items on the checklist.  I can only think it's hard finding people to do the job and b/c it's not very glamorous, it doesn't bring with it a lot of pride of workmanship - so the people that do it get really cranky.  I pay a ridiculous amount of money for this service, which is mandatory for living here, even though I've only put a grand total of 5 bags of garbage out with it.  5, in over a year.  But I spent close to 500.00 on it.  You'd figure that since I never use it I could get a pass on not closing the lid 'tightly' and other idiotic stuff like that.

Now, just out of general principle, I'm committed to setting my garbage out and not getting a nasty gram.  I know I sound like a pathetic sniveller, but it's really brutal on your ego when you get a note pointing out that you f**ed up 4 different things by setting garbage outside of your door. 

Is it just my place, or does anyone else have a cranky garbage valet?  IMHO, the guy is in the totally wrong line of work - there's a Systems Engineer or Network Admin position out there somewhere just dying to get filled by a control freak like my garbage valet.

Comments

# Brian Madsen said on November 12, 2007 6:55 AM:

Hey Bill,

First off, i've never, ever heard of a garbage valet before you posted your story. At first I figured you were taking the piss or that "Garbage Valet" was some kind of kinky term you have for your woman....

odd, isn't?

I'm not entirely sure i'm a peasant now, because i don't have a Garbage Valet...does not having one constitute peon status? and how on earth do you get one? I'm thinking of investing, seriously :)

I'm still chuckling away at the thought of you humbled by a Garbage Valet..i must meet this person and learn some tricks!

I would honestly hire one if they existed here..but living in a house, in the "burbs" sort off makes it defunct considering i have 5 meters/yards to my bin and i just have to roll it to the curb each tuesday of the month and the council comes and collects it.

I bet if i got one i'd be the coolest guy living in Australia!! especially when it gets REAL damn hot..imaging traveling all the way out to me to carry my garbage those 5 meters/yards? awesome!

# www.proveninsomniacure.info » The Garbage Valet from hell said on November 12, 2007 10:15 AM:

Pingback from  www.proveninsomniacure.info » The Garbage Valet from hell

# William said on November 12, 2007 12:46 PM:

Not having one does not make you a peasant, before I moved here, I didn't have one either and I'm certainly no patrician.  When I moved in I heard we had concierge service and one of the amenities was a Valet service for the garbage. I thought WTF?  it's mandatory so it's really just a way to make the cost look lower than it really is.  It's so worthless though. I mean, the folks they have remind me of the 1st C compilers I had that were just really finnecky, blew up over everything and had really annoying non helpful error messages.  IT must have taken this guy 5-10 minutes to write out the checklist of what I screwed up.  I wish they just had a "Get more than 3 wrong and we don't take it out" rule - b/c getting a freaking list of stuff I did wrong for one stinking bag of garbage is just really annoying.  Trust me man, if we didn't have it, I promise, no one would be complaiining.

# C. Amarillo said on November 14, 2007 2:50 PM:

What's worse: Garbage Valet or Toilet Flushing Attendant? (www.wltx.com/.../story.aspx)

Makes you appreciate your job!

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