I don’t normally consider my colorblindness a handicap, because there are far more serious disabilities, but from time to time it really gets to me that I can’t tell when meat is done, or what color a highlighter is.

One recent incident that really got on my nerves was at a dinner for an SFSU orientation. When we signed in, they gave us survey cards to fill out. Since there were so many people, they had to split the dinner service between two floors, and guess how we were supposed to tell which floor we got to eat on? That’s right, the color of our survey cards. Problem was, the cards were fluorescent pink and purple: two of the colors I can’t easily distinguish. So, I was left with a choice between potentially showing up at the wrong dinner line, and asking a complete stranger what color my card was. I went with the latter because I thought it would be less embarassing.

Again, I know that this isn’t that serious of a disability, but it is really frustrating sometimes. One of the worst things is color-coded topographical features. Like this map of France, which supposedly shows a geographical feature called the ‘Massif Central.’ Not like I could ever tell.

(Keep in mind that I have the most difficulty with orange, red, green, and yellow, because I see them all as the same color: your yellow)

It’s true that it isn’t colorblindness per se, rather a color deficiency in the warm end of the spectrum, so I can usually tell what is going on if I look hard enough, but for some reason, neon colors are near impossible. This means that for all these color-keyed things, like maps and diagrams, I usually have to resign myself to not getting it.

I just wish people could be a little more sensitive to my kind. I feel bad comparing colorblindness to a real disability, but there are surely more of us than, let’s say, wheelchair bound people, and they seem to get accommodated at great expense. All it would take for us is using different colors for color coding. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of them.

I have been meaning to write about this for a while, but am just now getting around to it.

At my work, I used to have two trash cans. One of them was the big blue one with the triangle of arrows that I am sure you have seen, and it was for recycling, while the other one was just a plain black bin, and it was for all other garbage.

Only after separating my trash faithfully like a good little recycler for three months did I find out that the janitor had been instructed to throw both bins into the garbage.

I was pissed! I mean I was even pulling the staples out of paper to go in that bin! Hell, I even meticulously removed the little plastic windows from of envelopes before tossing them in. Come to find out that all my recycling had been in vain. What a joke.

Anyway, the firm decided at some point that it was going to institute a real recycling policy, and so they made this big huzzah about how we were going to get new bins, and so that offered at least some consolation. Until I saw the bins…

They took away my blue bin (don’t even ask me why I had it in my office in the first place if there was no recycling policy in effect), leaving the black bin, which would be now relegated to recycling, and got us this stupid little hang on bin that is supposed to be for non-recyclable trash:

One problem is that the black can is actually smaller than the original blue bin, and seeing as most of my job consists of pushing paper, it fills up way too fast. Not to mention, the hang on bin is, as you can see, absurdly small.

It basically only holds a grande size Starbucks drink, so if I want to fit anything else in there, I have to crush all my trash. I usually cook my lunch on paper plates, so I have to fold them in half and then arrange all the small bits in the space between them. It ends up looking like a sidways garbage taco. (I would like to recycle the plates, but they refuse to take anything that has even touched food.)

And, finally, if you put anything heavy in it, has a tendency to tip over, which is a huge pain in the ass if there is anything liquid in it.

I really just don’t understand why the janitor can’t cope with two cans.

This whole affair would have been a nice aside in the movie Office Space.