Confessions of a Janitor

This writer remembers living the life of a janitor.  You wake up, shower, go to work, and start janiteering (or custodianizing?).  While not the life people dream of, it can be fun and enjoyable work.  Maybe, it's just this writer, but there some there's a sense of accomplishment that comes from walking out of a fresh-cleaned room.  There's a purity about it that feels good to look at and smell.

Sometimes, however, the job was a nightmare.  There were times when this writer wanted to say, "I know I'm the janitor, but I'm not cleaning that."  Then there were times when this writer, in fact, did not clean the mess because the creator of the mess (usually a superior) would create a BS situation for the sole purpose of creating a headache for this writer.

This writer remembers in high school, one his supervisors threw a tantrum in a middle school lunchroom and mess in front of the kids.  This included, but was not limited to throwing a fish sandwich on the ground, stomping on and grindeding it with his foot, then storming off in a rage.  While that supervisor eventually came back to clean the mess, this writer certainly wasn't going to clean it.  It was a BS situation he (the head janitor, mind you) created, so it was only right that he clean it instead of delegating someone else to do it.

Then there are the supermarket women's bathrooms.  O.  M.  G.  These satanic portals to hell are the reason why this writer walked away from janitorial work with his head held high.  The levels of ugh in these place are both dumbfounding and confounding.  This writer already discussed this in the Fairer Sex post, so he'll break down a few particularly irksome repeat scenarios.

First, there are the hand towels in the toilet  This writer would often see the women were passing up toilet paper to use hand towel.  Ladies, these things don't flush.  That's what makes thems hand towel.  They clog toilets and cause overflowing.  Fortunately for this writer, the hand towels were (usually) the only reason the water that overflowed was brown.  Still, this writer wondered how the "more intelligent" gender kept getting it wrong day after day.

The straw that broke the camel's back came in the employee's women's bathroom (keep the word employee in mind).  What straw was that?  A female employee kept sneaking into the bathroom and smearing feces on the toilet bowl.  You read right.  ON the toilet bowl, as in the outside.  An actual human being of the "fairer sex (and an employee to boot) picked up feces and smeared it on a toilet bowl.  Just try to process that for a minute.

What's worse is that by the time this writer got to it, it was already hardened and encrusted on the bowl to where the cleaning chemicals barely had any affect.  So this writer had to spend twenty minutes scraping S off of a toilet bowl.  After doing this about four times, this writer looked himself in the mirror and asked himself Chris Hansen-style, "What are you doing here?"

This writer could go on talking about how bad experiences at an admittedly good job, but this writer believes the message has been received.

Until next time...