**Edited to include another brilliant creation by “Photoshop Dave” (For those who don’t know, Dave will send me brilliant and hilarious photos he creates to fit my blog entries by using photos in my archives. He has total permission to do so and they are always such a hoot!)
I am a stay at home mom. There is a bit of confusion from time to time because I will write, “When I was at work” or something similar and I will get an email with an inquiry that usually involves a statement like “Wow, I haven’t read in a week. Did you suddenly get a career and I am just totally out of the loop???”.
Alas, it is nothing that grand.
Sporadically (Yet, fairly steadily) I get small and insignificant side jobs. Sometimes I am bored and the job is fun (Working in a bookstore), sometimes it is necessary (Working as office manager for my husband’s company) and sometimes it is because I want to make my own tiny bit of money to save for something important to me like my dream trip to the UK this fall (My current job). With this current job of mine I have been deliberately obtuse on this blog. You’ll see why.
In January, my husband told me that the couple who were contracted to clean his company’s office building weren’t going to continue and he wondered if it would be something that I would be interested in doing? I hadn’t really ever thought of doing something like cleaning offices before, but I really want to go to the UK in the fall. The pay was decent and it was only about 4-6 hours a week and I could work at night. So, I said yes.
Last week I had a startling realization:
I am a janitor.
Dude.
I am not totally sure how I feel about this. On one hand, I have never, ever been ashamed either for myself or on behalf of others for doing decent, honest work. On the other hand, I AM A JANITOR!!!!!!!!!
At least this title is a bit easier to swallow since purchasing my new car. Because truly? The whole going to the janitor job while drive an ’83 Station Wagon was just a little too hard to take some days. If it is hard for me to swallow, you should see my awkwardness in explaining that I do to people.
People have various reactions to it. There are times I can tell that they are trying their best to keep a casual face and not judge, but it is still goin’ on in the cranium. When that happens I start freaking out in my head, “DUDE, I CAN FEEL THE JUDGEMENT!!!! STOP THINKING THAT I SUCK BECAUSE I SWAB TOILETS 3X A WEEK! Oh, and you have some spinach stuck in your upper front tooth. I am not going to say anything about it to you since you are such a hater. So, pppth!!!”
Even worse than that though, are the sweet, well-meaning people who get that “Look”. When I was telling one of my friends about my job, they got “The Look” and I said if they were about to use the terms “Courageous”, “Admirable” or “Brave” I would have to severely hurt them. I also said if they call me a “Sanitation Engineer” I will be forced to start ripping out their arm hairs one at a time.
Unless I just decide to accept my fate about it all. Maybe I can start a network of janitors and form a faction that is plotting to take over the world like the diabolical janitor with no name from “Scrubs”.Don’t fear, I have zero plans on inundating you all with “Tales from the toilets”. Actually, given my abhorrence of all things “Excrement”, I can’t believe I actually agreed to do this job in the first place. At least I don’t have to deal with bitchy people doing this, which is more fab than I can begin to tell you. Actually, there is pretty much zero people interaction at all. Unless you count Wednesdays.
I hate Wednesdays at work, and let me tell you why in two little words: MARY KAY.
Now, before I get hordes of you pink fans emailing me like the Amway fans that think I am a hater, let me say that Mary Kay can be awesome. I am a total fan of the Timewise system and they have a completely sweet lip mask set that makes my mouth soft and munchable like nothing else. Lots of women have found their niche in the world due to this little company and I admire it.
THAT said…
The office building that I clean is not just any office building. It is a freaking HUGE office building with like 50,000 square feet. They rent out a lot of it to other businesses. A Mary Kay faction rents it out on Wednesday and it almost always involves craploads of perfume, glitter and a boombox blasting “I believe I can fly”.
These big weekly gatherings of women can irritate me like no other. I am just not a fan. I have never been “Into” large groups of women doing anything, really. I tried to join a sorority my freshman year and pretty much snorted and giggled so much during initiation because I thought it was STUPID that I was sorta univited. When I was an active LDS person, Enrichment Night used to make me break out into hives. I am really not sure how I survived being PTA President for three years.
Every Wednesday, I am required to walk into this room full of very nicely groomed women and gather the trash from the cafeteria. I always have to go in in the middle of their meeting and it fills me with apprehension and DREAD. It doesn’t help that the trash has usually been crammed full of 8 billion Styrofoam packing peanuts and pink makeup boxes and so retrieving the trash is rather awkward and long. Usually, this involves about 30 pairs of eyes looking at me and taking in my hair (Usually hurridly thrown into pigtails, a bleach stained t-shirt and Army cargo pants and a sweater. I may or may not have smeared eyeliner at that point as well. I hate it. It probably has to do with the fact that 90% of the time that I am at work, I look like a homeless person. I live in total fear that one day I will be accosted because they will think I would make a great charity case. “Awe. Let’s give the poor, fugly janitor lady a makeover and bring some joy and grooming into her bleak little world!”
I know. I’m being wenchy, but it is still a fear, and I sense that it is not all that unreasonable, either.
Over all, though it has been an ok little job, actually. And frankly as long as it means that come September I am able to fulfill one of the biggest dreams of my life, I can put up with toilets, mop water and even Mary Kay and be pretty damn grateful about it all.
Yes, I would like to leave the first comment.
Whatever you need to do to make your dreams come true is my motto. If that involved cleaning, so be it. It’s not like it’s your career.
Be proud. Without you, these people would choke in their own filth. I know because I am one of those people.
It’s sad, I know.
Thank you, Dougie. I admit, I have been freaking out a bit because I posted this about six hours ago and there were no comments, which is weird for here and has been making me think,”OMG. Everyone knows I am a janitor now and they don’t know what to say! This is bad!!”
But then, a comment appeared and it was YOU! YAY!
I knew I could count on the Canadians!
:)
There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with honest work!!!
When my husband retired after 20 years in the Navy, he looked for another job here in northern Minn. where I wanted to live to be close to my parents…. well, we had two small children, a mortgage, and he needed a job. Do you know what he did for two years? He worked as a checker and bagger in a grocery store! Yes, my husband, the E-9, MASTER CHIEF, who had commanded hundreds of sailors was bagging groceries!! The first time I had to go in the store when he was working there, I stood outside and cried… But I collected myself, told my self how fortunate I was to have a husband who would do ANYTHING to make sure his family was well cared for!
Since then, he has worked as a Veteran’s Service Officer for the county, and the last 15 years in District Court Administration, Felony section.
People do what they have to do to make ends meet!
You are a janitor, I am a welder. It is what makes the world go around.
Exactly Sharon. And your story is a testimonial to the fact that better things truly do lie ahead.
I have that same fear of large groups of women. And… you were a PTA President?! That one surprised me. Not exactly sure why though.
Ya know, I bet those MK ladies aren’t staring at you. I bet at least half of them are sitting there thinking: “Is that janitor laughing at us? She never talks and is so smug I bet she thinks she is better than us.” Everybody knows the cracks about MK, I bet at least 1/2 of them are insecure about it.
I have a friend who wanted to do part time work and ended up being a lunch lady at her kids school- she loves to make lunch lady cracks about herself.
A job is a job, everyones function is necessary to make the world go around.
I will not comment on Mary Kay.
However, I will comment on “janitor”.
The man I love most in this world, my husband, used to be a ‘janitor’ at the local university. It is absolutely nothing to be put down for or ashamed of. He got paid damn good for scrubbing other people’s toilets.
I think it takes a truly special person to be willing to do that. I, sadly, am not one of them.
You go girl!
Are you kidding me?!? I challenge you to name one person who hasn’t ever had at least one job that they were way over-qualified for, or embarassed to admit to. Are you forgetting that I worked at a CALL CENTER for… well, let’s just leave at long enough to end up working in the main office.
Honey, I love people that aren’t “too good” for life and the crap (ha ha) that it will throw their way. I also love that we are going to the UK! Lastly, I love that Nancy put that she was a welder… She rocks. As do you. Now put that in your pipe and smoke it.
I cleaned hotel rooms for years!!!! You do what ya gotta do.
Wow, that must have taken a lot for you to admit it.
JUST KIDDING!!
Don’t kill me!
… please?
I do a billion completely unrelated things at my job, seriously… one of them includes occasionally being a urine drug test collector. Yes, sometimes I collect people’s pee in a cup. If they’re up to “no good,” I may even get to WATCH them pee in that cup.
Sometimes I definitely get the feeling that these people are thinking, “what a shitty job, is this person an idiot?” And it usually makes me feel pretty bad, even though that doesn’t even make up 20% of what I do.
So, I don’t really have any support! If I was you, I’d probably try spitting in their lip gloss?
Two things:
1. I love Canadians because they are nice and reliable. Always there when we need them. We should buy insurance from Canada.
2. “Mary Kay faction” I will be stealing that phrase to use in my real life. Thank you.
dear llc
how does the old joke go?… what and get out of show biz?
my first year out of college i was a janitor at a small college and loved it.
i learned a lot
i have a good friend that had taught high school in her younger years and then became the “copy lady” part time at another school.
had another friend that started a cleaning service—part time at first–her and a girlfriend—grew to be a very nice company with 30-40 people
did you know that many “spies” want to work as a janitor so they can sift through the trash and find many secrets about the company. Maybe you can become an industrial spy or get insider trading info
what fun!
also a big building is a great place to sing
tj
Loralee,
My friend established a cleaning business which has made him a relatively wealthy man.
My cleaning lady makes more money than I do.
I done my share of mopping floors and washing toilets on the job.
You make “janitor” look really good.
What’s to complain about?
Hi,what a nice pants,thanks for sharing.I will get one like that.bill