How does Goodwill “put people to work” anyway?
That is, in a manner differently than any other employer out there. Otherwise I suppose I could see signs for “McDonald’s: We Put People to Work!”
Who’s that a Brit in a Camaro?
According to their website, it’s via education, language lessons, training, and trying to find jobs for people who have had problems getting hired (I assume for past addiction problems, a criminal history, etc.).
Link.
Now that’s a good idea. goes home to unplug refrigerator
A lot of times, it’s “community service” people. You know, people who have to do community service as part of their sentence for a crime?
This worked for a family I know whose freezer got unplugged by accident and went very, very bad. It was a little easier to throw away the whole freezer and all when the meat was frozen and less odorous. I’m fairly sure there is no way to save the freezer once things have reached the point of putrefying.
I’m sure you didn’t mean it the way I took it, so I’ll try to remain civil, but this is a pet peeve of mine.
When I was dirt poor I constantly had to battle assumptions that I was a drug-user, alcoholic, or criminal when all I needed was a job. People wouldn’t hire me because I had little work history, being in my early 20’s, and apparently the jobs I had managed to get were jobs that didn’t impress anyone (admittedly, “dog-washer” is not sexy). I would go to soup kitchens or food pantries and folks there were constantly after me with “Do you need counseling? Do you need directions to an AA meeting?” NO, I NEED A JOB - DO YOU KNOW ANYONE HIRING? was met by baffled looks, as if they were startled that the solution to my problems could be that easy. (It was)
Most of the people I knew in the same boat - including people working for Goodwill - were the same. All it take to be homeless is to have your house burn down, or hit by a tornado, or wiped out in a hurricane. These things happen every day to ordinary, honest, sober people who then have to endure the jacked-up “welfare” system while they’re trying to rebuild their lives. All it takes to plunge an entire family into poverty is for the main breadwinner to die or become too disabled to work. All it takes to financially ruin a middle-class American is medical bills from a bout with cancer or a severe accident.
People are poor for a LOT of reasons beyond just addiction and criminal pasts. It’s a real kick in the face when you’re down and out and people just assume you’re there because you somehow did something wrong and you somehow deserve it. Or they offer you everything but what you NEED - a job with a living wage.
So please, do NOT assume that because someone is working at Goodwill they are automatically a junkie or crook. Thank you very much. I am getting off my soapbox now.
OK, now in answer to the OP, as I actually have some experience in this matter (in fact, from the time I was poor as dirt). I had a neighbor wind up in the hospital for nine months (remember my prior post mentioning medical bills driving people into poverty?) and another neighbor, to be “helpful”, unplugged it to save on the electric bill but, being a bit of a goof, it didn’t occur to him that he should EMPTY it first. Yes, I actually cleaned the thing up because my friend couldn’t afford to lose even the few dollars on her security deposit for the piece of crap apartment.
You have two choices:
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Dispose of the entire mess via the local dump or whoever will take it off your hands. This is the easy way.
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If you wish to clean it here’s what you do. Go to a hardware store and buy one of those “respirator” half-masks. You want organic vapor filter cartridges on it. You will need to wear it properly, that is, tight, so you get an actual seal between the mask and your face. No, it’s not particularly comfortable but neither is puking. Wear rubber gloves - to the elbow is ideal. Wear old crappy clothes you don’t care about and would be able to throw away if they get splashed (being at a Goodwill I presume you have access to a wide selection of such). Scrape, shovel, bail out the mess into heavy-duty garbage bags - “contractor” grade would be good. Clean out the now-empty appliance with FULL STRENGTH BLEACH. Let dry in full sunlight. If a later sniff-check reveals lingering odors repeat the bleach treatment.
Admittedly, when I opened the Gates of Hell my eyes started watering from the fumes, but I was able to breathe. And it won’t work if rotting fluids have seeped into cracks and insulation. But at least some of the time you can salvage these things. Whether you want to bother is up to you. It’s an unpleasent job and it can take hours.
Would I attempt another such cleaning? Um… quite likely. But then, I also eat dinner while watching Mike Rowe clean sewers on Dirty Jobs while my husband runs out of the room screaming. Can’t say I’d enjoy it, but I can get it done if sufficiently motivated.
No, I didn’t mean it that way, and I’m sorry I did such a poor job of typing. Combine rushing early in the morning with lately typing shorter posts due to a broken wrist and I write stupid stuff. I was trying to say that it seemed like Goodwill went beyond the usual “we put people to work = you can apply for a job with our company” method of employing your average job seeker. In fact when I was typing I did leave out a comment about homeless people being one category that might be harder for people in it to get jobs and I know it’s too pitifully easy to become homeless through no real fault of one’s own.
My usual assumption about Goodwill workers has been “people interested in helping those who need some extra assistance at the moment”; I didn’t realize until the cluttering thread and trying to find info on local Goodwill pickup spots that they had job training and the like.
Just to be clear because it seems people are misunderstanding:
I do not work for Goodwill. My friend’s husband works for Goodwill.
Was it this guy’s freezer?
Broomstick, in case mine was a post you took exception to, I know for a fact that a lot of the people actually working in the store here doing the sorting and pricing are “community service” people, because a) an employee told me so when I questioned the pricing of something that was priced at $4 when it had the store tags for $40 still on it, and b) I heard one of the employees talking to someone about how many hours she had to do, and how it all worked in terms of scheduling, etc. I wasn’t implying that *anyone * who worked there had to be a criminal or a druggy.
As I said, I didn’t really think anyone intended to be offensive, but on the other hand I didn’t want unconscious bias creeping in, either. Yes, certainly, they do help people with criminal history find jobs and that is a valuable service, but that’s far from all they do.
Admittedly, I’m a bit hypersensitive now because, after two decades of steady and solidly middle-class employment and lifestyle I am now jobless again. My situation is MUCH different this time, but nonetheless I have occasional fears of becoming one of those homeless ladies pushing a grocery cart full of belongings around a bad neighborhood. Rationally, I doubt that will happen but poverty sucks and I don’t want to ever go back to eating in soup kitchens.
You bury the junk in the freezer and then you call local garbage pickup to dispose of the freezer. There is no way to salvage the freezer. You cannot get the smell out of the plastic.
You need about a hole at least three foot deep. Breathing apparatus is good, but Vicks Vaporub under the nose is good as well.
I guess not everyone was as intimately involved with disposing of freezer remains post-Katrina as I was. 