The Shoe Store II: Boxing Day

After my last post I was considering giving the "shoe store owners" a break for a while and let my disgust of their inconsiderate nature grow for a while before a follow-up.  Now, I just might be getting too picky by now (much to the surprise of all who know me, I am sure), but this is just one more example of people being inconsiderate, entitled asshats.  

As a background:  on each floor of this building there is a "Recycling Room" with the garbage chute access door and two bins, one for paper and the other for plastic and glass.  The bins are standard-size garbage cans, a perfect size for one floor's newspapers, six-pack containers and random junk mail for a week, and plenty of beer and wine bottles in the glass bin.  Several people on the floor (myself included) use Fresh Direct for groceries and the deliveries are made in cardboard boxes.  The COURTEOUS thing to do, when one has several boxes that will not fit properly into the paper bin would be to break down the boxes and slide them in between the bin and the wall, thereby keeping them out of the way for other residents and not forcing the maintenance personnel to do WORK YOU SHOULD BE DOING.  

Now back to our story.  I went to the recycling room this evening and much to my surprise (not really) I found this:

OK, admittedly this is not the worst offense in human history, and it actually rates pretty low on my scale of things to be outraged about, but its the general principle of the matter at stake here.  There aren't that many boxes - the litterbug could have easily broken each box down and slid them each between the wall and the black bin in the photo.  By pure...coincidence I happened to spot a note later on that calls out the litterbugs for what they are:

Passive-aggressive?  Sure.  Not the best handwriting?  Perhaps.  Relatively low on the humor scale?  Well, OK.  I am, however, in full support of the message here.  It publicly "shames" the litterbugs/lazy people who feel they have every right to act like this.  Granted, it will most likely not change a thing, and I will wind up being angry over a nearly identical incident perpetrated by the same people within a month, but maybe...just maybe the litterbug will see this and consider how they have acted, shamed by the public "outing" of their lazy and inconsiderate ways, and vowing to act like a grownup member of society for once.  

Nah, once an asshole, always an asshole.

The lesson here, I suppose, is this: none of us (aside from really awesome lords, kings, etc.) live on an island, isolated from all of humanity.  The crap you leave around WILL impact someone else just as much, if not more, than their crap impacted you.  So let's all try to do our part here - clean up after yourself.  Try not to have a negative impact on others.  And don't be an asshat.

Wait, did I just get philosophical there?  Sorry about that folks.  The real lesson here is: people who act like inconsiderate, entitled children are douchbags and deserve to be called out openly, if only for our own amusement.  

On the next episode:  things people do on the subway that really grind my gears.