The Blue Bin

I had a trash bin at my cube in my office in New York. It was blue. My cube mate had one as well; his was black. Both bins were placed alongside our cubicle cabinets in the hallway.

Growing up in California, I am a conscious recycler. As such, I only placed paper in my blue bin and threw my trash in the black bin next to my cube mate’s desk.  This went on for almost 2 months until one day I got up to make a copy and walking by my cube mate’s black bin, casually threw some pieces of trash into it.

Walking back, my cube mate, stared at me in horror “It was you!!!!!”  Utterly confused, I asked him to explain why he was upset. Unbeknownst to me, for the past 2 months he had been getting angrier and angrier because someone was using his trash bin. He had been weighing suspects and was trying to concoct all types of schemes to catch the inconsiderate culprit. Considering we had since become friends, he was surprised that it had been me the whole time.

“But blue bins are for recycling. Mine is blue and yours is black” – I said in a matter of fact tone as more and more colleagues who had known about the trash mystery began to circle around.

To this everyone burst out laughing. “We don’t recycle here – this isn’t California.” Lesson learned – but even now I still have trouble throwing trash in a blue bin.