Avoid saying good morning, and getting sued.

Have you noticed that everyone is trying to avoid being sued? Our garbage man comes every Friday morning around 7AM. This just so happens to be the same time that I leave to drop my son off at daycare. The city we live in has a rule where you must leave your garbage and recycling next to the house instead of at the end of the driveway. Trying to be nice, I often will bring the containers of waste and recycling down to the garbage man so he doesn't have to run up our driveway. I'm just trying to be a good neighbor, but apparently this is against the rules. Why?

As it turns out, having me bring my containers down my driveway presents a "massive liability" for Waste Management. That's a direct quote. The garbage man said that while he liked the helped, he'd need me to not touch anything until he ran up the driveway, grabbed the cans, emptied them and tossed then back up the driveway. I took some offense to the statement, but then realized that we're living in an environment where everyone is trying to sue everyone else.

I'm sure some jackass sued a garbage company for ten zillion dollars and now management has a rule that says "a customer can't touch their containers until it's emptied by a company employee and replaced empty on the customer's property." Or something along that line.

I now watch the garbage man from a safe distance so as he does not feel that I'm even thinking about trying to help. This way we have little chance of saying good morning or suing one another.