Great Moments in Dumbfuck: The Garbageman As Superhero...

 "Two tales; one of dedication, the other of defecation..." -- The Overlord

I'd like to tell you the stories of two situations I've encountered this week and point out the vast differences in dedication and intelligence between some public sector workers and some private ones here in New York City.

I begin by informing you that a strange man has been sitting in front of my home for the last 24 hours in his truck.

This man works for Consolidated Edison (ConEd), the local power company.

The reason he's been living in a truck for the last 24 hours is because the power has gone out in this neighborhood three times in the last two days. ConEd has a program in which those who are disabled and dependent upon electricity to literally keep them alive can get special support during power emergencies. This support takes the form of everything from having ConEd take power (by running cables) from surrounding houses to yours in order to keep your medical equipment running, to bringing you an emergency generator when needed, to making you a priority when it comes to any power-related emergency.

Mrs. Overlord depends on electricity to run her oxygen equipment and so does our next door neighbor.

This weekend's outages have been caused by a combination of heavy snowmelt, obsolete distribution equipment, and the manhole fires these have been causing all over the neighborhood, so that ConEd is replacing every last underground power cable in this area and bringing in newer equipment to make the local grid more modern and resilient. 

Fortunately, Mrs. Overlord has never been in extremis, for Your Dark Lord -- having been a Boy Scout before discovering the Dark Side of the Force -- lives by the motto "Be Prepared!" and makes it a rule to keep 72 hours of bottled oxygen in the house. My neighbor, unfortunately new to the problems of respiratory ailment, does not have this experience.

Fortunately, ConEd is on the job.

For the last 24 hours I have opened my home to the workers who may need a bathroom, perhaps a cup of coffee, or maybe a few minutes to warm themselves up from the bitter cold outside. I must have fed 10 guys, already, too. It's the least I can do. These men came to us immediately to ensure we were okay when the outage was reported and they are sort of family to us. Mrs. Overlord's brother recently retired after 31 years at ConEd, and many of my relatives are current or former ConEd employees, too.

I have nothing but praise for the people of ConEd. They do a difficult job, often under difficult circumstances, and they do it better than anyone else. Compared to the level of service I got from Duke Power when I lived in North Carolina, the ConEd guys and gals are the best of the best. For many years, whenever the electric bill arrives I don't feel angry about writing that check; I'm (almost) glad to write it because I know I've gotten my money's worth.

I'm betting people in Texas wish they were feeling this way, right about now.

Rewind three days ago...

A "Facebook Friend", a former Sanitation worker here in New York City, now retired, had what I thought was unmitigated gall to post a photo of an SDNY Action Figure, as if it was something to be celebrated.

To tell the tale of the Garbageman Action Figure, briefly:

In the wake of 9/11, every city worker suddenly became Superman in the eyes of the politicians.

Certainly the police, firefighters and EMTs who responded (and died) to the attack on the World Trade Center attacks are heroes. And then someone went overboard with the theme.

It was not long before a series of action figures memorializing the Heroes of 9/11 was produced -- police officers and firefighters with their vehicles and such -- and sold in order to raise money for the widows and orphans, or to get the traumatized First Responders the help they needed with things like PTSD. It seemed cheesy to me, but I got it.

However, the intense jealousy and rivalry that exists between the Public Sector Employees who do useful things and the Fucking Unionized Slugs soon reared their ugly heads, and so the line of charity toys was greatly expanded to cover all the other City Workers, even the ones who didn't run into burning buildings to save lives.

To give you some example of what sort of petty jealousies exist, the NYPD is frequently described as "New York's Finest" which caused the Corrections officers to throw a hissy fit and describe themselves as "New York's Boldest".

When the FDNY is referred to as "New York's Bravest" the Sanitation workers retort that they are "New York's Strongest" (I can attest they are certainly NOT "New York's Smartest").

I'm sure the Meter Maids soon after took to calling themselves "New York's Fattest" (or they should) and the Parks Department workers, if they haven't already, will start calling themselves "New York's Pooper Scoopers" and the Housing Authority dolts have probably already trademarked "New York's Laziest".

I'm sure they all got their action figures, too (because the union cried "it's not fair!"). After all, what red-blooded boy WOULDN'T want a G.I. Joe version of a New York City Courts janitor or Department of Motor Vehicles Eye-test lady?

The point being that no one uses such terms, except the press, and the union bosses who are engaged in propaganda campaigns.

One result of this was the Sanitation Worker Action Figure, because (not) picking up the trash is a heroic feat on the same level as sacrificing your life so that others may live.

All of this stuff was sold through the CityStore, a place where you can be the first on your block to dress your newborn in a Sanitation Department onesie, fulfill all of your Department of Aging merchandise needs, or find that sporty New York City Health and Hospitals Zippo lighter, or even, I'm certain, find those really good "Greetings from Riker's Island" throw pillows that you just can't get anywhere else.

Now, the Overlord is no fan of the New York City Sanitation Department for a number of good reasons, most having to do with the difficulty the city puts you through to toss out your goddamned trash, from recycling to the "proper" method of disposing of mattresses, electronics, and old refrigerators and air conditioners.

And the fines that come when you get the wrong information...from the Sanitation Department, itself.

My own trash collectors are very good making sure the contents of everyone's trash cans wind up in the street, where the wind blows old Styrofoam that once contained meat, empty plastic bottles, pizza boxes, mounds of miscellaneous paper, and all manner of flotsam and jetsam onto my front lawn. 

Twice a week.

One might consider this a minor inconvenience, except for two things:

1) They do this constantly. They also have a habit of "forgetting" to pick up trash if they don't feel like doing so,

2) The rat problem.

The rat problem, however, is the bigger of the two, so I shall explain:

Nearly two years ago, the local housing project (administered by New York's Laziest, mentioned above) underwent a program of "rat abatement". If you're not familiar with either a New York City Housing Project or Rat Abatement (New York Style), here you are: the rats originate in the Housing Project; they come with the Welfare Queens and the Illegal immigrants, and the City doesn't kill any rats, because that would make sense and lose the unhinged Animal Rights vote for the left.

Instead, "rat abatement" consists of placing a cordon of sub-contractors around a building, finding the holes where the rats get in, pumping carbon dioxide into them, and then taking note of all the other holes the rats flee from so they may be plugged.

In the meantime the rats -- all alive and quite well -- take up residence in the surrounding neighborhood.

Where they feast on all the garbage left in the street by the Sanitation Workers.

So that when you call the Department of Health ("New York's Discombobulated"), and they respond to your rat complaint -- seven months later -- the inspector who doesn't actually inspect anything tells you "there's nothing we can do" and suggests that you "do a better job of securing your trash cans". He then hands you a list of "approved" rodent killing contrivances and substances, all of which was selected for "Green" qualities and which will allow the rest of the local pests -- the deer, raccoons, possums, wild turkeys, squirrels, stray cats and wandering pit bulls -- to flourish, safe from pesticides.

He then informs you that he, too, is familiar with this problem because he lives three blocks away, and you get the impression that he doesn't care. He'd rather collect the check and retire after 25 than to protect his own  home from disease-carrying pests. 

But, back to the idiot with the doll...

Apparently, this doll was a source of great pride to this man, who spent 25 years picking up other people's waste and infested furniture, a job that deserved immortalization in the form of a children's plaything. Hence the FB post.

So, I asked:

"Does it leave garbage all over the street, like the Real McCoy?"

And this started an argument which went pretty much something like this:

Entitled Retired Government Worker: You're an asshole.

Overlord: I understand you had to take a test to pick up garbage. Did you lose any points for coloring outside the lines?

Entitled Retired Government Worker: I have a Master's Degree, so go fuck yourself.

Overlord: Good for you. I have one, too. So do a lot of other people.  It's not an uncommon accomplishment. Did it help you pick up garbage any better?

Entitled Retired Government Worker: You're just jealous.

Overlord: Oh, sure. I'm jealous of a guy who came home smelling like Port Au Prince in August every day for 25 years, whose salary I paid, and who is enjoying an overstuffed pension I'm paying for, too. Yes, I'm so jealous that I can not only live the good life, but still have enough money left over for the City to steal so that they could give it to a guy whose only options in life were probably jail or picking up garbage. Even with a Master's Degree.

I was then unfriended. Oh, the horror...I am wounded to the heart that the Dustman hates my fucking guts.

Now, this is not to say that all Sanitation Workers are as deranged or retarded as my Masters-Degree-bearing egomaniac, and it is not to underestimate the important role they play in public health. Civilization, itself -- even what passes for such in Sodom-on-The-Hudson these days -- would not exist without them. What irks me is the disconnect with reality some of these idiots have. Since they do a thankless job that people rarely notice -- which they volunteered for, mind you -- they believe they are entitled to be congratulated and celebrated 24/7/365 and elevated as public heroes, in the process.

While they're living large on inflated salaries paid for by their neighbors.

And if you make it known that they often fall short of their self-constructed Homeric self-image, they get a bug up their ass and accuse you of "being jealous".

Because only if I had known the untrammeled delights of spending a quarter century hip-deep in other people's filth I would be a much better person and hate myself less.

So, let's put this in perspective, shall we?

According to Indeed.com, a New York City Sanitation worker "earns" $77,997-taken-by-force-from-the-taxpayer per year.

With overtime, this is easily raised to $100,000 per annum.

This assumes, of course, 5 years on the job and that he doesn't get fired before then (how fucking pathetic do you have to be for this to happen?) or flunk multiple drugs tests. He will be protected by a union that buys the politicians it will later sit across the negotiating table from when contracts are due for renewal. He will retire after 25 years of "service" with 75% of his base salary (calculated by averaging his three highest-earning years) as a reward for braving the deadly threats of old tin cans, disposable diapers and used Kleenex.

He is better cared for and protected than any endangered species and he has been conditioned by the Commintern his union to think of himself that way.

But that's not enough. He needs to be immortalized with an action figure, simply for ego's sake (because he's jealous of he public workers who do get accolades, and often rightfully so), and if you prick his balloon then you're "jealous" of him. His union told him so.

AOC uses the same defense for her dumbfuckery every day, too.

It's the sense of entitlement though -- this idiot deserves praise for doing a job no one with talent wanted -- that makes you want to drive a pickaxe through his forehead. This sense of entitlement permeates government at all levels from the Sanitation worker who believes he's worthy of song and epic saga, all the way up to the FBI and CIA agents who believe they know better than the American voter. They don't even bother to hide their disdain for the people who pay them, anymore, while many who work in the private sector to earn the tax money that will be stolen from them, often struggle.

The next time you see or hear a Union teacher pontificating about her own self-importance, just remind her that a) she has some nerve, b) her union is proving that every day COVID continues with it's stupidity that she's not an "essential" worker, and c) her time will soon be up. Distance learning is now here to stay, homeschooling is rising, and the public school as social petri dish has been exposed for the rotten environment it truly is.

In the meantime, I've got a man sitting in the freezing cold inside an electric vehicle (which usually don't have heaters) on guard to ensure my wife and my neighbor don't suffocate to death, and when the Sanitation guys come this morning to collect the trash, I can promise you half of it will be scattered about the street because they have the arrival of the fresh bagels at the local bakery timed to the minute.

I know they do because seeing six or seven Sanitation trucks parked outside the place on a weekend morning when no trash has been picked up, 12 or 16 guys in filthy green coveralls all drinking coffee and bullshitting in the parking lot, is a common occurrence.

And by the way, the power outages are partly the Sanitation Department's fault: they plowed the recent snowfall right into a ConEd substation access portal and started the first fire by shorting out a high voltage cable.

Got a doll for that?

P.S. These ConEd guys are union, too, but note the difference in behavior and professionalism between the union man who works for a private corporation, and the fucktarded, scum-sucking, self-important doofus who "works" for government.

Bust the government unions and you save America.