Diary of a Would-Be Custodian
and 'Take Your C.E.O to Work Day'
I used to work at my sons’ grade school, and what I miss most are my co-workers. I love each and every one of them, that motley crew, that cast of characters. I had to leave because I was melting into a gooey puddle after working full-time in first grade all day and then coming home to my three sons all night.
Work ended each day at 3:15 p.m., and the little voices calling, “Ms. Williams! Ms. Williams!” would finally quiet. But at 3:16 p.m. my own kids would say, “Mom! Mommy? Mom,” and I would grow fangs and claws. My boys got less Mom and more perimenopausal Teen Wolf. Not only did I feel terrible about my edginess, but despite this animalistic demeanor, my energy level was that of a wet noodle.
Some mothers can work in Education and still be nice to their kids. Some can even be Lead Teachers and work in their own classroom with other people’s children all day long. Those women are queens. A mere mortal like myself lasted only two years as an Instructional Assistant.
A week ago, I was at school for my middle son’s basketball game when I ran into my buddy Bruce. Bruce has worked at my kids’ school for decades as the Building Manager/Lead Custodian/Mr. Fix-It, and he’s only a couple of years away from retirement. Bruce told me his beloved night custodian Brian was out for the next few months, but he was going to try and do the two shifts (day and night) on his own.
I could help him for a few months if my boys could go to the after school program, I thought. I could use more income, and he needs help…
I acted quickly and texted the principal to offer my services. After a few conversations and finagling of logistics, I was set to start on Wednesday.
Maybe I will just get to vacuum, I thought as I packed for my 2:30 p.m. shift. I could listen to podcasts, get a little exercise, earn a couple bucks, and give Bruce a break. This is going to be great.
“I’m going to have you vacuum,” said Bruce. I smiled.
Thanks to his experience and organizational skills, Bruce was ready with lists and detailed instructions. He had a map of the electrical outlets in the school and drew arrows showing which outlet could reach which classrooms via the long orange extension cord.
“Now don’t roll it up like this,” he said. He wound the cord around his shoulder and elbow in a big oval. “That’s going to leave kinks, and it’s a new cord. It’ll remember those kinks.” Instead, he showed me how to roll the cord like a regal Victorian woman gathering her large ruffle skirt in and out, in and out.
“Here’s your backpack vacuum. Adjust the straps so it takes the weight off your back.” I put it on and felt like a Ghostbuster.
Bruce laid out a clear objective: I would vacuum the entire school in my three-hour shift. He made this sound entirely reasonable as he said, “I can do it in an hour and a half.”
I get double the time, I thought. Sounds like a good warm-up for my first night.
I put my AirPods in, and off I went. I vacuumed the teacher’s lounge and chatted with my friend Brenna, joking about my new proton pack. I meandered to vacuum the outer hallway, and when the after school program headed to the cafeteria for snacks, I strolled in and vacuumed there, too. This is satisfying, I thought.
But then I remembered the time: Bruce had told me to spend no more than ten minutes in each room. How long had it been? How many rooms had I vacuumed? Two. I had vacuumed two rooms and a little bit of hallway. I had to boogie.
I tried to speed up, but there were so many little piles of dirt and rocks from snowy boots. After an hour and a half, I realized I had only vacuumed four rooms, some hallway, and my time was half gone. I have to get going!
I started pumping my right arm back and forth at double speed, aiming the wide, flat nozzle of the vacuum at dirt and pencil shavings. Someone had fun with colored beads, but they weren’t on a necklace; they were scattered on the floor. I pulled desks apart and sucked up the dirt hiding where neighboring chair legs met. I looked up at the clock. How many minutes have I been in here?
I panted, I sweated. I paused in the bathroom to take off my layers of long underwear, cursing the lost time that action cost me. Then I had to submit and treat myself to an actual bathroom break. One of my AirPods died, but I didn’t have time to go back and get the protective headphones. I’d be forced to listen to Ezra Klein in only my right ear. When the second AirPod died, I wasted another full minute to walk and get the damn headphones.
Suddenly it was too late o’ clock, and I felt like the star of a twisted reality show.
The components of the show: the idiot contestant (me), endless carpeted rooms, and a gigantic ticking clock… Could she finish in time? [cut to Ryan Seacrest]
Bruce stopped by at 4:45 p.m. to check on my progress. Ideally, by now, I would have been 75% done. As I saw him walking down the hall toward me, I took off the headphones and tried to slow my gasping for air.
“How—” [pant] “do you do this—” [pant] “every day—”
“So how’s it going then?” he asked, ignoring my labored breathing.
“Not— great.” He froze. I slowed my breath. “I’ve done the art room, teacher’s lounge,” [pant, pant] “Preschool, sixth grade, fifth grade, the office, the entryway, but not fourth grade, not third…”
“You haven’t done fourth or the lower grades yet? What about the learning lab?”
“Nope. Honestly,” I said, “I think you’d say I’m doing too nice of a job.”
Bruce shook his head. “Ok, come with me.” We plodded back up the hallway, and I abandoned the backpack vacuum for a moment of relief on the walking tour.
Flicking on the lights, Bruce walked into the second grade classroom. “See that?” he said, gesturing toward a few scraps of white paper. “Grab that, grab that over there.” I looked over at a pencil and a few crumbs. “That there, hit that, boom,” he said. “But don’t go vacuuming the whole place. This building is an institution. We just can’t do that.”
“I get it. I’ll try.”
“I think you need me to walk through a shift with you to tell you what to get.”
“No, I got it, I got it. It’s just a matter of can I do it, Bruce? Can I walk by a small pile of schmutz I know I should leave and not suck it up when I’m holding a vacuum? Can I do it?” That got a small chuckle out of him, but it didn’t last long.
“Well, let me tell you. If you’re hitting every little thing, you’re doing it wrong.” Goddamnit!
“Ok,” I said, getting riled up. “I’ll do it! I’ll skip the small stuff!” I thought my increased volume made me sound more convincing, but his face showed otherwise.
“So you think you want to stay later? You don’t have to mop preschool then.”
Oh my God, mopping preschool! I was supposed to do that, too!
“Oh, thank you. No mopping, but I think I can finish the vacuuming.”
I looked at the clock. 5:20 p.m. Pick up the boys from after school in ten minutes, give them a snack, how many rooms could I get done first…
I wish I could tell you I succeeded and finished. But that would be a dirty, unvacuumed lie.
I left the school exhausted and defeated. My kids were starving, and I snapped at my middle son when he asked what flavor of Lara Bar I packed instead of just looking at the damn wrapper himself.
“But you had it right there in your bag, couldn’t you just look?” he snapped back.
Uh-oh, I thought. Teen Wolf is back.
Later that evening, two of the boys and I sat with Chip’s co-worker Jeff in the dining hall. We could relax and eat. Jeff always makes us laugh, and he told us about the bathroom habits of his five chihuahuas: Diamond, Sapphire, Pearl, Bella, and Clarice.
“Clarice sounds like the wild card,” I said.
As we were eating, I saw Jeff glance over my shoulder. “They have the night custodians come over and clean the dining hall now,” he said. I turned around and saw two tired men slowly wiping off tables. “They clean all of the dorms and their normal areas, but the new thing is they have to come here afterwards and clean up after dinner.”
I looked out over the expanse of round wooden tables with ten chairs each, enough seating to accommodate hundreds of students. They were covered with crumbs and spills, sitting dirty and waiting to be cleaned. I thought back to my vacuuming from an hour ago: I didn’t make it to the back corner of the art and music Room. I forgot to tell Bruce I didn’t get to the bathrooms. He’d run into those messy floors when he went to mop them in the morning.
These custodians definitely had a deadline: could they get it all done?
But then I thought, Wait a minute. Public schools are underfunded and understaffed, and now even the fancy private school employees are being stretched this thin?
Why do people have to work like this? So we can save Daddy Warbucks a few dollars? I wanted to kick over a chair and stand on a (dirty) table so I could address the room like Sally Field in… what was that movie?
[It was Norma Rae. Can this writer even do a simple google?]
“Remember those ‘Take Your Daughter/Son to Work Days?’
It’s time we have a ‘Take Your Headmaster to Work Day!’ or ‘Take Your Special Interest Lobbyist to Work Day!’ or ‘Take Your C.E.O. to Work Day!’ or ‘Take Your Department of Government Efficiency Representative to Work Day!’ Let them see what this is like! Let’s give them the work of three people!”
[People inevitably start cheering.] I would hop off the table and make my way to the back kitchens so the dishwashers and line cooks could get in on this, too.
“I want to see Elon in a pair of black clogs wiping down some tables! Are you with me?!’
I’d point to a guy in the back corner, and he would nod.
‘How is another budget cut looking now? Elon, you missed a spot! Will you finish in time?”
[Fists pump in the air.]
When I dropped the kids off at school the next morning, I felt flooded with relief knowing I wouldn’t be back there to vacuum again until Monday. I had four days to prepare for my big three hour shift. Could I master the art of leaving schmutz on the carpet without cleaning it up and only going for the big stuff? Or was this job merely a mismatch: a details woman being asked to paint (or vacuum) in broad strokes?
I laid low, but Bruce called me on Friday morning, and again he found me panting. This time I was on the stationary bike at the Y. I made sure to pick up the call right away when I saw the school’s name on the caller ID; one of my boys may need something, or if Bruce was calling to fire me, we should get to it already.
“Alissa!” he hollered. “Now, I don’t want you to overdo it on this job. You can take it easy, and we can work together on Monday. I think you might fare better if you use a broom more often and put that backpack down.”
Wait a minute, were things changing? Was this position easy breezy now? Could I still get Elon in those clogs?
“I want to keep your company around, so let’s work something out.”
Well, that was a sweet and unexpected surprise, I thought as we hung up. But a few minutes later, I couldn’t help but think, Goddamnit.
“Other than writing, I am completely unemployable.” - Anne Lamott
Thanks for reading.
XO
Alissa