The trash on the ground, the gum under the desk, the empty toilet paper roll in the bathroom, and the smudges on the windows of the doors all are cleaned up or taken care of by type of person in public areas: the Janitor. When you think of a Janitor, do you think of the guy with the raggity old clothing that has a faded name patch on the side? Maybe the loveable gray cart with the yellow trash bag on the back? There’s many things that come to mind when you think of a janitor, but the sad thing is, none of it is positive. When ever someone thinks of a janitor they always think of them as a nothing, not a person. People don’t realize that they are people too, just like you and me. Most of the people in this position are NOT high school drop outs that took that sort of job because they have nothing going for them, or ever will. Some of them have graduated from either a two year or four year technical school or university with a major in engineering or something of that sort, and decided that an easier job like this best sooted their needs. Then there’s also the younger kids and young adults you see doing this job. Most parents look at these kids as worthless individuals who wasted away their lives and have to resort to doing shit jobs because they can’t make anything of their lives. This is false. I currently hold position where some of my duties require me to take care of custodial tasks, and I haven’t wasted away my life, I’m not going nowhere, I haven’t dropped out of school. I’m working my way up from the very bottom in hopes to make it to the very top, so that way I can see what it really takes to run a business where all the employees are happy and treated equally.
The workplace is no different. You would think your fellow employees would treat you with more respect because they work with you and know how bad of a job it is, but this is entirely false. I receive radio call after radio call from people at the front desk for the smallest little tasks that we have 5 different people on staff that could do the job, but they always call me because no one else wants to do it. The most ridiculous call I ever got was someone had dropped a piece of paper on the floor and they wanted me to come pick it up. Now, let me just set the scene here. It was a Saturday afternoon, so there was a Building Supervisor, two Open Gym Supervisors, a person running Registration, a Fit Desk worker, and me working that day. I was busy downstairs cleaning a fitness studio when I get this call, and when I go upstairs to find this piece of paper, I find it on the opposite side of the desk where the Registration lady sits, and behind the desk are the Open Gym Supervisors, and the Building supervisor, all talking, doing nothing. One of them is actually on the computer checking their facebook. Even though these people were sitting right there, doing nothing, the registration lady thought it would be best to pull me from what I was busy doing to come pick up this piece of paper for her.
This is the type of ignorance that I’m talking about. The simple tasks that they can take two seconds out of their time to do themselves, they decide to just pawn it off onto someone else, they pawn it off to someone else, until finally it gets down to the lowest guy on the food chain who has no one to pawn it off to, so he has to do it himself. I have multiple examples of this sort of stuff but it’d just turn into me ranting about how people become so much lazier once there’s a janitor employed at their workplace.
I want to change the stereotype of janitors, especially the ones that are younger individuals like myself. They’re not worthless individuals, and they shouldn’t be looked over. These people work hard and are good at what they do. They’re the reason why when you walk into a building and you think “Wow, this place looks awesome!” They’re the ones that make it look awesome. Next time you see a janitor, young or old, take a look around and realize that the place they’re in charge of looks the way it does because of the hard work and commitment they put into their job. Don’t overlook them, appreciate them.
I just ran across this deeply disturbing page on Clusterflock. It links to a story about a journalist who posed as a 10 year old boy, Billy, who sent letters to serial killers such as Charles Manson and Richard Ramirez asking them if he should drop out of school. These letters were all sent in 1998-1999. Now, 10 years later, “Billy” has sent responses back, thanking these insane men for their advice and how it has helped him get into law school. One particularly disturbing response from Richard Ramirez:
