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October 1, 2005
I Am A Gentleman
At our last house, on Ashland Avenue in Saint Paul, we inherited our garbage collection person from the previous owner. As far as I knew, we were his only clients on the block. He did not always make it to our cans on Friday, sometimes they would be emptied on Saturday instead. He was locquacious and would bend your ear over just about anything. We liked that we could leave anything out there and he would take it. When I freecycled things, he would ask if he could take them or if I was getting rid of them. He offered to swing by later to check and see if they were gone and take them if they weren't.
I do not know if his prices were competitive; he gave the first two months free as is customary in Saint Paul. The fact that he was an independent in a sea of Waste Management's and BFI's and he had collected garbage from the house for 40 years were the main reasons we stuck with him.
We did not receive a bill from Tom for several months. He usually billed quarterly, and so it was easy to miss. When I checked our records to give him a check, it turned out that he had not billed us in six quarters or a year and a half, half the time we had lived there. I began running out after him on Fridays to ask him to mail an invoice. BFI and Waste Management would have gone under with this kind of collection. Eventually, I estimated the cost of six quarters of service based on the six quarters we had had previously and mailed him a check. I Included our forwarding address in case we had shorted him. Next time I saw him, I told him what I had done.
We have been here a month, and I got the note at right. My estimate was short by $1.01. I am thinking about sending him a check to cover it even though he says "we owe each other nothing."
Posted by Underblog at October 1, 2005 9:02 AM
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Comments
You ARE! If you send him a check, you might add 15% tip. Good Karma, or you might simply send him a courteous note instead explaining that the 1.01$ was your accounting/billing service charge, which is fair, in world full of creeps.
Posted by: heather at October 1, 2005 11:03 AM
I have found a canister of sprinkles often works well in Lou of $1.01.
Posted by: GB at October 3, 2005 11:19 AM
You can't beat that kind of service. I agree with heather. Send him the money and a tip. For all it sounds like he was a good guy, he probably hasn't billed lots of other folks and could use the extra money to continue his good works.
Posted by: NGS at October 3, 2005 11:42 AM
Hey! Send us his information; we could use a smiling garbage collector. Wow.
Posted by: neighbor deb at October 3, 2005 8:41 PM
yeh send me the info too - i have to run it by my roommate though :-(
Posted by: Jonneke at October 6, 2005 8:30 PM