The other morning while I was working in my home office, I heard a strange grinding noise. (Doesn’t that sound like the opening line of a gory horror movie?) I knew it wasn’t a lawn mower or a leaf blower or the neighbor’s go cart, so finally I went outside to check it out.

Parked in front of my neighbor’s house was a huge truck with a shredder inside. My neighbor had trashcan loads of paper to shred and instead of wasting time shredding each piece, he hired an on-site shredding company to do it for him.

Rather than hire an outside company, he could have loaded his car with boxes of paper and recycled them, right? Not so fast…there’s the security issue. The trash cans were filled with old tax information, which made him the perfect target for identity theft.

My corporate clients have hired on-site shredding companies for years, but this is the first time I’ve heard of anyone working from home hiring someone else to shred their papers. Considering that I’ve burned through three shredders in two years because I’m an impatient shredder, it makes sense to provide the same service for home offices.

My neighbor’s shredding project has convinced me to change my shredding ways. If I ever need to shred a massive amount of files, I’ll call in for shredding reinforcements.

Of course my other choice is to test my luck and hope that I don’t destroy another shredder.

How do you handle sensitive information?