Extreme Gunning*

*For full definition, click here

For about eight years I have had a blue bin that is emptied fortnightly. When I started, the company was called Dimac Bins, but then some clever management sort probably said, "Hey, I've got a cool idea. Lets do absolutely nothing differently than we always have, but change our name to EnviroWaste. It will make us sound cooler and greener." And so they became EnviroWaste.

Then every January we started a little ritual. I would pay 12 months in advance for 26 empties of the bin, fortnightly. I would then ring and say, "I can't remember which week is my week, could you please send me the sticker to go on my bin that gives me all the dates for the year." Then the lady would helpfully say something like, "It's really easy, its every second week." I would then explain that we are not all as lucky as her to be fully immersed in the world of bins and we mere mortals often stupidly quite forget whether the bin was emptied last week or the week before. She would then reluctantly agree to post out the sticker.

I generally would then say how helpful it would be if they would just post out the sticker with the invoice or receipt. She would then say that nobody really wants them. I would say how hard I found that to believe and ask why they printed them if nobody but me wanted them, and we would bid farewell until another year had passed. So this year when the familiar envelope arrived in the post I had no reason to suspect anything would be different. But, alas, it was. That clever management sort had come up with a great new idea.

It went something like this. "Hey, I've got another great idea. Instead of letting people pay 12 months in advance and having all that lovely money in our bank account instead of theirs, lets insist they pay monthly - but only by direct debit. Send them all a form, they'll love it!"

Now, I have never actually seen Dirty Dancing, but I'm familiar with the quote, and I have a similar one myself - Nobody Accesses My Bank Account But Me. So I rang the lady, and asked if they were still happy for me to pay the year ahead as usual, because I wasn't interested in direct debits. I pointed out the advantage of taking a vast amount of money in advance, but she explained that my money in that form just would not be good enough for their company. She very helpfully told when my last bin empty would be, and I didn't even attempt the sticker conversation. Luckily that last date, February 12, has been seared in my brain. So today I did some extreme gunning. For the last time, I have filled that blue bin and bounced and bounced and bounced. I have managed to get in the equivalent of the domestic waste of a small country, plus a tree. I'll miss my bin and the cheery chap who has collected it on the fortnights I remembered to put it out. I won't miss that lady in the office.