The Real MVPs

I just wanna say something about a group of people who don't get enough recognition and really really deserve it.

Sanitation workers.

This morning I was crossing the parking lot and the man driving the garbage truck came through and waved at me. I was thinking about how driving a garbage truck is very rarely a coveted position and people who do it probably sort of fell into it when they found that it pays better than some other jobs they can get. They spend their work day hot, stinky, and dirty, and they come home smelling like garbage. Their work is rarely respected, and sometimes it's even used as a joke (like kids teasing each other that they're going to grow up to be a garbage man).

There are many other jobs in sanitation besides driving a garbage truck that are low glamour, high importance. Some work with utilities, or repair drains and gutters, or provide pest control, or do disaster recovery, or clean buildings in a janitorial sense, or work in positions associated with landfill or recycling or sewage treatment. Some deliver equipment that will be used in these industries. Some get hired to repair and clean machinery that is necessary for our lives to continue the way we're used to.

There is so much need and not much recognition. Most of them probably don't want "recognition" any more than the next person wants to be hailed as important and necessary in their job outside their actual work space, but I think a lot of what these sanitation folks do is invisible to most of us. 

I wanna say thank you to the Real MVPs our sanitation workers, especially with regard to how overworked they must have been in my city picking up yard waste and dealing with unusual schedules and weird trash. I'm really glad we have these services and that people are able to provide them. I hope they are rewarded with good pay. They deserve it.