January 30, 2012

An Ode To Custodians! 

There is a best thing a janitor can do. 

However, one who does this best thing should actually be called a “custodian,” a title which sounds classier than “janitor” and has a ring of honor to it, giving one the sense that the job, the profession, even, can have some nobility to it. And it does. 

A custodian is one who has custody of something, and in possessing custody one is obligated to its upkeep, maintenance, and general caretaking. This applies to anyone who calls themselves a custodian, whether they care for children, animals, museums, mansions, churches, or simple run-of-the-mill office buildings. To have custody over something implies one must take care of it, one must keep it safe and guard over its well being. 

The sanctity of this depth of responsibility makes a custodian, by definition, more than a mere janitor. And in being more than a janitor a custodian must be better, must strive for higher, must elevate the profession as a whole with their deeds and actions. We’re talking about nobility here. Ours is an ancient and necessary profession; it is a calling for only a select few!

I say “ours” because I was a janitor once. 

It was my first real job in high school, working evenings cleaning office buildings and the like. I set my own hours, worked by myself, and did a halfway decent job of keeping the facilities in my stead fairly clean and tidy. I was, of course, just a teenager, so I usually only gave a solid 60% effort, ramping up to 75% if anyone ever complained about me not cleaning the president’s toilet or not dusting the boardroom’s fake plants or insufficiently vacuuming up the pulled staples and dropped paper clips littering the mailroom floor. I was not a custodian.

I janitored four years, from high school into college, so I have enough experience to know what I’m talking about. And I have a soft spot for janitors, coupled with awe for true custodians. I appreciate their skills and tools and know the lengths one must sometimes go through to clean a men’s room hit hard on a Monday morning after the Super Bowl. Things like that differentiate the best janitors from true custodians, fully worthy of the title. This applies especially to most elementary school custodians, who have the challenge of dealing with the compounded messes of hundreds of sticky fingered little kids every single weekday. That is a most challenging job! 

Face it, without custodians our society would soon perish in its own filth and squalor!

That said, the best thing a good – no, a great! – custodian can do, a true marker demonstrating the full heights of custodian greatness, proof of the honor, professionalism and love these heroes bring to their jobs, a love of places and the people who use them, the best thing that the best custodian can do is this: leave no trace. The space in the place where these magicians of cleanliness delve should always remain clean and tidy, like the cleanliest of the cleanest clean rooms, where nothing is disturbed or ever out of place. There should never be any sign of the custodian’s presence. The best evidence of a true custodian is no evidence at all!

I say all of this as a preface for my current gripe. 

For the last two weeks, each morning when I’ve come into work, my trash can has been sitting in a different spot. It’s never where it should be. Yes, it’s always empty and contains a fresh trash bag, but it’s sitting in a different place each morning. And this drives me nuts, because then I have to move it back. It’s no big deal, just a minor annoyance, but I know the truth of the matter. I know the secret. I know the heights one can strive for. And this janitor has left obvious traces of their presence!

So perhaps, hopefully, someday my janitor will read this essay and understand. And in understanding, perhaps they will seek to become a true custodian of our building, leaving my trash can in the exact same bloody place day after day. One can always hope.

Making Toilet Cleaning A Noble Art!