Lessons Learned (Part 5)
When the summer ended between my senior year of high school and my freshman year of college, I applied for the work-study program at the community college I was attending. Although most people would call what I did janitorial work, my supervisor said that we were part of the house-keeping department. I thought that sounded better and went with that job description.
I learned a lot about cleaning that year. My first comical error that I had to be corrected on was how the wringer part of the mop bucket had to be hooked onto the side of the bucket, to keep if from moving. My supervisor got a kick out of finding out that I had never mopped a floor or used a wringer. He looked in the bucket and saw the wringer just sitting in the middle of the bucket! I remember him saying, “boy, you really are green!” He taught me how to mop in a figure eight to keep the flow of the mophead and water moving along in a succinct manner. This also kept the dirt and debris moving in the same direction. After sweeping the floor with a dry mob, I learned how to continually pull the dustpan back while sweeping dirt into it, in order to get as much as possible in the dustpan. Another part of my job was wiping down the chalkboards. Cleaning chalkboards was quite the experience. First, I sponged them all down. Next, I squeegeed the water to the end, but slightly leaning the top of the squeegee forward so the water would drain off properly, at the bottom. Last, I would use another sponge to push all the dirty water, that landed in the chalk tray to the end of the tray and into a bucket. I can still smell the chalky water as I write about this memory.
My supervisor, Dave, was the man with whom I worked. He will forever go down as one of the best people I have ever met. He and his wife worked at the college. She worked in the library and would go home around eight or nine o’clock at night, while he would stay until one o’clock in the morning. After being there for a little while, I started staying later and just hanging out with him, off the clock. I would go outside with most of the house keeping crew from the other buildings and hang out with them, on their breaks. They liked to harass me or ask me about my girlfriend. I remember hearing some funny stories from some of them and what would go on in some of the other buildings.
After my first year at the college, I started another job. However, that didn’t stop me from still stopping by occasionally with a pizza for the night crew. I even started staying until Dave would close and go to his second job of cleaning an architectural office. I miss those late nights of going home at 2 and 3AM. He and I had a lot of good talks. I remember his laugh and his little comments about the college staff. He kept me laughing. Even though he isn’t on social media, I keep up with him through his wife on social media.
Life Lesson:
There is always something new to learn.
Brad Rhame 