[.article__paragraph–cap][.small-caps]Not long ago[.small-caps] I watched a television show about garbagemen in Quebec, Les \u00c9boueurs. It\u2019s typical reality TV: we ride along with garbagemen working in all kinds of conditions. On the one hand, I was proud to see my fellow garbagemen on TV. But the show also left me ambivalent. It was the same feeling I had watching a news segment where a young journalist worked as a garbage collector for a week, and his team captured it on video. Both shows depict garbagemen in a sympathetic light. And both were critical of the pace of work and the pressure the system puts on us, and how that can translate into safety concerns. Both shows are well-intentioned; both present observations that are for the most part accurate \u2013 and yet \u2026[.article__paragraph–cap]<\/p>\n
When I ask my buddy Steve about the shows, he told me there was something that stuck in his craw about the overall sense it conveys of our daily lives. For the average person watching the show, the takeaway is something like this: working in garbage collection is a shitty job, poor unfortunate people who have to do it, they\u2019re exploited by a cruel system, so let\u2019s treat them with compassion. Now, Steve is proud as a peacock, and he just loves being a garbageman. So the idea of showing viewers that we\u2019re deserving of their compassion came as a slap to the face.<\/p>\n
I think Steve\u2019s exaggerating a bit when he says the two shows reduce us to caricatures. Both paint a fairly balanced picture, in their own way. But what the journalists and production teams failed to capture is the ineffable reason Steve and I and so many other garbagemen love what we do. Even with the best of intentions, they can\u2019t fathom why anyone in their right mind could possibly want to be a garbageman. Trust me, it\u2019s perfectly possible to do this job because you want to. Many of us do.<\/p>\n
If you told me I was going to die tomorrow, I\u2019d go out for one final run on the back of a truck, without a second thought. I\u2019d go right back where I belong. Running behind a garbage truck brings me profound satisfaction and great joy. It\u2019s an activity that can satisfy my desire to push myself physically and be the best version of myself. I guess I\u2019m a jock at heart. I need to be out moving, doing physical exercise, pushing myself to new extremes. A friend of mine who\u2019s a serious sports fan and follows pro leagues once told me that I was the best nonprofessional athlete he knew. And he\u2019s not wrong to draw this parallel.<\/p>\n
The \u00c9boueurs reality show even challenged Andr\u00e9 Roy, a former National Hockey League player, to try his hand at garbage collection for four hours, which is of course not even a full shift! On the ice, Roy had been a rough-and-tumble left-winger, the kind of guy known for grinding in the corners. An energy player. A sturdy dude, six foot four, over two hundred pounds. A big, tough guy, for sure \u2013 yet when they put him behind a truck, he couldn\u2019t hack it for more than one hour. They burned him out, and he threw in the towel.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always thought that what makes a good helper is the ability to sublimate your impulses and transform them into productive gestures. For many people who have had challenging life experiences, their impulses are negative forces. Becoming a garbagemen demands exceptional mastery of physical strength and willpower. It\u2019s not dissimilar to the discipline that top athletes develop over their bodies and minds. But when athletes do it, they have their eyes on a different prize: win medals, break records, entertain the masses with their exploits. And they have the support of a massive system: the media, political forces, and society at large are united in glorifying their performances. Athletes are applauded, admired, and earn small or large fortunes.<\/p>\n
When I finish a shift, I\u2019ve run fifteen miles. I\u2019ve put my back under duress and taken considerable personal risks to keep your neighborhood clean and healthy. And pretty much no one cares.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s considered normal for an athlete to get injured. And when they do, they receive the best possible care. For a humble wage slave like us, it\u2019s another story. We\u2019re accused of negligence, denied paid leave. Public colleges in Quebec have physiotherapists on hand to treat swimmers in swim clubs, but we garbagemen are generally left to grin and bear it.<\/p>\n
Whenever my mother talks about my job, she never fails to remind me of all the times I\u2019ve gotten injured. The implication is clear: I should just ditch this dangerous job. If I were a professional hockey player getting showered with money and glory, with an elite medical team to look after me, I doubt she\u2019d constantly harp on my injuries and the risks of my job. Yet it\u2019s these very things \u2013 risk and physical intensity \u2013 that make the garbageman\u2019s job so exceptional. In my opinion, a garbageman\u2019s performance is on par with that of an Olympic marathon runner or a pro hockey defenseman. But no one would ever think of comparing the two activities. In our society, sports is a highly lucrative spectacle. We couldn\u2019t say the same about garbage disposal. Above all, elite sports reflects the values ideals of the upper classes: be a winner, dominate others, and enjoy the means to lead a life of leisure.<\/p>\n
Our work as garbagemen resembles elite sports for its combination of performance, toil, and pushing yourself to new feats. But our extreme sport is performed for members of the lower classes. In our world, that\u2019s enough to belittle you. The garbageman puts his health at risk for society as a whole. He takes great pride in it. But workers\u2019 strength is a commodity to be exploited until their dying day, with no regard for their well-being or will. And if we do care about workers\u2019 safety, that care takes the form of drawing up regulations and tying them up in bureaucratic red tape, a surefire way to kill the joy in any job.<\/p>\n
[.article__paragraph–cap][.small-caps]The joy of throwing trash[.small-caps] finds its expression in the beauty and simplicity of our art form. Experienced guys will recognize the signature of a helper glimpsed behind a truck in the distance: the way he picks up bags, heaves a trash can high, or runs from pile to pile; the distinct pitch of his intensity. That guy carrying three trash cans in one hand and a hot-water tank in the other could only be Gratton, making his way over to the truck and launching the contents of each can into the hopper with astonishing assurance. And there\u2019s Steve, indefatigable as ever, stopping cars with no more than a hand signal and natural authority as he powers through his run. And there\u2019s big Oli, the dude who never takes a break, gathering the cans and bags together while the truck goes off to empty at the dump. As for me, I\u2019m the guy who\u2019s still out at 10:00, running at the same pace I set at 7:00 a.m. As if I were just getting started.[.article__paragraph–cap]<\/p>\n
We can\u2019t forget the drivers, who have to exercise tight control over massive machines that don\u2019t like being tamed. The helper has to adjust their pace to the truck, so we don\u2019t slow down the operation; the driver has to temper his truck\u2019s impatience, its tendency to speed up, by working in tacit agreement with his helper. The way this waltz plays out is that the machine and the workload impose a pace on the garbagemen, forcing them to push themselves to new heights of endurance, at risk of losing control of the situation. This performance yields an undefinable sense of vitality and accomplishment. It\u2019s a dizzying, exhausting movement, an intoxicating pressure, a state of grace that frees you for a while from the burdens of existence. We fear it, and we seek it out \u2013 over and over, in an endless cycle.<\/p>\n
I know how to do a lot of different things. I\u2019ve been a frontline outreach worker, done some freelance journalism, and conducted research, but I always come back to the garbage \u2013 or, strictly speaking, I never left. It would not be an exaggeration to say that my passion for waste collection approaches a calling. People are constantly amazed. \u201cAren\u2019t you tired of running? You know you could do something different.\u201d (Read: better.) It\u2019s not easy to understand the passion that garbagemen like me carry inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you love it?\u201d is one of the first things I ask new employees. Because if you don\u2019t, this job is impossible. Instead of harnessing the machine and directing the waltz of waste, you\u2019ll get crushed by it. It\u2019ll take your health, if not your life. That\u2019s the price you pay to be an elite athlete in the sport of garbage collection.<\/p>\n