Being enlisted in the Marine Corps, I currently reside in the barracks. I was in the laundry room, transferring a load from the washer to the dryer, when I noticed that message written in permanent marker on the garbage car in the corner.
“NO PERSONAL USE”
WTF?!? What other possible way could anyone use a garbage can? Are corporations allowed to dump industrial waste here, provided it’s “business use” and not “personal?” Perhaps if I hire a proxy to handle the physical placement of the garbage? Or am I just not to get overly familiar with said can? Can anyone enlighten me?
Having served in the military (Air Force) ((I know, you jarheads don’t even think the AF should be described as "millitary)) I can tell you that said garbage can is there purely for appearances. Any attempt to use it for its intended purpose would transform it to a state that would fail any sudden inspection. So while the can is there, you are expected to remove the waste from the area on your person. Better yet, you might as well just eat it, because I doubt you will find a “real” garbage can within your compound.
This is the kind of thing I’d happily ignore. It’s a trash can; use it as such. No one’s going to write you up for it. And even if they did, you’ve got a great excuse. It’s a fucking trash can.
Well, admittedly, as a ROTC guy I have little understanding of the enlisted world. But for me, this is the same as using the government travel card for “personal” items/use/food while traveling on gov’t business. It may be personal, but since you’re on gov’t time, it’s not personal. As a professional, you’re cleaning your uniforms and such, and the only place to do it is in the gov’t-provided laundry facility. It’s a trash can and not a decoration, and I’d be totally comfortable standing up to anyone telling me otherwise. But I’m an O-3 (although that really shouldn’t make a difference).
I’m curious… when you say “asking for trouble,” Airman Doors, what kind of trouble are talking about?
The translation of “No Personal Use” is “Laundry Room Trash Only”. In other words, it’s not a dumpster for soda cans, shopping bags, McDonald’s wrappers, and other assorted stuff collected while cleaning up the barracks that can fill it up very quickly. It’s there for detergent boxes, bleach and starch bottles, lint from the traps, stuff like that. That help?
What kind of trouble? Well, if they see trash, they can search for contraband. If they find something out of the ordinary, you’re toast.
If they see trash, you get at least one demerit, if not two or three, just because.
And lastly, you get to stand before the man and hear the big lecture about how your trashcan is a fire hazard and how you’re jeopardizing everyone’s lives in the dorm.
Ask me how I know. Go ahead. I dare ya.
It’s easier just to take the trash out every day with you than to buck the well-established (and undoubtedly silly) rules in this case.
Ol Flyboy there is an excelent example of the disparity between the Officer and Enlisted classes. While all us enlisted, who have a far lager number of superiors, (from non-comms on up) fear the recriminations of potential mistakes, and therefore take the most cautious approach, the Officer here not only says, “No one’s gonna write you up for it, and even if they did you have an excuse.” and then goes on about missusing government credit cards without fear of recrimination.
Let me let flyboy in on a little secret. The military doesn’t treat Officers and Enlisted the same way. Pehaps if he would talk to some enlisted, and get his head outta the clouds, he would know this.
In my opinion, the ROTC officers were the worst of the lot, in that they seemed to have NO idea what being enlisted was like. The best Officers were those who had started out enlisted, and had a better idea of what life was like for us. And got a lot more respect from their troops.
particlewill, Former U.S.A.F. Buck Sergeant. (When there still was such a thing.)
That is exactly the reason why we had those signs on our barracks. Invariably, when we would have a barracks inspection, some schmuck would fail to take his/her trash out and just dump it in the laundry room. The entire floor would receive a gig on the inspection for this. :smack:
The uses of the gov’t credit card are not misuses. They’re totally valid uses of the card and are exactly the kinds of things the card was meant for, as a matter of fact. The point was that what may seem personal is, at times, not personal but professional.
I know the differences in treatment among O’s and E’s. However, coming from a Naval background, I’ve never heard of anything like this trashcan bit. And I’ve talked to plenty of E’s in every service. You may call it having my head in the clouds, but the way I see it, I’m not afraid to raise the bullshit flag when I see something silly like this.
You may bash ROTC officers, but here’s one O that wouldn’t write you up for putting something in that trashcan, and furthermore, if you were under my command, I’d defend you 'til I was blue in the face if you did put something in it.
And to be honest, I’ll much more respect the man with a healthy dose of common sense and balls who puts something in it (along the lines of what Wildcatz and Turbo Dog mention) rather than the man who sees the sign and doesn’t go near it.
Why would you respect the individual that causes the entire floor a problem due to his/her laziness? I don’t understand that. When we were advised of a barracks inspection, we all knew the deal. The entire area was to be standing tall and looking good. Because of one person’s failure to work with the team, we would all get gigged? This is a person that is brave? Sorry, but when I was in, this was known as buddy fucking to the nth degree.
flyboy: Incorrect about the credit cards. The use of the gov’t credit card is for expenses directly relating to official travel. Those birthday dinners for the wife and girlfriend (hey, if they share a birthday…?) aren’t permitted uses of the card.
What we used to do for room inspections was drop the floor sweepings into the mop bucket. Our trashcans were inspectable but the mop buckets were not. In fact, I took a hit (and failed a room inspection) because I had a liner in my trashcan.
I would think that “personal” items such as car rentals, laundering, food, and lodging “while traveling on gov’t business” would pretty much be the same thing as “expenses directly relating to official travel”. How did the birthday celebration get into this thread?
Two people eating in a restaurant are both fulfilling the “personal” experience of having a meal, but the guy who is 350 miles from home or base because of a travel requirement is not exactly doing it because he simply thought it would be fun to go out on the town.
Wildcatz I guess I wasn’t clear. When I said “along the lines of what [you] mention,” I meant using the trash can for laundry waste.
I thought your clarification of Turbo Dog’s post was an endorsement of it. Are you saying that because some people abused the trash can (so to speak) then everyone should keep away from it and not even put laundry waste in it? Then why have a trash can in there at all?
Monty, read my post again. I’m not wrong. (Thanks, tomndebb)
flyboy…the laundry trash is/was strictly for laundry trash. Perhaps you misunderstood what I was saying? I was talking about people that would not take out the trash in their barracks room, but would empty said ‘personal’ trash into laundry room trash can. Laundry trash is fine. To expect whoever has that duty assigned to take out your ‘personal’ trash is rude as well as buddy fucking. Particularly when the entire barracks is aware of an impending inspection. Does that clarify my stance?
When I was in Basic, we had three trash cans in the dorm. Only one of them was acceptable for use, because to use the other two would have made the dorm dirty by the terms laid down for inspection.
While at Keesler, we were issued a trash can for our rooms, and you didn’t dare use it, because it had to go out every single day and if you forgot you would be given a 12-hour, which is harsh punishment for just neglecting a trash bin.
We also had one for the laundry room, and people decided it would be easier to use that one for personal trash. I was, of course, tasked with preventing that. The problem is that 200 people tried to use it and it got to be absurd when the people cleaning the laundry room had to take three trips to get it all.
So I understand about the laundry room can. I didn’t read that deep into the OP. Still, it should be easy to recognize how absurd these situations are. If the military weren’t so crazy about stuff like that we might be able to come up with some reasonable accomodations, instead of giving more fodder to people who think that military people are nuts.
And as far as the Travel Card is concerned, the rules are fairly well explained. They build a little bit if leeway into it for some things. They just don’t want it to be abused. And the fact is, you have to pay the bill and then turn it in for reimbursement, where they can deny specific expenditures if they’re out of the regs for normal use. So if flyboy uses it in an appropriate manner and has never gotten in any trouble for his usage, then there should be no problems. In this case, Monty, I think you overreacted. A simple clarification instead of a jibe would have been good enough.
you infer I’m talking about people dumping all their personal trash from wherever into the laundry trash can in order to avoid extra hassle from an impending inspection. I tried to point out in that para that I meant, as per what you and Turbo Dog said, that I was talking about laundry trash. I’m curious as to how you thought otherwise. But if I was really unclear, I apologize.
