To me this is a symbol of the racism and elitism in white collar America

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

I work in a large Corporation (about 2000 people - though that figure is dropping, thanks George). Anyway every day someone uses the men's bathroom on the 1st floor and reads a newspaper or a bunch of web printouts and then throws them on the floor in the stall and leaves.

Now, of course our janitorial staff is made up of Latino and Black People. This attitude that "the help will get it" or "I'm to good to throw this in the fucking trash when I wash my hands" (they probably don't btw) is just fucking disgusting.

Initially this started out as just an annoyance - lately , when I see it, I become INFURIATED!

What is it with some fucking people?

[RT_Fanatic]

1. What it is with some...

...fucking people is that they're just fucking pigs who don't have any respect for anyone else. It's a wonder they can even feed themselves (to paraphrase Dylan).

:evilgrin:

[ladjf]

2. I think you are overreacting and misplacing your assumptions

about these being racially motivated. Some people grew up not realizing that dropping trash on the floor is inconsiderate to everyone else. (I know because I've tended to be one those. It's a bad habit but lacks any underlying motives.)

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

4. I disagree - I have found throughout my life an underlying contempt for

those in the custodial field and I find it racially motivated. It is so ingrained the people who do it would deny it if they were called on it. And I believe Malcolm X would agree with me

[bif]

15. I go out of my way to treat them with respect

And I make it a point to greet them. We're all humans here.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

19. No doubt!

[havocmom]

20. I concur. Knew a very well read, self educated man who tans very well

and works in maintenance. He does a bit of writing (historical articles) and is not dumb, but holds back and doesn't talk to many. He gets a close up view of how the self anointed gentry treats the worker bees who keep their world sweet and clean. He has manners which would do a butler proud. He has great empathy and notices everything. He believes all living things are entitled to dignity and consideration.

Once in a great while, he will have enough of some fool's boorish behavior and blast em good. I have known him to take on some people you read about in tales of the rich & famous. The first thing outta their mouths when he gets done explaining manners and how they fail at them is usually: 'I didn't even know you spoke English!'

Yeah, there is a lot of elitism and bigotry passing as snobbery around in America and it is getting worse.

[ladjf]

24. Either of us may be correct. However, if your theory is true

then as a child I was very prejudiced against my father because he was the one who picked up the junk I threw around the house. But, I do agree that very often people commit acts that have underlying motives, unknown even to the perpetrator.

[auburngrad82]

37. It is a lack of respect. Probably not consciously racist but still racist

The thing that I don't like is the attitude that people have that someone else will clean up the mess. Down here in the red states we get a lot of people that change their little rugrat's diaper in the car and then throw the dirty diaper out the window into the parking lot.

I wish people would have a little respect for the people around them.

Just another reason that I often don't like people.

[Love Bug]

3. How about hanging a sign in the mens room:

"Your mother doesn't work here -- clean up after yourself"

And, yeah, that is definately a symptom of a sense of entitlement.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

5. I should put one in every stall - they'd get torn down tho

people really cling to their ways indignantly

[skypilot]

6. I don't know the people you work with but...

...my first thought, as a black man, is that it's not necessarily a symbol of racism and elitism but rather just a symbol of the fact that some people are fucking pigs. I live in Philadelphia and the nonchalance with which people will litter is fucking surreal. Alot of the people who clean our streets are black or latino but, unfortunately, blacks here are some of the worst offenders when it comes to littering.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

8. That may be but I think there's a difference between street littering and

this kind of workplace crap. To me I think it is an undercurrent that people don't even notice. This place is 98% white

[Squeech]

7. Once upon a time

Congresswoman Schroeder was questioning some executive from a major chemical company in one of those congressional investigations. She asked this guy whether anybody at his firm was aware that, since their manufacturing process generated lots of toxic waste, something had to be done about cleaning up that waste? The suit said No, we never gave it a thought.

Under her breath, but audible to the microphone, she said, "And I bet you don't pick up your own socks either."

So welcome to the litterbugocracy.

[johnnie]

9. I don't know....

I work in an office with about 25 people. We have a clean up service come in a few times a week, but we are also are responsible to clean out own messes. I see things thrown around the bathroom all the time. I see toilets not flushed and piss on the ground. toilet paper just placed on the thingie and not replaced, and not only that...I swear some people eat roadkill for breakfast. I can't believe how people can deplete the oxygen levels in that place.
I don't think it is a racial thing, I think many people are just pigs and they also don't give a shit.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

13. But I think its still based on a feeling that an underclass will come and

clean.

You may do most of the cleaning yourself but you still have a service.

Listen I agree that for a good % of these people its just plain indifference but its an elitist type of indifference.

[johnnie]

21. I agree somewhat

Some of the guys in the back come up to "our" bathroom and maybe some of the people up front are being elitist by thinking one of the peons will clean it. Some may also think that the cleaning service will just do it and they don't have the time to change the toilet paper. I'm just saying that considering we have one minority here where I work and I see the same thing you are referring to, it seems to point to just the act of people who are pigs.

[puddycat]

10. I've some experience with these types

Example of how hypocritical they are: Their cars are neat--because they throw their cigarette butts in the street. These types have criticized my car (a mess) but to my credit I would never think of unloading my trash onto the street. I keep it in the car. If you don't like it you don't have to ride with me. But our "appearances are everything" society would probably give all the kudos to the trash throwing jerk with the neat car. And so it goes.

(this is no way implies that all people with neat cars toss their trash out the window!)

[Tyler Durden]

11. I think it's lazy AND elitist, but not necessarily racist.

Lazy is a given.

Elitists are by definition lazy when it comes to the "picking up their own socks" type of thing, but the modern racism at that level is more GREEN (as in MONEY) and EVERYONE ELSE.

Sure, racism still is rampant, but ELITISM is the new bigotry, practiced by the "landed aristocracy" on the rest of the "great unwashed."

[Wat_Tyler]

12. Yeah. We have a lot of that in our business.

It's more a class thing than race. Still as bad, though.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

16. I guess as I reply it is probably more of a class than racist issue but

it all falls into the same system of discrimination. And I'm again it.

[Wat_Tyler]

18. Exactly. Poor people are powerless regardless of colour or creed.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

23. Good point - EVERYBODY I TAKE BACK THE RACIST PART!!

Its a class issue and that is always doing the dance with racial and gender issues. But this is class pure and simple

[mr_hat]

14. Dunno. It couldn't be contempt exclusively for the custodians >

because his co-workers will have to wade through his trash for several hours first.

Some dogs just have to leave their mark -- like people who open their car doors and just dump their ashtrays.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

17. ***Tell you what- I'm going to clean it up right now!!***

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

27. Done!

[Maddy McCall]

22. Were these people raised in a fucking barn?

You are right. It isn't only telling of their attitudes, it is telling of their fucking lack of manners, which emanates from their upbringing. And you thought hillbillies only lived in the south! :-)

[Ready4Change]

25. Maybe they are recycling?

Most likely not, I agree. But, where I used to work, some people would tuck a section of their paper into the stall walls, and others who came in were free to read themselves during their time in there.

But these weren't just dropped on the floor. And other than the occassional massive clogging wad of TP, flushing and, shall I say, aim, was pretty good in there.

[Wat_Tyler]

30. I got yelled at by a woman for leaving that day's paper on the bus seat.

I figured someone else might want to save 50 cents and read it for free.

[Fenris]

40. Damn you, Captain Planet!

:)

[UdoKier]

26. Littering in general has gotten MUCH worse in the lat decade.

It used to be you'd see a cigarette butt here and there, once and a while s bottle or whatever, but I am astounded at how bad littering has become lately. I would feel guilty for throwing big pieces of trash out the car window, but appernetly more and more people couldn't care less. Honestly, I think it's because we're not really teaching young people to not litter.

My 6-year-old attends Saturday Japanese classes at AP Giannini Middle school here in SF, and it it disgusting - trash EVERYWHERE. I was in Jr. High little more than 20 years ago, but we did NOT have this kind of litter problem, and the school I went to was no different socioeconomically than Gianinni.

The solution, of course, is to have the students THEMSELVES periodically clean up the campus, in lieu of an assembly, take an hour to have them scour the campus for garbage. If they know THEY are going to have to clean it up, they will be that much less likely to make a mess.

As for your co-worker, I doubt there is any raciscm going on per se. Just laziness and arrogance.

[WilliamPitt]

28. I used to leave the paper in the men's room for the next guy

I was always psyched when someone elft me the newspaper in the john - I am a hopeless bathroom reader. So I would do the same. I wouldn't leave it all spread around everywhere, but folded neatly and to the side.

Was that wrong?

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

31. Leaving it and scattering it over the floor into other threads or throwing

printouts on the ground are very different

So no

[Mel]

35. No it wasn't

wrong on your part as someone who cleaned I got your intent of pass it on.
It was the thrown all over the floor computer print outs newspapers magazines and not the ones that are folded neatly to the side or stacked on the back of the toilet.

BTW did you flush? if not your in trouble ;)

[Donkeyboy75]

29. Actually, that guy is doing me a favor.

I find newspaper is an excellent substitute for toilet paper.

:hurts:

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

32. It don't go down the turlit too well tho

[terrya]

33. Same thing here. Newspapers strewn on the floor...

When I go to the men's bathroom on the 2nd floor of the small University where I work, same thing. Newspapers all over the floor in the stall...and a fucking wastebasket standing RIGHT BY the stall. You'd have to be blind (or a fuckwit) to not see it there.

The janitorial staff here is made up of Latino people. Apparently, this bullshit "the help will get it" crap is alive and well at the liberal arts university.

[Mel]

34. that's my sweet ChavezSpeakstheTruth

as someone who use to work as a 'housekeeper' for a fortune 500 company, by the way I'm mixed but look white can tell you that lots of people do this and Yes it does piss off the help! Most of the office workers looked down their noses at 'the help' I just left their papers in the stalls and another jerk would not flush his poop every single damn day same stall after this went on for months I said NO MORE and stopped cleaning it. Guess what they figured out to flush that poop! Assholes! Just because I clean up after you doesn't mean I can't be just as big an asshole as you can was my bad attitude! :grr:
I figured the ones doing right would get on the ones doing wrong. What those people don't flush the toilet in their homes? Yea, right! They where behaving badly because they thought they could get away with it!

I will say this much when I was in the building cleaning up after the teachers and children the Teachers (thank you very much) where just fine and nice as all get out they got top notch cleaning and treatment! Why because they where kind and did not look down their noses at me and I would bend over backward for them. They even got fresh flowers in their vases why because they where kind to me and did not try to make me feel like less.

As an employee of that so called fortune 500 company I was treated like shit compared to the white collar workers!

ChavezSpeakstheTruth, I think it's more of a class thing because I was treated just as shitty as the Black workers where. Thing is cleaning toilets isn't the only thing I could do and that's what a lot of the dumb asses that looked down their noses didn't have the good sense to realize.
That was the most miserable place I ever worked and if I had to do it again I would not do it, it wasn't worth it! I wouldn't wish that job on my worst enemy it was a job that was bad bad bad for my spirit!
You know it's bad enough having to do a job you hate but when the people your doing it for treat you like less it's to much for a person to sometimes take.

Your right to be pissed ChavezSpeakstheTruth it does speak volumes to the people who clean up what is thought of them! I'm sure your not expecting flowers in your vase either ;) because if I was them you would be getting the minimum of a cleaning. It's a matter of getting what you put out and your co-workers aren't so smart in my eyes.
I imagine you already do and don't need me to tell you this but if you see the janitorial workers speak and be nice to them they will do you right and know your not one of the butt heads!

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

45. I was in there picking up the newspapers when the janitors came in.

I said "What's up - how's it goin'" They said "great thanks" - a little pat on the shoulder and back to the cube.

I think we are judged by the little things and if I do some good its only cause the good from above is at my back - no credit to me.

Thanks for your words!

[mwdem]

36. You wouldn't believe what I witnessed at the last Chief's home game.

After the game & tailgating were over, everyone bags their trash & leaves it in the parking lot to be picked up. The assholes behind my group were sporting a huge republican flag over their site, had a nice white tent set up, with 4 suv's surrounding this. As we were packing up, one of them dumps their garbage into the lot! He had it in a garbage can & just threw it out all over the space! The Chiefs won that game, but that spoiled the rest of my day. Ugggghhh!!!

[BiggJawn]

38. It ain't just a white-collar thing.

The Ditto-monkey Tradesmen at my work do it, too.

Could be worse, they could be pissing and shitting on the floor like the barbarians at the grocery store.

I HATE using that shit-pit, but when you're old, you gotta go when youi gotta go....

[skygazer]

39. I agree with you and I'll tell you why

I see it more as elitism - I'm a white woman who works retail in a rich town. A grocery store. I'm quite used to people looking through me, treating me like I must be stupid, talking down to me or not talking to me at all, leaving their crap for me and my co-workers to clean up, etc.

I begin to understand why Ralph Ellison entitled his book, "The Invisible Man". To them, I am something other than human - I am the underclass. They feel they can be rude and arrogant towards me with no repercussions. I have no value nor any feelings. I am a minor annoyance and a temporary stop on their road to more important things and more important people.

Yes, they leave the restrooms a complete mess, knowing that one of the low lifes who works here will clean it up. I am quite certain that they would not do the same in their homes unless they have "help" they can count on to take care of it. They pick up a $40 piece of meat then decide when they're in the canned goods aisle that they don't want it so they put it on a shelf there where it rots. Utter waste - they could hand it to me at the cash register but they don't care. I've found ice cream in the spice rack and fresh produce in the freezer section. Oh, and they feed their kids lunch there - handing them apples or bananas or whatever and failing to pay for them. The peels and the cores either get left in the cart or go on the floor.

Don't get me going on these arrogant fucks.

[WoodrowFan]

41. I used to leave mine

behind for the next person to read, but I folded it back up neatly.

[kick-ass-bob]

42. If it isn't racism it is elitism.

At a minimum, "the help" is inferior to themselves, at its worst it is 'those brown people will clean it.'

I see it a lot - not really at my current job, but in general.

[Dzimbowicz]

43. America, where all people are supposedly equal,

is nothing more than a plutocratic, class-based society; and with bu$h, inc. in the White House, it will become only worse.

[Flaxbee]

44. Newpapers, etc., on the bathroom floor is a man-habit...

Littering in general has gotten much worse, but the public-crapper- reading-habit is practiced much more by men than women, and I think it grosses a lot of women out... I've worked at 4 big law firms in 5 different states and the librarians would pull their hair out b/c inevitably, several of the male partners would go to the library, take the firm's copies of the newspapers, go hunker down in the men's room to shit and read for a half hour or so, then leave the paper there for the other men. The librarians would then have no papers for those of us who don't linger in the toilet in the men's room and would have to find someone of the male gender if the librarian weren't male to go fetch the papers from the bathrooms. Like anyone else really wants to read them after that!

And my husband will often come out of a public restroom asking me if I'd seen such-and-such paper's headlines; it took me a while to figure out he wasn't just brining up the news after visiting the bathroom but he'd been scanning the papers while he was at the urinals. I have perhaps only twice in my life encountered newspapers or other reading material in public women's restrooms. Thus my conclusion that it's a man-habit (not related in any way to a mandate).

:shrug:

But... just general slovenliness is pretty universal. I don't know if it's racism so much as classism...