Custodial vigilantism

The evening janitor on my floor at the office has an annoying habit of leaving notes on people’s desks while making his rounds. Usually these are politely worded requests to be cleaner about the trash we generate, which seems fair. A month or so ago I got one telling me I needed to recycle a pizza box I threw away and decided it wasn’t worthwhile to leave a note of my own explaining you can’t recycle those. It was written in a childish scrawl on scrap paper (but with better spelling than many of my coworkers can muster). Other people have reported this phenomenon as well.

Today things took a turn for the awkward. Maybe the guy’s wife just left him or something, but two coworkers and I returned from dinner to notes on all of our desks, which I have sitting in front of me. Carl’s reads:

“Please don’t make a mess and put more trash in the bin once I dump it. I do my trash run once. I came back 2 hrs later and it was full of trash”

So no waste disposal after 7. Interesting. The one on my desk was worse:

“Don’t be a slob and not put your coffee cup in the trash”

As the three of us stood clustered in my cube, talking in low tones about this newest development, the janitor happened past. Being the only one of a confrontational nature, I called him over and asked him to explain what he meant by the notes. Apparently his supervisor had scolded him for not emptying the trash cans because we put things in them after he had come by, and this morning my double espresso had landed in between the plastic bin and the liner bag when I threw it out. I apologized for the cup (crossing my fingers internally) and asked his supervisor’s name so I could talk to him about the trash emptying issue. He got flustered and made up some story about the management changing recently, so I said nevermind and promised that we’d all be more conscientious about our waste in the future. He came back later and apologized for the tone of his note, so everything seems to be square. I think he wanted to be sure I wasn’t going to raise a stink over being called out as a slob. The drama of class interaction!

I’m posting my note prominently in my cube, where it will serve as a scarecrow against any further admonishments. I’ll take care of the software development; you take care of emptying the trash.