Shifting Sands
Thursday, January 4th, 2024 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio |
34F and sunny again this morning.
I've given up trying to be early to work this week.
Clearly nobody cares, and the week's nearly over anyway.
In other news, we have a cold spell coming up.
In about nine days, it's gonna go down to teens during the day and single digits by night.
That'll start during the MLK 3-day weekend, so I need to worry about draft proofing... kitchen, back room, basement, and a little upstairs.
I've got all the materials I need... just have to get off my ass and take care of it.
Those garden lights and the draft proofing really need to take priority this weekend, as much as I'd like to continue in the studio.
I'll regret it next weekend if I don't get that all done now.
But maybe I can still make those changes to the existing songs, that are on my list.
And then I can do the final two songs over the three-day weekend.
I clocked in at 2:10, meaning I could leave at 10:40, but I ended up clocking out at 8:40, because I couldn't get the KaiVac to work, and that was really the only thing I had left to do.
The big news today was that Lillian quit!
I told you how last week, she came in Wednesday... first day of the 3-day week, then called in for the other two.
Then after the 3-weekend, she called in on Tuesday, which I said didn't look too good.
She did, however, show up yesterday, Wednesday, and worked a full 4-hour shift, running the shampooer again.
And then she just phoned in to quit today.
So this is the third four-hour person to quit since I've been at Cloud... and this time it was a surprise, becuase I really thought Lillian was gonna stick around.
In hindsight, however, it may have been a warning sign that she never finished her area in four hours.
She always took at least five, and sometimes six hours.
I thought maybe she was just trying to get a little extra money, and knew nobody would be upset about it, because she was keeping everything so spotless.
But now it looks like she was just trying too hard.
I think the shampooing did her in.
Bernice, I'm sure, told her to make sure and get the entire room twice, moving super slow with the machine... to really get those carpets clean.
You're supposed to say, "Yes, of course I will!" And then when they leave, you get the floor once, and go get some air, because you've already breathed in too much chemical.
The carpets are 30 years old, with permanent stains that have been there since Clinton was president.
Nobody can tell if you hit the room once or twice.
And even if you hit the room 200 times, the water would still be dirty.
On top of that, the first day the kids are back, they'll be tracking in mud and eating goldfish over that carpet... trashing it to hell before noon.
It's just busy work.
You pretend to take it seriously, and go through the motions.
But I think Lillian was the type who wanted to give 110% on the carpets and... it broke her!
After one, part-time day of it, she stayed away for six days... and then she gave it one more shot... and had to quit!
When you take a step back, it's obvious that immaculate cleanliness is not the point of the job.
Because they're always waiting to throw other surprise hard labor at you, like setting up risers on the stage, or chairs down in the gym... or filling the hallways with hours worth of junk and boxes full of books to be hauled out.
The point of the job is to be a kind of mule who's on hand for whatever... and the cleaning part is just what you do in your down time.
Nobody in the building, or anywhere else up the chain of command is ever thinking, Gosh!.. this person is so good at cleaning, we need to make sure they can focus on that and not burden them with other stuff! We need to reward them with higher pay, and be more tolerant of them being late or calling in!
It's more like, Gosh! This person's always on time, never calls in, and takes whatever bullshit we throw at them! Maybe we can get them to clean a little better, without payi... oh fuck!.. they quit! Okay, never do that again!
The maintenance is also a big clue as to what's really expected.
Since I'm the only person who's managed to last a full year, I'm the only janitor who knows that all the toilets that don't flush, or have loose seats, and all the leaky faucets... have been that way since at least 2022... and probably much longer.
There's a lot of politics involved in it, because if a Teacher were to call an inspector in... every single one of THEM would be cited for fire code violations, for papering every door and wall with highly flamable artwork!
Yes, the building is made of mason blocks, but everybody would be instantly incinerated anyway, thanks to the fact that they're surrounded on all sides by flailing paper artwork... even hanging from the ceiling.
In the final analysis, grade school children are filthy, destructive creatures who can only just barely be kept in line with tons of paper artwork and goldfish.
At least in this day and age when ball crushing discipline is no longer the thing.
So... the building's gonna be a huge tinderbox, full of broken shit nobody bothers to fix, and... don't kill yourself trying to clean shit, because yer gonna need your energy for the four day ordeal that is the set up and take down for the Christmas chorus!
As long as we get parental butts into steel folding chairs in that stifling gym to hear their children sing holiday carols for 45 minutes... everybody's getting paid!
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