Or Maybe He's A Time Traveler
I'm sure he's a good person.
I was once a janitor myself.
Also, I have lots of friends who are janitors.
Hopefully that gives me cover for the following.
The janitor who empties the trash cans on my floor is also supposed to clean the men's restrooms. For the last couple of years this responsibility has belonged to Jorge. There are roughly 600 -- mostly male -- employees on the floor so you can imagine that this is not a desirable job. However, I appreciate those who do it and always contribute to the holiday cash gift for Jorge. He gets ~$1000 in tax free cash from employees at the end of every year. I'm sure he struggles financially and the work must be terrible, so a little donation is about the least we can do.
To put my comments in context, it's worth pointing out that our restrooms have a history of being disgusting wastelands. While much of the blame certainly lies at the feet of the users, the janitorial staff was not cleaning these spaces with sufficient frequency. Apparently in an effort to combat this problem, facilities management put a cleaning record on the inside of each restroom door. The janitor is supposed to indicate when he cleans by noting the time he did so. This actually helped for a while. The restrooms were being cleaned four or five times a day, which made them mostly tolerable.
Sometime this spring, I happened to notice that Jorge had dutifully recorded his cleaning activities at 8:02 and 11:56. This was somewhat odd given that it was about 9am. Unfortunately, I sometimes get obsessed with minor issues that are out of my control, so I started casually keeping track. Over a period of a few months I determined that Jorge was cleaning mid-morning and mid-afternoon, but recording four cleanings per day. This really bothered me. Partly I disliked the lying. I work on Wall Street though, so I'm accustomed to that. Partly I disliked that the lying was probably so Jorge could nap in the big leather chair inside his janitor closet. I've seen him asleep during the day in that chair when female janitors have opened the closet as I happened to walk by. I like naps though, so that's probably just me being jealous. Mostly I disliked the fact that Jorge's lies made the restrooms even more foul than necessary. It also bothered me quite a bit that I was bothered.
A few weeks ago, Jorge was gone. The new janitor was actually cleaning the restrooms five or six times per day. Moreover, he was not recording any phantom restroom cleaning. I was happy. At first I thought maybe Jorge was sick or on vacation. Someone mentioned that he might have gone home for an extended visit. After three full weeks I assumed Jorge's reign of filthy restroom terror had come to an end. Maybe he was fired -- I started to feel a little bad for him and had some additional guilt over my concern for his inaccurate record keeping. Sadly I was wrong. Jorge returned and within a couple of days the facilities were as defiled as the timesheet.
Turns out Jorge was recovering from Lasik. He's not getting any money from me this year.
I was once a janitor myself.
Also, I have lots of friends who are janitors.
Hopefully that gives me cover for the following.
The janitor who empties the trash cans on my floor is also supposed to clean the men's restrooms. For the last couple of years this responsibility has belonged to Jorge. There are roughly 600 -- mostly male -- employees on the floor so you can imagine that this is not a desirable job. However, I appreciate those who do it and always contribute to the holiday cash gift for Jorge. He gets ~$1000 in tax free cash from employees at the end of every year. I'm sure he struggles financially and the work must be terrible, so a little donation is about the least we can do.
To put my comments in context, it's worth pointing out that our restrooms have a history of being disgusting wastelands. While much of the blame certainly lies at the feet of the users, the janitorial staff was not cleaning these spaces with sufficient frequency. Apparently in an effort to combat this problem, facilities management put a cleaning record on the inside of each restroom door. The janitor is supposed to indicate when he cleans by noting the time he did so. This actually helped for a while. The restrooms were being cleaned four or five times a day, which made them mostly tolerable.
Sometime this spring, I happened to notice that Jorge had dutifully recorded his cleaning activities at 8:02 and 11:56. This was somewhat odd given that it was about 9am. Unfortunately, I sometimes get obsessed with minor issues that are out of my control, so I started casually keeping track. Over a period of a few months I determined that Jorge was cleaning mid-morning and mid-afternoon, but recording four cleanings per day. This really bothered me. Partly I disliked the lying. I work on Wall Street though, so I'm accustomed to that. Partly I disliked that the lying was probably so Jorge could nap in the big leather chair inside his janitor closet. I've seen him asleep during the day in that chair when female janitors have opened the closet as I happened to walk by. I like naps though, so that's probably just me being jealous. Mostly I disliked the fact that Jorge's lies made the restrooms even more foul than necessary. It also bothered me quite a bit that I was bothered.
A few weeks ago, Jorge was gone. The new janitor was actually cleaning the restrooms five or six times per day. Moreover, he was not recording any phantom restroom cleaning. I was happy. At first I thought maybe Jorge was sick or on vacation. Someone mentioned that he might have gone home for an extended visit. After three full weeks I assumed Jorge's reign of filthy restroom terror had come to an end. Maybe he was fired -- I started to feel a little bad for him and had some additional guilt over my concern for his inaccurate record keeping. Sadly I was wrong. Jorge returned and within a couple of days the facilities were as defiled as the timesheet.
Turns out Jorge was recovering from Lasik. He's not getting any money from me this year.
1 Comments:
Perhaps Jorge could not "see" the pee...
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