Janitors deserve respect despite doing dirty work

We all have dreams. I’d like to be an astronaut – go to outer space, see all the wonder and… We all have dreams. I’d like to be an astronaut – go to outer space, see all the wonder and beauty of our solar system, look at the universe from outside the snow globe, maybe eat freeze-dried Neapolitan ice cream and try to convince one of the female astronauts to have sex with me in zero gravity.

Unfortunately, the dreams only work in the sanctuary of my head. Outside, in the crap, I have to work low-paying, part-time jobs. Last summer, I found myself gazing into the swirling depths of a mop bucket. The pail had a bottom – but so does my life, and I’m just trying to fill it with something good before I hit the floor. So, in order to afford the college life, over the summer I became a janitor at my old high school.

I’ve had my fingers in all kinds of mild to severe cleaning products. I’ve handled pre-chewed gum by the ton and I’ve put my hands in things you could never imagine – all for six dollars and twenty-five cents an hour.

There is a definite stigma surrounding janitors – school janitors especially. I’d run into old teachers and they’d always ask me what I was doing. When I’d tell them that I was a janitor at the high school, their eyes would glaze over a little, like they were looking just beyond me. They’d start talking to me in pronounced, simple sentences as if I were a child. If you clean up other people’s messes for a living, you must automatically be stupid.

This is unfair. Stupid people work all kinds of jobs and not all of them are low-cost labor. Look at our president.

When I was at school, I thought, like most of my fellow students, that the janitors were probably high school dropouts and morons. After I worked with them, I realized I was just a judgmental idiot. Janitors are regular people like you and me. Most are literate, and they think about things other than waxing floors and pornography. That’s a lot more than I can say about myself sometimes. No, children, janitors aren’t losers – they’re just people who have a job that sucks.

Imagine waking up before six in the morning and cleaning feces-encrusted toilets first thing. Then you’d get to deal with other people condescending to you all day – in my case, school administrators and teachers, telling you what a good job you did on the bathroom floor while not even trying to hide the smirk on their face. As a janitor, you have to deal with people a lot dumber than you having a great time thinking you’re stupid.

I was disconcerted by this treatment at first. How dare anyone talk down to me – I know more about the evolution of western European society than any high school history teacher I ever had. Resignation eventually wiped away my indignation like a Clorox disinfectant wipe.

I learned a lot by being a janitor. I can handle any mess, no matter how vile. That is an especially handy skill if you live and drink in South Oakland. I know how to keep quiet and let people think what they want. I looked shame in the eye and dry-humped it into submission. More than anything, I realized how much I loved going to college and how important it was for me to work hard so that I never have to be a janitor again. There is nothing low-class about working in manual labor, but anyone who does it can tell you it gets old real fast.

We need to learn to respect janitors. Don’t cut their health care benefits and pay them pitiful salaries. They spend forty hours or more a week getting elbow-deep in grime and all sorts of nasty things that most of us would never want to deal with.

The next time you get the urge to write some bit of genius insight on a desk or aim slightly to the left of the urinal, think about the person who has to clean that up. Love the janitor and he or she will love you back.

Seth Steinbacher has perfect aim. Send him your adoration/hate at ssteinbacher@pittnews.com.