Plastic Straws

 It has come to my attention that so many things are triggering me to say, "I feel a blog coming on." lately. I don't normally have that much free time on hand. You would think I have enough to do getting all this stuff loaded and ready to roll.

Problem today is that I have a very small range of motion with my right shoulder, further annoyed by the fact that early yesterday I whacked it pretty good on a shelf letting the dogs out, then reaching way out to grab the screen door before it hit Eddie as he ambled out at a snail's pace. I had totally forgotten about it. It hurt when it happened, but I was intent on the tasks at hand and ignored it.

So, this morning when HeWho announced his impending trip to McDonalds for sustenance, I requested a PLAIN muffin with sausage. NO CHEESE. I shun condiments and like my food without much embellishment. He arrived home with my request, just as I had asked. My problem, you might be wondering? It was the straw.

I did not request anything to drink and did not get anything to drink. So, why did they include a straw? Many places are using paper straws nowadays, thoughtful of the waste piling up on our planet and the fact that plastic is the biggest contributor. Hey, I watch the news and am aware of current events. I also hate waste.

In each and every bag that comes from fast food, McDonalds being the absolute worst for this, there are straws. No matter if a drink is included or not. HeWho suggested that during busy times that someone may be putting napkins and straws into bags ahead of time to save time. Oh, condiments, as well. Which condiments would you put automatically? How would you know which food item would be in the order until the order is placed? So, HeWho is full of answers, admits that maybe they don't put condiments, but just straws and napkins. Not satisfied with his answer, I asked how many straws should be placed in each bag and how many napkins. You won't know the size of the order until the order is placed. If you put two straws in each bag and have an order with four drinks, or one drink, you will have shorted one order and given away too much on the other order. Napkins have no count and seem to be a "handful". My napkin holder is stuffed with fast food napkins and we don't normally get fast food that often.

You might recall that I love numbers and my mind is always busy calculating how much something is or should be and how much less it would be if there wasn't so much waste and theft. You better believe that this is factored into the selling price of all goods, especially in big corporations, such as McDonalds and Walmart. So, if you employ as many individuals as they do for minimum wage, they have no incentive to cut back on waste. For what they get paid, they just don't care.

Occasionally some rare individual such as myself, will question such things. If you happen to work with me or for me I will wax eloquent about the need to pay more attention to waste and to do a good job, no matter the wage. Sounds too simple, doesn't it. 

The vast majority of people are just interested in what might be in it for them. This is why glass soda bottles could be sold back to stores when I was a child. I am thrifty, frugal, cheap and always have been. I started picking up bottles when I was 8. I would gather them until I could fill my mother's car trunk and then she would take me to the store that would purchase them back for 3 cents each and that would be my spending money for whatever I wanted. I wanted to hoard it!! But that was enough incentive for some people to do the right thing and not just throw bottles away.

Still happening today with aluminum cans and plastic, if you are lucky enough to find a place to redeem it. Bigger municipalities offer separate receptacles for the same, you just don't receive monetary incentive, just the smugness of being one of the people on your block who care about the planet.

But, if you employ people and do not offer them an incentive to find ways to stop the waste, they don't care. When we had our business repairing pagers, and replacing the housing to make them look new, we had to have labels to put on the new housing. This required thermal printers. Three of them for different label types. The equipment was expensive and the labels were, as well. When my guys would reload labels, they would hold down the forward button until the label "set". One day I asked my guy in charge of all my other guys if this was necessary, because it wasted about 10 labels. He explained that it could be done manually and didn't take that much time, but HeWho fancied himself to be THE boss had told him the labels didn't cost that much and it didn't matter.

So, me being myself, ascertained the exact cost of each label which was a few cents. You know, just pennies, and don't we all know pennies don't count. I determined how many people made labels each day and using a low factor of three labels each came up with a number and multiplied it by 3 cents, then multiplied it by five days and then by 52 for an annual cost and it came close to $500. Not much, but I was not to be deterred. I had a meeting with my guys in the repair shop about once a month to air any issues. I listened to them, they listened to me. I would usually show up with a bag a Hershey's kisses and toss them to the ones who had earned my praise. Not much incentive, but I cooked their lunch once a week and knew their individual likes and dislikes. I was known to dole out medicine if they got sick. I was not just the boss, more like a den mother for a bunch of scouts long past the age of being one.

The meeting took place where I broke down the cost of waste. Labels, dropped crystals and other parts on the floor, and the number one waste in this country ..... time. I like to pay people well for their efforts, on the other hand I do not like to pay for those not productive. When I came up with the dollar amount of waste, they were astounded. Then I asked who, among them would like a raise. Of course they all did and I threw that dollar amount back at them and told them it was there, to go get it. It worked.

It worked so well that one fine day, HeWho fancied himself to be in charge, was loading a printer and I was just getting up to go admonish him, when I heard my guy, Thom, say to him, "Dude, that is not the way Kathy wants it done." HeWho informed my guy that he owned the machine and would do what he wanted. This was before he turned to see me watching him. I said, "Thom, tell the big guy here how much money he is wasting." Thom reeled off the numbers and HeWho stopped and let Thom make the label for him, after he re-wound all those labels that would have ended up on the floor.

Incentives are out there, but you have to implement them. Perhaps I could share my reasoning with management. Never mind, I am retired and I will take all my hard earned wisdom with me.