Trash Talking

I try to talk about my friend Wiley whenever I train equipment operators who work at solid waste facilities. It's not easy, because I feel tremendous guilt about his tragic death. But I don't want anyone to make the same mistake I made, so I put it out there as often as I can. Years after I left the company, he slipped and fell one day getting out of a tractor while working at a landfill in California. He was horribly killed. Skip watched it happen. I remember the first time I talked to Skip after it happened. Shook up doesn't even begin to describe it. I respected his grief too much to have asked him for details. To the best of my knowledge, Wiley was exiting the dozer, and it went into reverse, and he slipped on the tracks, and got carried underneath. How many times had I seen him jump down off of the tracks of a dozer? I spoke to him about it, sure, but he didn't work for me. He worked for one of the corporate big-shots, and never hesitated to bring it up. Neverthel...

As a reward for all our hard work in Puerto Rico evaluating our client's environmental performance, Jeff Schleider and I treated ourselves to a visit to El Yunque National Park. Truly an amazing place. It was a last minute decision I am so glad we made. What a perfect ending to a very successful trip. Hopefully the first of many.

Kevin, the General Manager, came to my desk and told me we were going to go do some volunteer work at the Chamber of Commerce. “When?” I asked. “Now. Get your coat”. Kevin had bright smiling green eyes, and always with a ready laugh, but his smart and serious character made him one of the best bosses I ever worked for. On the way we talked about the beautiful new yellow iron just delivered at the site. We didn’t know it at the time, but Caterpillar was putting out some of the best waste handling equipment it ever produced in the early 1990’s. The 826C Compactor is still a favorite among old school landfill operators. We got to the small chamber of commerce office and the secretary showed us into the conference room. I guess I was expecting a bigger crowd. It was just me and Kevin. After the secretary showed us the mailing that needed to be sent out, I arranged the stacks of fliers in order and got down to business. Kevin’s eyes went wide and he smiled broadly when I started ra...

When he realized that I would be getting to Costa Rica a few days ahead of Skip, the man who hired me to work there told me to wait until Skip arrived to go out to the site and introduce myself. When he told me that I should wait for Skip, I felt a little hesitation. Why? Didn’t he trust his partners there? Yes, of course, he said, it’s just that Skip has a lot of experience with these guys and he will keep the pressure off of you. Being the only North American hired to work in Costa Rica permanently for the company, which was owned by a waste services firm headquartered in New Jersey, would require diplomacy and tact. He called me from his hotel and asked me where I would like to pick him up. Knowing I didn’t know my way around there yet, he offered to meet me at the airport. Tall, straight and strong, jeans, boots, and a button down long sleeve denim shirt, baseball cap, mustache and cigarette, he was the epitome of a construction manager. One of the first things he said about the Ti...

Go get the salt . I'll wait right here. My pride didn't get in the way of the right action on that cold morning. I followed the instructions that the shop steward bellowed at me without a second thought. Before I set the alarm clock the night before, I knew there would be ice around all of the entrances that morning. Freezing rain the night before left a real mess for us to deal with, and the persistent gale force winds in the port of Newark didn't show any signs of letting up. It was pitch black when I made it to the office that day, and as I suspected, the asphalt ramp leading to the employee's locker room was slick with ice. It was Robert, the shop steward who knew the contract better than I, any lawyer, or union representative, the man who distrusted me, the company, the government, and just about everyone else, helping the elderly employees navigate the ice in front of the entrance. As he promised, he stayed right there, making sure no one slipped, ...

It took a few minutes for my eyes to get used to the dim lighting in the recycling plant. It was dusty and slightly rancid and there was a cacophony of conveyors, trucks, and loaders. The first time I walked through that paper recycling plant I was intimidated to say the least. I had been hired to run this place. What did I get myself into? I knew landfills and transfer stations and garbage, and ran great facilities in Florida, but what did I know about managing a recycling plant on the wintry East River in Brooklyn? I looked at the men sorting material flying past on the conveyors and they stared back at me, stone faced behind their dust masks, safety glasses, hard hats, bundled against the frigid cold. At my previous post, I was used to solicitous smiles and a friendly greeting from my employees. I worked with the same people for many years, knew their wives and kids, and prided myself on my flexibility when it came to their needs. The hardest part was when they request...