first reminds me of my years in Washington, DC where I first became acquainted with these tawdry shits and second reminds me of one of my favorite stories from Martin Sprouse's now sadly out-of-print "Sabotage in the American Workplace," a story recapped here:
A mailroom clerk for the Heritage Foundation on Capital Hill gradually became aware of how ultra-conservative the organization was and how, during fund-raising campaigns, he would "randomly take an envelope, open it, see how much
was for, and throw it in the shredder. I started doing it more and more. I could tell if it was a cheque by holding it up to the light. If so, I'd toss it, dump it or shred it."
from
http://www.connect.ab.ca/~mctsoul/sabotage.htm