Please Recycle The Law

California, Cleaning Company, Employees, Law Firm, Lazy/Unhelpful, Non-Dialogue, USA | Working | February 8, 2019

It was the mid-1990s and our law office was transitioning from research in books to computer research. With law books now available on CDs, we could free up our office library for useful office space. We went through a room full of books and decided which few books the attorneys wanted to keep and identified the remainder to be recycled. After ascertaining that there were no schools or anyone else who wanted them, we stacked them in a corner and asked the cleaning crew to remove them with the other paper recycling. We understood that it was a big job, which we didn’t expect them to accomplish in one night, but we thought if they would take even just a few books out with them each night, we would eventually have the office space free.

After the first night or two, a few books disappeared, but the rest of the large pile remained there day after day, in spite of the “recycle” tag that reminded the cleaning crew to remove them. After a couple of weeks had gone by and the large pile of books was still there, I added a second note alongside the “recycle” sign. It read, “Please remove these books or we’ll make you read them.” Every book was gone the next morning.

This story is part of our Recycling roundup!