What the #@*% do you have to do?

This is the scene from the curb in front of my house as of about 45 minutes ago.

The garbage man has been here. The recycling crew, too.

Omaha is a great place to live, if you can ignore the garbage-pickup thing. The garbage thing is awful here.

Apart from the garbage cans and recycling bins strewn all about, which is normal enough, there is another sure sign Deffenbaugh Industries has been to your neighborhood -- the garbage and recyclables blowing down the street after the company's not-so-industrious crews have done their due non-diligence.

That is, if they've bothered to pick up your garbage at all.

With this in mind, I had a strategy for getting rid of an old kitchen garbage can. Below, you see my strategy.

I KNOW . . . I know . . . it was a calculated risk, but it was all I had when I put out the trash last night.

Some risks don't pay off, I'm sorry to say.

APPLYING MY finely honed analytical skills to this situation and taking into account bitter personal experience with Omaha's garbage contractor, I have come up with a few possibilities here:

• 1. Deffenbaugh crews just don't care.
• 2. Deffenbaugh crews can't read English.
• 3. Deffenbaugh crews don't care and they can't read English.
• 4. Deffenbaugh crews don't care, can't read English, and they don't care that they can't read English.
• 5. Deffenbaugh crews don't care, can't read English, don't care that they can't read English . . . and company management likes it that way. Maybe city government, too.

MY MONEY'S on the final option. Did I mention that, in addition to the sticky notes, I also sat the unwanted garbage can on top of a full trash bag?

The trash bag, they took.

So, just how does one throw away a garbage can, anyway? After today, I'm open to all suggestions that won't ultimately land me in jail.

The customer is always irrelevant

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You see it at the store. You see it at the fast-food joint. You see it when you have to deal with your health-insurance company.

You see it at your workplace. You see it when dealing with bureaucrats. You get a buttload of it trying to get your phone and Internet service turned on. You get it weekly as you pick up your recyclables out of the street after the trash man drops various of them there.

That last one is my constant source of frustration.

It's customer service today. More than that, it's pride in workmanship today -- or lack thereof.

A QUICK-AND-DIRTY answer is that people take no pride in anything today. Another one is that people are lazy and have no respect for anybody today -- or self-respect. The longer answer involves why that is.

Beats me. Part of it, I suspect, is the cult of the Almighty Self, which isn't about self-respect and is about "I matter; you don't." Part of it is about our society's focus on profit over quality. Most of it leaves me scratching my head -- I don't know how the computer-monitor-tossing FedEx man lives with himself.

I really don't.

Of course, my lack of understanding probably doesn't keep him from living with his reprehensible self quite well, thank you very much.