Before Christmas average Americans would put some small gifts near the mailbox which is installed on their front door for mailmen to pick them up.  Usually the gifts are chocolates, scarfs, trinkets etc., and sometime an envelope containing some money tips, as a token of appreciation for the year-round services rendered by the mailmen.  I know it’s a local custom, so-called Christmas box, a good custom full of unspoken warmth and heartfelt thanks.   Is the same practice applied to garbage collectors?  I think so, but with a little difference.

Recently I hired several workers to chop down five trees in my back yard.  I had to do this because the trees had grown so large that their roots might sprawl out to endanger the foundation of my house, and their branches so stretched out that had already damaged the roof of my garage.  The workers managed to have the logs moved away, but left piles of branches and twigs in the front yard to be taken care of.  If they wanted to retain a truck to do the job, it wouldn’t be economical.   If they intended to let city garbage collectors take them away, no problem, but they had to further cut the branches and twigs into smaller pieces, and contained the pieces in black plastic bag, three or four bags a time at most.  That would be an onerous, time-consuming task for them to do, and that definitely wouldn’t be economical also.

Last Friday early in the morning, I was woken by the sound of a heavy truck and noises of people’s voices.  Peeping through blinds, I saw the city sanitation truck was parking at the curbside, and the two garbage collectors and three of my workers were busy throwing armfuls of the branches into the truck.  I thought the workers had successfully talked the collectors into helping dispose the garbage.  Suddenly I saw a matronly lady of the neighborhood walking towards the collectors and gave one of them a decorous kiss and two bills of twenty dollars.  That inspired me, and I put my coat on and rushed out to meet the collectors.  I told them I am the owner of the house and a new comer, and appreciating their helping me out.  In a “handshake” I gave them the same gift as that lady did.  “Any time” was their reply.  When finally the cleared up the piles, one of the soaking wet workers told me that he already gave the collectors $40 earlier and that was why they were willing to do the extra work.  It was okay for me to do as the Romans do, but it was a big saving for the workers.  Is it appropriate for civil servants to accept gifts like that?  I think the act involving no major principle, not to matter much; and everybody is happy, that really matters. 

P.S. You know what?   Normally when chopping down a large, tall tree, it takes a specialized crane to lift up a person, safeguarded in a solid box, to prune off branches first, then saw the trunk off, piece by piece, with a heavy-duty electric circular saw.  To remove the stump off, you have to use a sophisticated machine to grind it into dust-like pieces.  The whole process of cutting a tree down doesn’t take much time but cost dearly.  The workers I hired are from Mainland China, and instead of using a crane, they chopped down all of five trees all the way manually.  Of course they had to use electric saw, but they all climbed up to the trees, tied with ropes in the body as their only protection, to get the main jobs done.  The only job beating them was to grind the stump, and they had to rent that kind of machine to finish the work.  I paid them nearly the labor cost only; they paid much longer time and efforts, and earn nearly the labor pay.  Can you imagine how large the output would be if all of 1.3 billion Chinese are working so diligently, not to mention intelligently, like those guys?