Trashing Gone Wrong in Switzerland

by PriesT

You could say that I have a kind of information fetish.

Finding out the facts behind something otherwise classified just makes me shiver in delight and scream like a little girl.  Naturally, Dumpster diving appeals to satisfy such desires.

Unfortunately, being the ignorant American that I am, I did not take into consideration how Dumpster diving in Switzerland could probably get me locked up.  This experience successfully awakened me to that fact.

During the summer of 2008, I went to Switzerland as a part of my French 3 class.  The intention was for me to hone my French speaking skills into something comprehensible.

During my stay, I lived with what we liked to call a host home, a relative of my French teacher.  Fun.  This particular home was on the outskirts of a small and interesting city, whose name slips my mind.  Maybe I shouldn't say it anyway.

Within this establishment were multiple rich corporate buildings: a Rolex factory, a Lamborghini dealership, and multiple security companies.  I was in heaven.

One night, around 9 pm, my two friends and I went on a walk.  After already exploring the Rolex building's property (their trash could have easily been an army base with all the security surrounding it), we split off and something immediately caught my eye.

Within one building's complex, a sign adorned one of the doors of a certain computer industry giant we all know, which I have left unnamed.  Unfortunately, my wheels of curiosity started turning, and I made a beeline for the rows of plastic trash canisters adjacent to the building.

They might as well have been buckets of gold nuggets.  After looking over a few, I noticed the containers were all labeled according to the company they belonged to.  I almost laughed out loud for my luck!  After finding the Dumpster I was looking for, I began to rummage.  I found exactly what I was looking for: papers.  Many, many papers.

There were enough papers there to fill Obama's head, excuse the political intrusion.  I started looking through them and inspecting their contents - I couldn't believe my eyes.

Notes, books of source code, and statistics all relating to this corporation's new secure banking software!  From what I read, it has yet to be released, but after ten minutes or so of blissful diving, I had a small stack of extremely interesting things I planned to sort through later.  No time for the shredded documents, though.

Just as a disclaimer, I had no intention of using this for malicious purposes.  Like I said: this kind of thing gets my blood pumping and makes life that much more interesting.  Back to the story...

A hand touched me on the shoulder.  I jumped and nearly crapped in my pants, only to see it was one of my smiling friends who had accompanied me to the city.  Whew.  Just about to bite his head off, I stopped short as his expression quickly turned upside-down.

Usually that isn't a good sign.  He ran quickly and I was met by two decked-out Swiss security guards, aiming their flashlights at me.  Then I crapped in my pants.  In French, the security guard demanded what I was doing.

In short, he spoke awful English and I spoke awful French.  Still we managed to get a few points across.  As one of the guards held me where I was, the other ran off with a phone.

I later discovered that he called the police to inform them that I was a terrorist planting a bomb in a Dumpster.  Right.  Scared as a wet rabbit, I did whatever the freak they told me to do.

They asked what I was doing there multiple times, and I muttered some story about looking for my watch that might have gotten disposed of.  What an awful story.  Eventually, they took me to a street corner and we waited for the police.  They hadn't seen my collection of banking papers.

We waited, and waited, and waited, and the non-English speaking security guard left on break, and we waited some more.  My two friends couldn't stand the pressure of watching me being held hostage (in a matter of speaking), so they came over and accompanied me.  I was sure I could just poke this dude in the eye and book it home.  As the hours passed, we talked and learned about this guy's life story, except for his shift schedule (those were classified), and we returned the favor with our story.

After three full hours of waiting for the Swiss cops, they finally showed up, screeching to a halt and parking on the curb like they meant business.  Suddenly, the same scared-out-of-my-pants feeling that had taken me when I first saw the security officers gripped me again.  These cops weren't your typical American, doughnut-eating, badge-bearing cops.  These dudes were bad.  They had bullet proof vests on, and looked as if they could take on Rambo.  I immediately trashed my eye-poking strategy, no pun intended.

To my pleasant (and scared-stiff surprise) the cop asked me my story in perfect English.  I recounted the same B.S. about my watch that I told the security officer.  With that, I showed him my ID and he made a check in the security officer's book, then they both promptly left.  That was it.  The security guard apologized and told us we could go.  I was startled at the high level of private security, in contrast with the lax nature of local law enforcement in Switzerland.

Once the adventure was over and I had obtained a good night's sleep, I returned just to look across the parking lot of the building to see if I could spot my stack of documents.  I couldn't.  At this, I turned around and walked back to my host home.

This experience gave me a deeper level of respect for trash containers, and I have since decided to do my rummaging once it has been retrieved by the waste collectors, or trash men as it is much safer.

I would suggest being more careful Dumpster diving than I was, or you could learn the hard way.  Always assume that maximum security is being implemented.

Since then, not a day goes by when I wonder how long I would have been locked up if that small stack of bank documents had been found.