A possible explanation for the trash truck…

The trash trucks here are equipped with deafening sirens. I think I have heard a police siren twice here, but the damn trash truck comes every day. 8:30 may not sound real early to some of you, but it is well before I usually get up, or at least it’s well before I want to get up. I get woken up every day around that time. The trash service here is actually very reliable, it’s one of the only things I can think of that seems to operate the way it should. Anyway, I’ve been asking people why the trash truck has to be so fricking loud, and no one has had any idea. I asked my teacher today and he told me that he had recently had a conversation with some of the trash guys about this since he didn’t know either. What he was told is that it makes sure that people know when the truck comes by. This didn’t make any sense to me, after all, in America, we all know when the truck comes by. If we miss it, it’s our problem. The difference is that here, if people miss the truck, they just throw their trash into the street, making an enormous mess. The trash guys are just covering their butts, by using the siren everyone knows when they are there, if the streets are a mess, it isn’t their fault. Apparently, they are worried about their supervisors seeing streets filled with trash. It sounds like this may have happened before. It sure is refreshing to hear of government employees being worried about what their superior thinks. If only the rest of the government were like this…