Presents for the "Refuse Collection Workers"
Discussion
My son absolutely loves it when they come round, he's Two and anything flashes.
They give him a load of verbal pleasantries (no high fives thankfully)
I said to the missus, get them something for xmas....there was me thinking just a pack of Digestives or something...no she gets them a box of Heroes.
Anyway..where do PH'er opinions sit on gifts for the "Bin Men".
They give him a load of verbal pleasantries (no high fives thankfully)
I said to the missus, get them something for xmas....there was me thinking just a pack of Digestives or something...no she gets them a box of Heroes.
Anyway..where do PH'er opinions sit on gifts for the "Bin Men".
hyperblue said:
We leave out a box of heroes/celebrations for binmen, milkman and postman.
Though reading this thread the bin lorry cab must be overflowing with them by the end of the round!
For balance I certainly won't be giving anything to mine! Without fail, they leave the empty bin a good 15-20 metres down the road, often blocking the pavement. Really doesn't help my elderly neighbours or mums with prams etc.Though reading this thread the bin lorry cab must be overflowing with them by the end of the round!
I get that they must be under pressure to get the round completed but surely it takes a matter of seconds to put the bin back in a sensible place!
gotoPzero said:
Not a chance in hell. The level of "service" falls somewhere between gulag toilet cleaner and spirit airlines flight attendant.
Agreed. I have to report a missed collection at least once a month, and they regularly split the bags when launching them in to the wagon, and rarely pick up all the stuff spilled. It's not a pleasant job, but they appear to think that because they are miserable, everyone else should share in their suffering.
DO NOT give him a bottle of beer........
Clive James childhood memories of life before having a wc. The loo was an outside s
thouse. Emptied weekly.
Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs: https://archive.clivejames.com/books/um1-5.htm
Quote
Ever since I could remember, the dunny man had come running down the driveway once a week. From inside the house, we could hear his running footsteps. Then we could hear the rattle and thump as he lifted the lavatory, took out the full pan, clipped on a special lid and set down an empty pan in its place. After more rattling and banging, there was an audible intake of breath as he hefted the full pan onto his shoulder. Then the footsteps went back along the driveway, slower this time but still running. From outside in the street there was rattling, banging and shouting as the full pan was loaded onto the dunny cart along with all the other full pans. I often watched the dunny cart from the front window. As it slowly made its noisome way down the street, the dunny men ran to and from it with awesome expertise. They wore shorts, sandshoes and nothing else except a suntan suspiciously deep on the forearms. Such occasional glimpses were all one was allowed by one’s parents and all that was encouraged even by the dunny men themselves. They preferred to work in nobody’s company except their own. They were a band apart.
Years went by without those running footsteps being acknowledged by any other means except a bottle of beer left standing in the lavatory on the closest visiting day to Christmas Day. Otherwise it seemed generally agreed that the lavatory pan was changed by magic. From day to day it got fuller and fuller, generating maggots by about the third day. To combat the smell, honeysuckle was grown on a trellis outside the lavatory door, in the same way that the European nobility had recourse to perfume when they travelled by galley. The maggots came from blowflies and more blowflies came from the maggots. Blowflies were called blowies. The Australian climate, especially on the eastern seaboard in the latitude of Sydney, was specifically designed to accommodate them. The blowies’ idea of a good time was to hang around the dunny waiting for the seat to be lifted. They were then faced with the challenge of getting through the hole before it was blocked by the descending behind of the prospective occupant. There was no time for any fancy flying. Whether parked on the wall or stacked around in a holding pattern near the ceiling, every blowie was geared up to make either a vertical dive from high altitude or a death-defying low-level run through the rapidly decreasing airspace between the seat and your descending arse. The moment the seat came up, suddenly it was Pearl Harbor.
Once inside, enclosed under a dark sky, the blowies set about dumping their eggs. The memory of the results has always, in my mind, given extra vividness to Shakespeare’s line about life in excrements. God knows what would have happened if ever the dunny men had gone on strike. Even as things were, by the end of the week the contents of the pan would be getting too close for comfort. Luckily the dunny man was a model of probity. Never putting a foot wrong, he carried out his Sisyphean task in loyal silence. Only when he was about to leave our lives for ever did his concentration slip. Perhaps he foresaw that one day the sewer would come to everywhere in the world. Perhaps, in order to ward off these grim thoughts, he partook of his Christmas beer while still engaged in the task. Because it was on that day — the day before Christmas Eve — that the dunny man made his solitary mistake.
My mother and I were having breakfast. I heard the dunny man’s footsteps thumping along the driveway, with a silent pause as he hurdled my bicycle, which in my habitual carelessness I had left lying there. I heard the usual thumps, bangs and heaves. I could picture the brimming pan, secured with the special clipped lid, hoisted high on his shoulder while he held my mother’s gift bottle of beer in his other, appreciative hand. Then the footsteps started running back the other way. Whether he forgot about my bicycle, or simply mistimed his jump, there was no way of telling. Suddenly there was the noise of ... well, it was mainly the noise of a dunny man running full tilt into a bicycle. The uproar was made especially ominous by the additional noise — tiny but significant in context — of a clipped lid springing off.
While my mother sat there with her hands over her eyes I raced out through the fly-screen door and took a look down the driveway. The dunny man, overwhelmed by the magnitude of his tragedy, had not yet risen to his feet. Needless to say, the contents of the pan had been fully divulged. All the stuff had come out. But what was really remarkable was the way none of it had missed him. Already you could hear a gravid hum in the air. Millions of flies were on their way towards us. They were coming from all over Australia. For them, it was a Durbar, a moot, a gathering of the clans. For us, it was the end of an era.
end quote
Clive James childhood memories of life before having a wc. The loo was an outside s
thouse. Emptied weekly.Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs: https://archive.clivejames.com/books/um1-5.htm
Quote
Ever since I could remember, the dunny man had come running down the driveway once a week. From inside the house, we could hear his running footsteps. Then we could hear the rattle and thump as he lifted the lavatory, took out the full pan, clipped on a special lid and set down an empty pan in its place. After more rattling and banging, there was an audible intake of breath as he hefted the full pan onto his shoulder. Then the footsteps went back along the driveway, slower this time but still running. From outside in the street there was rattling, banging and shouting as the full pan was loaded onto the dunny cart along with all the other full pans. I often watched the dunny cart from the front window. As it slowly made its noisome way down the street, the dunny men ran to and from it with awesome expertise. They wore shorts, sandshoes and nothing else except a suntan suspiciously deep on the forearms. Such occasional glimpses were all one was allowed by one’s parents and all that was encouraged even by the dunny men themselves. They preferred to work in nobody’s company except their own. They were a band apart.
Years went by without those running footsteps being acknowledged by any other means except a bottle of beer left standing in the lavatory on the closest visiting day to Christmas Day. Otherwise it seemed generally agreed that the lavatory pan was changed by magic. From day to day it got fuller and fuller, generating maggots by about the third day. To combat the smell, honeysuckle was grown on a trellis outside the lavatory door, in the same way that the European nobility had recourse to perfume when they travelled by galley. The maggots came from blowflies and more blowflies came from the maggots. Blowflies were called blowies. The Australian climate, especially on the eastern seaboard in the latitude of Sydney, was specifically designed to accommodate them. The blowies’ idea of a good time was to hang around the dunny waiting for the seat to be lifted. They were then faced with the challenge of getting through the hole before it was blocked by the descending behind of the prospective occupant. There was no time for any fancy flying. Whether parked on the wall or stacked around in a holding pattern near the ceiling, every blowie was geared up to make either a vertical dive from high altitude or a death-defying low-level run through the rapidly decreasing airspace between the seat and your descending arse. The moment the seat came up, suddenly it was Pearl Harbor.
Once inside, enclosed under a dark sky, the blowies set about dumping their eggs. The memory of the results has always, in my mind, given extra vividness to Shakespeare’s line about life in excrements. God knows what would have happened if ever the dunny men had gone on strike. Even as things were, by the end of the week the contents of the pan would be getting too close for comfort. Luckily the dunny man was a model of probity. Never putting a foot wrong, he carried out his Sisyphean task in loyal silence. Only when he was about to leave our lives for ever did his concentration slip. Perhaps he foresaw that one day the sewer would come to everywhere in the world. Perhaps, in order to ward off these grim thoughts, he partook of his Christmas beer while still engaged in the task. Because it was on that day — the day before Christmas Eve — that the dunny man made his solitary mistake.
My mother and I were having breakfast. I heard the dunny man’s footsteps thumping along the driveway, with a silent pause as he hurdled my bicycle, which in my habitual carelessness I had left lying there. I heard the usual thumps, bangs and heaves. I could picture the brimming pan, secured with the special clipped lid, hoisted high on his shoulder while he held my mother’s gift bottle of beer in his other, appreciative hand. Then the footsteps started running back the other way. Whether he forgot about my bicycle, or simply mistimed his jump, there was no way of telling. Suddenly there was the noise of ... well, it was mainly the noise of a dunny man running full tilt into a bicycle. The uproar was made especially ominous by the additional noise — tiny but significant in context — of a clipped lid springing off.
While my mother sat there with her hands over her eyes I raced out through the fly-screen door and took a look down the driveway. The dunny man, overwhelmed by the magnitude of his tragedy, had not yet risen to his feet. Needless to say, the contents of the pan had been fully divulged. All the stuff had come out. But what was really remarkable was the way none of it had missed him. Already you could hear a gravid hum in the air. Millions of flies were on their way towards us. They were coming from all over Australia. For them, it was a Durbar, a moot, a gathering of the clans. For us, it was the end of an era.
end quote
Absolutely nothing. Our bins haven't been emptied for 2 weeks they're on strike until 9th January.
The tip guys are also going on strike.
They put the bins back in the most awkward positions so quite often have to get out of the car and move the bins before parking and bringing them in.
So no, not a chance.
Postman will get a Christmas card with £10 in it, he's pleasant.
The tip guys are also going on strike.
They put the bins back in the most awkward positions so quite often have to get out of the car and move the bins before parking and bringing them in.
So no, not a chance.
Postman will get a Christmas card with £10 in it, he's pleasant.
Biscuits, bear AND a £20 note:
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/whitstable/news/braze...
... go missing...
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/whitstable/news/braze...
... go missing...
Our bin men ring the doorbell the week they collect before Christmas. This was yesterday.
They got a bit of cash, not much, but some.
I figured that since they ring everyone's doorbells, they're likely raking in quite a bit of cash each December, and they do leave a lot of st strewn on the street some weeks - so I have to go out and sweep it up and put it back in the bin for the next collection. 
They got a bit of cash, not much, but some.
I figured that since they ring everyone's doorbells, they're likely raking in quite a bit of cash each December, and they do leave a lot of s
t strewn on the street some weeks - so I have to go out and sweep it up and put it back in the bin for the next collection. R56Cooper said:
For balance I certainly won't be giving anything to mine! Without fail, they leave the empty bin a good 15-20 metres down the road, often blocking the pavement. Really doesn't help my elderly neighbours or mums with prams etc.
I get that they must be under pressure to get the round completed but surely it takes a matter of seconds to put the bin back in a sensible place!
I can understand that. However, sometimes a box of chocolates and a quiet word about the difficulties they cause in their haste might be enough to encourage them to be more thoughtful in future.I get that they must be under pressure to get the round completed but surely it takes a matter of seconds to put the bin back in a sensible place!
I'd probaby try it for the sake of 4 quid.
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