Bin Man Rhod Gilbert's Work Experience

Loads of people tell me I've got the toughest job in town.

There's the name in lights. That's me, stand-up comedian Rhod Gilbert.

I've done this venue before, but it terrifies me every time.

In about two hours, there's going to be just shy of 4,000 people in here.

Al-fresco dining in Cardiff!

There's waiters with frosted eyebrows fighting their way to the tables.

"Spaghetti carbonara?!

"Spaghetti carbonara?! I'll get another one!"

'But I reckon I'd find a proper job much harder.

'Now I'm going to find out if I'm right.'

So for three days I've got to be a binman.

Poorly paid, stinking, filthy, smelly, unappreciated job.

Great(!)

'This is day one of being a binman.'

It starts a little bit earlier than I'm used to.

That's more like what I'm used to.

I usually go to bed about three, four in the morning.

I haven't got up this early for about four or five years, since I had a proper job.

Oh, God!

I put those bins out, and that was hell.

'I couldn't wait to get stuck in and rush down to bin HQ just outside Cardiff to meet my new boss Tony,

'or Lord of the Bins, as I'd later call him.'

-I'm very, very excited(!)

-Rhod.

-Hiya.

-Tony.

-Hello, mate.

-Good afternoon, mate. It's quarter past ten, and what time did we say?

-Am I late, am I?

-Yeah, you're very late.

-Am I?

-I won't give you a bollocking in front of these people. I'll do it in the office, OK?

-OK.

You've ballsed everything up, if I'm honest.

It's not very good, coming in very late. You've put everything behind.

You've got to be inducted properly before you go on any vehicle. Are you physically fit?

I don't look that unfit, but I'm unbelievably unfit.

-I'll get you fit by the end of the week, then, because the refuse is a good job.

-How hard can it be?!

We've had boys that are super-fit, rugby captains, everything.

-They're walking five to ten miles and lifting 20-ton... Do you know what I mean?

-Of crap?

-Of crap.

-A couple of days, they don't want to be doing it. It is a hard job.

-Oh, God.

This is going to be a disaster.

'After Tony's motivational speech, I was even keener to get started(!)

'But I had to see Paul and Elsbeth from Health and Safety first.

'Before I could earn my bin wings, I needed to know the potential dangers ahead.

'It was the stuff of James Bond.'

'..on the back of a full compactor without checking with your supervisor.'

-Oh!

-'Now look what's happened!'

-Look at that!

Ribena everywhere! The street's ruined!

'The other lad won't be getting a bonus today.'

'Next stop, Next for binmen.'

Getting my protective clothing. Things to stop glass going in my legs and big protective boots.

All they're going to have left is a pair of flip-flops and a bikini, you watch.

'Binmen often come home with broken glass, hypodermic needles

'and rats sticking out of them, and have to walk miles every day.

'So there's no point dressing like Beyonce.'

-Can you bring an air freshener out with you as well?

-What do you do with the air freshener?

-Is this one of the induction ceremonies? Do I have to bend over?!

-TONY LAUGHS

You know you're in trouble when a binman's sprayed aerosol in your trainers.

'And now, the really fun bit - lifting a bag.'

What we're looking at with manual handling is working with your body moving in a natural way.

-Don't want to put all the strain onto your back like you were stooping.

-Yeah, not like that.

You don't want to put all the strain onto your knees, so you wouldn't squat down to pick something up,

-because you've got to get back up again.

-Right.

So you just want gentle bending of the whole body.

So you're coming into the bags, one in each hand, and off.

Let me have a go, and you judge me.

-Certainly.

-Relax the legs, relax the hips, relax the back.

Fluid movement. Don't stop.

Something like that?

But you just want to have a bit more natural movement than that, don't you?

That's what we're looking at.

Nice relaxed knees, hips back.

-I was perhaps a little bit too conscious of what I'm doing.

-Yes.

-Oh...

-That's it, perfect.

-Perfect?

And again.

-That's it. Avoid any twisting.

-Ten?

Ten for that.

'But it's not all laughs on the bins. There are dangerous downsides.'

I can see fingers, legs and other stuff just getting caught in this.

It gets past there...

Jesus! Lucky I had my high-vis jacket on there.

-Lucky I had my tabard. That could have injured somebody, that.

-That don't take no prisoners.

It's like David Attenborough. You know when he gets close

to a whale and it's that awesome, "Whoa, look at the awesome power and majesty of that beast"?

That's what it's like being next to this bin lorry.

And Paul, obviously.

Pretty nervous about the whole thing, really.

If I start at 6.30, I'll be looking for a way out by 7.00.

It's like doing the Nike 10K run, only every ten yards,

somebody throws a bucket of vomit in your face.

'The streets of Barry are almost vertical.

'Worried about my fitness, Lord of the Bins Tony made me walk some of the route ahead of the big day.'

-What if I don't make it?

-You won't be doing Wednesday.

Walking up to those bags is the most exercise I've done in probably three or four years.

My calves are genuinely hurting. How many miles am I going to have to do on Wednesday?

-About eight, nine miles.

-Eight, nine miles of this!

THEY LAUGH

Well, it's as hard as it looks.

You know when you get to the top of Snowdon, there's a cafe for a cup of tea and a bit of cake?

-Is that going to be waiting for me when I finish on Wednesday?

-Not exactly.

'Not exactly, no. I'd end up here, at the waste transfer site.

'I haven't seen a cafe this bad since my uncle opened a tea room during his divorce proceedings.'

You can't even smell that, can you?

-You can't smell that thing.

-No!

-Can I just ask you, can you smell that?

-Not at all.

'And I hadn't smelt this much rubbish since I was shown round the BBC Wales archives.'

-It doesn't even smell.

-Come on, it DOES smell!

You're loading nearly double that, Rhod, on Wednesday.

I think it's pretty amazing I'm going to shift that much.

Well, you say I'm going to shift that much, I can't see it myself.

Give me the juicy stuff. What have you found in here?

Joe Public, they'll chuck anything out.

They think, because they've got a black bin, they can put whatever they like in it. Television screens.

-At certain sites, we've found bodies in there, even.

-I shouldn't laugh!

Some vagrants and the like, they actually sleep in bins.

-And they've only been found when they've pitched up here?

-Yeah, when they come to tip out.

There's some top-notch stuff in here. Look, That Touch Of Mink, Cary Grant and Doris Day.

-Can I have that?

-You can't. No, you can't, sorry, Rhod.

-It's classed as waste and it has to stay here...

-Yeah, but nobody's going to mind if I take that.

If anyone takes anything off the facility, it's classed as totting.

This could be highly confidential, this.

It's probably some government database! Benefit cheats in Wales!

There you are, look. Two pence!

-Hey, put that down!

-It's got to stay there, hasn't it!

If he sees you with that, he'll be down here like a ton of bricks for that two pence!

Tony, the idiot, told me to get here for seven in the morning.

I'm supposed to meet a waste enforcement team, or something.

'The waste enforcement team seemingly never sleeps.

'To give me a different perspective on waste management,

'I was here to meet Brian and Steve, the Cagney and Lacey of dog mess.

'They knew more about dog poo than Scooby-Doo's gardener.' Is it really necessary to be this early?

-Yes, it is.

-Is it? Why?

-You'd be surprised.

-Can't we just pick it up later?

-Hello, Steve.

-How are you, mate?

-I'm all right, yeah.

Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to be a poop scooper.

Ta-da!

The hat is model's own, but the rest of it is council issue.

I really feel like having a walk along a beach and talking to people about dog poo(!)

A bit of education today.

Speaking to dog owners on the beaches.

'Brian and Steve, Turdinator and Turdinator II,

'ensured that the public knew where they stood on dog foul.

'For the wee hours of that morning, I was their apprentice.'

Let's just keep an eye on that dog.

If anything comes out of the back of that, I'm on it like a shot.

If people dog foul and they don't remove the foul, they'll be hit with a £75 fixed penalty notice.

This is more like it!

-How are you?

-Very well, thank you.

-Nice and early.

-Yes, nice and breezy.

What I'm hoping here is we can slap a fine on this lady.

I tell you what, that dog looks cute in his little pink collar, but don't be fooled.

Going on round there, there's only one thing going on in his head,

thinking, "Where can I take a poo round here?"

Is it the ten second rule? How long has the poo got to be on the floor?

If they walk away, they're not going to pick it up, obviously.

If they don't pick it up forthwith, I think it says...

Forthwith? How long is that, though? Cos if they say, "I'm going to do it in a minute..."

Let it hit the ground first, though!

-Look at him there now!

-He's so enthusiastic in his job!

He's smelt something!

Look, he's picked up a scent! Is it in this area, or is it a few miles away?

He had one one day, and we weren't sure whether it was chocolate or dog's mess.

I tasted it, I thought, "It's chocolate."

He tasted it, he said, "No, it's dog's mess."

Good job we didn't step in it!

I tell you what, the banter on the waste enforcement team...!

Look out! Yes!

God! The holy grail!

-That's not dog mess, actually.

-To me, on the first day, rookie...

-Wait there.

-It's seagull mess.

-Seagull, is it?

-That's no use to us, seagull.

-That's not an offence.

If you speak to the next person with a dog...

-You're from the Vale of Glamorgan Council...

-From the Vale of Glamorgan Council...

-..and you're doing an exercise, speaking to all dog walkers.

-Let's go and Taser this dog walker.

I'm not doing him - he's got an Alsatian and he's a big bloke!

-Have you lived in Barry all your life, then?

-All my life.

-Do you carry dog-fouling bags?

-Always.

-Thank you very much for your time. Enjoy your walk.

-And you. Cheers. Bye.

Why didn't you want to do that one? He was a lovely chap.

You've got the patter, though, you see?

Do you see the way you worked with him there?

"Barry all your life?" You were working your magic.

-I haven't got them people skills you've got.

-I think you have, mate.

-No, I'd have Tasered him straightaway, just on the off chance.

-You'd have what?

-Tasered him.

-No, you can't do that!

Do you get abuse from the public?

An elderly lady was nose to nose with me just a couple of weeks ago.

-Really.

-Elderly lady?!

-Very aggressive to me.

She started verbally abusing me. She turned around and said, "I have no bags."

I said, "I have some bags." She said, "If you have some bags, pick them up yourself."

Couldn't you let her off, little old lady? Couldn't you have just turned a blind eye?

If you'd seen the size of it...

Right?! You couldn't have turned a blind eye to it!

He's definitely got the walk, hasn't he?!

-How long's that?

-It's stuck in!

-What dog was it from?

-Little dog.

-Yeah.

-Four legs.

-Yeah.

-And a small arse!

THEY LAUGH

'The moment I'd been waiting for was fast approaching.

'It looked like I was finally going to get my hands on some poo.'

Whoa!

'Before I dived in, there were a few final checks of my equipment.'

Has this got holes in it like a normal supermarket bag? Look how much there is!

It's a double-bagger.

Argh...!

-You can't do half a job, mate.

-Urgh! YOU have that. Like a little dessert for you.

Littering!

Run! See you later!

Brian, the dog's gone behind the column!

Move it! There's only one reason a dog would go behind a column!

Attention, all dog owners.

I would like to remind you that it is your responsibility to pick up your dogs' foul.

You can use your hands if you like, but we have bags here at the office. And now, Lionel Richie!

-Dog walker.

-Morning.

Morning. Can we have a quick chat? I know you always carry bags.

Do you know you can get them for free?

Do you want some for free?

Brian should have been doing this. He should have told you that, really.

-If I had any left in my pockets, I would, but I've given them all away.

-Enjoy your walk.

You should have given her the bags. What are you doing?!

-My pockets are empty!

-You're supposed to be giving out bags! You're supposed to be the guru!

I had to step in there and save that situation.

Brian was all over the place, floundering about.

-What's the problem, Bri?

-He fell in love, I think. He was floundering.

'After a few hours, the number two musketeers had the beach under control.

'Suddenly, an urgent call came in.

'On the other side of town, someone had taken a dump of a different sort.

'A flytipper had done his business in the woods.

'We Starsky and Hutch-ed it over to the crime scene, only to find we'd missed the criminals by seconds.'

You can see this is a beautiful area, lovely autumnal trees.

We've had a tip-off from a flytipper.

Ironic! I don't know whether he's upset that they've been flytipping on his patch.

Before we open any bags, we'll take a photograph.

-Is this for your personal album?

-No, it's not for the album.

This is, if we need to prosecute anybody, the photograph is shown, taken in situ.

Do you want me and Brian in it like that?

Or not?

No? He's gone very serious, hasn't he?

Looking for evidence of origin now.

Look at the date. It's recent. Two months ago. Almost to the day.

Get a photo of that. Hold up.

-A bag for this, Bri?

-Clothes peg.

We know she hasn't got a tumble dryer.

It's a sock.

It says "Sunday" on it.

All you need to do is go round on a Sunday, see who answers the door barefoot.

And then Taser them.

Looking for evidence, looking for leads. It's all a bit Cluedo.

Definitely more exciting.

With a dog going to the toilet, there's very few clues or leads to follow, really.

It's an open-and-shut case.

'Then, in a flash, it went from Cluedo to Police, Camera, Action!

'Brian heard a van and wasn't about to let the flytippers get away.'

He's got a photographic memory for numbers.

He'll clock that now and he'll never forget it.

'With Brian's mind-blowing photographic memory, the crook stood no chance.'

It was LE53 something.

-Bollocks!

-Photographic memory(!)

That may well have been people caught in the act.

Never mind tracing it back, forensic gloves...

It looked like 11L or something like that, but...

You didn't get it?

-No, I didn't get it.

-How did you manage to not get it?

-It was just there.

-He obviously had been flytipping and he raced away from me as I was going up.

They were obviously down here dumping some new stuff.

This is Pete Doherty's house.

-OK, Rhod, so we didn't have a bad morning, then.

-Well, didn't have a good one.

-Not very often they get away from Brian.

-He doesn't know we didn't get his registration, does he?

-And...

-That's true. So what we're relying on is flytippers thinking you're better than you are?

The flytippers are thinking, "They can't be that rubbish they didn't get our registration plate."

-We're relying on the flytippers overestimating us. Brilliant(!) Let's go.

-Overestimating?!

Let's go to the pub!

'As the amazing memory man and Steve headed back to the crime lab,

'I caught up with Tony for a last-minute pep talk ahead of the real challenge.'

Tomorrow morning, yeah, nice and early start, are you happy with that?

-Over the moon, yeah(!)

-Nice six o'clock start won't do you any harm.

Yeah. It's like all my Christmases...

You know, you wake up seven hours earlier than you normally do.

It'll be the best day, a day you'll remember for the rest of your life.

It will be. It is going to be a day to remember, no doubt about it.

'I was worried that it was going to be a day to remember for all the wrong reasons.

'In truth, I was genuinely terrified that the full bin run was going to kill a wimp like me.'

After some pretty sexy dreams about bin juice and broken glass,

my big day dawned before dawn.

It's 5.30 in the morning. It's pitch dark, it's the middle of the night.

I can hardly speak, it's too early.

'The foreman broke the good news.'

Simon Chilcott, how's it going?

Nice to meet you.

You've got one of the heavy areas, probably about 18 to 20 ton today.

Nick!

'Nick was to be my driver for the day.

'Curiously, he hadn't been in my sexy dreams, but this was reality.

'While he was driving, I would be walking and lifting.

'12 miles on foot, lifting 18 tons of rubbish, and to top it off,

'Nick's very own brand of aftershave.'

Cat's pee, fox's pee, dog's pee, human pee, vomit.

When I went to see my careers adviser in school, he said, "What do you want to do?"

I thought, "The minimum requirement is, I want to do a job where,

"if I soil myself at work, somebody notices."

I could soil myself halfway through the working day, nobody would even notice.

No. Part and parcel of the job.

Pilates!

LAUGHTER

'As Nick warmed Ethel up, I noticed something that made me even more apprehensive.'

When I had my induction, this was down, so the height was about here that I had to throw a bag into.

It was just above my waist.

It does make a difference. Physically, it is harder.

That's a real worry.

'As we hit the road, I got to know my partners in grime -

'two of the best, Paul and Archie.

'Together, we were Barry's very own Rat Pack.

'Where we were going could be packed with rats.'

We're off. We're away, we're on the streets, there's no time to talk.

'After about half a dozen of the thousands of bags I had to shift that day,

'the new loading height was causing me problems.'

I've had a bit of an accident.

That was about bag number six or seven I was throwing there.

I'm presuming Archie knows these ladies.

All part of the service. See that? Turn up, empty their bin, give them a kiss.

Two down, how many to go?

At the moment, this is feeling a lot easier than what I do, in a way.

I haven't got the adrenaline and nerves and the stress that I get in my own job.

Just watch him through the gap here.

Yeah, you've got half an inch.

Easy half inch.

And surprisingly, I never felt dirty.

There was a free shower with every bag.

Every time, the spray.

Every time.

Those droplets landing on my face, probably looks quite sexy.

Those sexy droplets... of sunlit joy.

It's actually bin juice.

See that? Learner drivers eyeing up the binmen.

Keep your eyes on the road, you're learning.

Feasting her eyes on my binman-ly form.

Look at this one. Practically getting out the back window. # Girls love a bit of bin juice! #

Oh... Get in!

There's traffic waiting up the street and they're watching me doing hula hoops.

They're not going to be happy. ..Eh?

-I say, you do a good job.

-Yeah, somebody's got to do it, haven't they?

Some of the members of the public are saying to me, "Doing a great job, you're doing a good job."

I keep saying, "Somebody's got to do it!"

They told me this was a young man's game. No offence!

-I AM young!

-How old are you now?

-39.

-39?

Archie's two years younger than me.

That can't just be the bins!

'We'd only been on the road a couple of hours,

'but I was losing the will to live. Or at least, to be a binman.'

Basically, I'm starting to flag a bit. The enthusiasm's gone.

I went through a bit of a purple patch earlier where...

I got into it, I got quite excited, I think we might have been going down hill, the sun was on us.

'That energy's gone.

'Now I'm running out of steam.'

Thanks.

A couple more streets, and then we'll put it into another gear.

Don't make it go faster than I'm going!

Nick said the word from the back is I'm going a bit slow.

-You grassed me in!

-I haven't grassed you in at all!

Right, you're not going to keep up with me now.

-Yeah?

-I'm going to set the pace round here. There's a new kid in town. Step aside.

I'll go on ahead!

See, look, where's the lorry?

Come on, I've got the bins ready - there's no lorry!

Which way are we going now? Are we going left?

Tell me in whistles.

Yeah, straight on. Yeah. There we are. Then left, then right. Breakfast about 10.30?

Could one of you wipe my eye, my right eye?

Cos I was throwing a bin bag into the back and as usual you get the spray back. This is burning.

Something just sprayed back in my face and it's burning.

Quadruple bagger.

I was trying to do the universal language of stopping binman, which is...

A hamster's cage. He's not long past it, this hamster.

Let's go! Come on! Wa-hey!

Hide behind this caravan.

Just having a little breather.

-Come on, we've had a break by now!

-The caravan was longer than I thought!

-We've had a break by now!

-He'll get a hiding in a minute, that Nick.

-I got the supervisor coming out now with torches,

cos we're any later, it'll be dark, so...

Move away from the sun, then!

'The lorry was full.

'I was hoping that would mean home time, but no.

'Like masochistic Tellytubbies, the boys wanted to do it again, again, again.'

Dropping off what we've put in there so far so we can get out there and fill it up again.

Meanwhile, WE'RE going to fill up.

I keep putting my hands on it. These hands could start the plague, to be honest.

Come on, you've got another three hours' work yet!

-I'm stiffening up now.

-Shouldn't have stopped.

'The mid-morning break was one of the best ten minutes of my life,

'but it took the wind right out of my sails.

'The next few hours were a mind-numbing, nausea-inducing slog,

'although there was the odd high point.'

That's literally bin-juice waterfall. Look at that.

It's quite beautiful in its own way, isn't it? If you're a rat,

this probably looks...

a little bit like Florida might look to me.

Three quarters of the way through now.

I've loosened up again after that brunch break which got me all stiff.

I didn't want to get going again after that.

But I've got going again now.

I'm on about fifth wind.

'By mid-afternoon, I was losing the plot completely.'

Come on!

'I had to make this interesting somehow, so I invented Strictly Binmen.'

MUSIC: March from "The Nutcracker" by Tchaikovsky

Jump in here with Paul, have a look. That's a typical bin area for the flats.

Mind you, there's some good stuff in here as well(!)

I don't think people realise that somebody's actually got to come down here

and go through this and take it away.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now. They don't realise.

A nappy that somebody put near the bins.

That'll do - just put it near the bins(!) Your kid just had a dump, has he?

I'll get it, you put your feet up.

Somebody, as you can see, has dumped a television.

I'm going to do this anyway.

Like anyone is really going to come in here, see the TV they've dumped there, see the sticker on it saying,

"Oh, we can't take this, it's electrical goods,"

and they're going to do something about it!

Even though I know that in 41 years, this is the most pointless thing I've ever done in my life.

And I say that

as somebody who watched the first three series of Baywatch.

Absolutely pointless.

Ah, well, that sorted the thirst out.

See that clock tower? See it in the distance?

That's all the streets we've done this morning.

That is surveying

everything that we own, bin-wise.

That's quite impressive, what we've done.

Look at that.

It's all right doing it once, isn't it?

He's only ever done it once, that fella.

You try doing 20 tons of it in one day.

'I felt like I'd been standing in front of a jet engine while someone fed vomit into the back of it.

'But I was determined to push through to the end,

'especially with Dr Evil checking up on me.'

The boss is here now - Tony.

We're almost there. So he can stick it! Eh?

We're going to do it.

HE WHISTLES Whoa!

-The home stretch now, all right? The last half hour.

-Yeah.

-The last half hour.

-Last half hour.

-Let's go for it, yeah?

'As we approached the finishing line,

'I was overwhelmed with respect for these boys, braving the elements,

'facing every hazard you could think of, and a few you can't...'

I'm going to have to give you a hand, Rhod, so these boys can go home, all right?

'..getting little appreciation, sometimes even abuse from the public,

'and all for just above minimum wage.

'If I ever become Prime Minister, I'll make this national service.

'Everyone would have to do the bins for one day, to see what it's like.

'Unless they were a masochistic Tellytubby, no-one would have to do it again, again.'

Rhod, this is the last couple of bags, mate.

All right?

Let's get the bunting out, boys!

Can I just say, nice of you not to put the back down for him to throw higher!

Good idea, that, none of them picked up on it!

'It was finally over.

'I was aching like I'd been locked in a two-berth caravan with the Kray twins.'

-Celebrating. Thanks, Paul. Thanks, Archie.

-All the best to you.

-Good work.

-Thank you, Tony.

-Thank you, Rhod, a pleasure. Thank you, Arch.

-Thank you, Archie!

Hey, have the rest of the day off!

'I may have smelt like a rabbit with a stomach upset, but I'd done it.'

I'm still alive.

Those boys have got to do it all again tomorrow at dawn.

And there's one massive...

massively positive thought running through my mind.

I'll be in bed.

-My mucker!

-Thanks, man.

-All right?

-Yeah.

See you, Ethel.

It's like hugging you!

'To thank me for putting them two and a half hours behind schedule,

'the boys had some parting gifts for me,

'which I knew exactly what to do with.'

Look at that. "Vale of Glamorgan - no hypodermics."

Eh? That is lovely.

-I don't think you've got any strength to open it!

-I haven't got the strength!

It's actually a gold litter picker.

The only gold litter picker in the Vale of Glamorgan, and it's all yours.

I tell you what I'm going to do before I do anything else, wash my hands.

That's what I want to do more than anything. More than tea, more than anything.

Come on, Tony, come and help me wash my hands.

That's all I'm washing, mind!

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