One man’s trash is another man’s calling

Recently translated from Canadian French into English, Simon Paré-Poupart’s Trash! is an exposé on waste management that confronts listeners with the reality of where their trash goes after they take their bins to the curb. I asked Paré-Poupart to dig into his personal journey of becoming a sanitation worker with a graduate degree in public administration. He shared his unique lens on subverting social expectations and the importance of an education—regardless of career.

Rachael Xerri: Describe the moment when you decided to pursue a career in waste management. What were you feeling at the time?

Simon Paré-Poupart: To pursue is not exact. I think that the job chose me. Who I was, socially speaking, it was probably one of the best things possible for me to do at that time. And I liked it, quickly. It made me feel good about myself. I find a sense of accomplishment in doing it. It began to construct who I would become. It is fully integrated into myself, if I can say.

What were the reactions from your friends and family like?

Besides that the salary was better than what my friends earned, no one really cared, or understood. My mom, because she saw me injured multiple times, and maybe also because it was not exactly the kind of job she was imagining I would do, I think she did not like the "project." But she's kind of a liberal, I mean philosophically, so she was understanding.

How do your graduate studies influence how you approach your work and life?

It influences everything. It gave me the understanding of what it was I was living. I understand the differences between social classes, the inability of some to obtain social mobility, how education might be important to find real liberty. Otherwise, the amount of money my colleagues and I made would be just harmful. It gives me so much respect for people who are stuck in their lives. Unable to change anything because they sometimes have seen only what their limited lives have given them. It gives me a sense of duty, responsibility, because I had this chance.

What advice do you have for recent graduates who may be struggling to find a white-collar job right now?

Maybe it's the return of hard jobs? Henry David Thoreau wrote that there is nothing more satisfying than cutting wood without thinking. With AI, video conferencing, with what David Graeber called Bullshit Jobs, maybe capitalism and unions created jobs where there is no fun? I think that with insight, intuition, and education, anyone can find something interesting to do where they are, in the job that they occupy. But you have to like what you do, more than just doing it for a salary or because some university gave you a diploma certifying you. In a world constantly moving so fast, you have first to understand what you want to do and how you want to contribute.