The Janitor's Job

Kitsune · 10-23-2005, 05:21 AM

6am, Sunday morning. No one is up at this hour unless they're off to church. That's not my thing, so instead I've already downed a large Dunkin' Donuts coffee and I'm sitting here in my shared cubical, praying what I'm about to do goes right. I'll issue some commands and begin to pray that everything works.

I guess Sunday morning is going to be more of a religious experience than I had originally planned.

But, oh, the janitor. They come in, mop the floor, then leave. They don't carry a pager, don't get beeped in the middle of the night, don't deal with emergencies other than some spilled drink or flooded bathroom. They don't do work that involves company data -- you know the kind -- that people become furious over if it is not available for thirty seconds. Both of us clean up messes, both of us deal with "disasters". One of us just gets more sleep than the other. I suppose there is the issue of pay...

This morning I get to do one of those special tasks that literally makes me want to throw up. Move a database from an ancient, shaky cluster, and drop it on a new one that I get to build just hours beforehand. Oh, yeah, its Windows, so you know its going to be fun. Backups? They have none. If at anytime during the disk transfer on the EMC frame gets screwed up, its all over.

But its worth it, right? Having to take your job home with you each night isn't really that much of an issue. Carrying the pager is all part of the way the world works now. There are hundreds, thousands that would trade me. Many would give up even more sleep each night for their careers. I watch the workers here on visas to see what hours they're pulling and its a hell of a lot more than I am. They walk home to single bedroom apartments with no furniture, sleep on the floor next to six other people they live with but don't know, and return each day with minimal shuteye to do the same thing all over again. They seem to love it. I don't even have kids, so why am I complaining? I should be able to do this around the clock, just like they told me I should in college when I was in engineering. All-nighters are the norm. Trembling hands and blurred vision at 4:30am are nothing to worry about. These are the joys of the working world, the American Dream, the path to home/boat ownership that everyone loves and strives for.

Fuck. This isn't working.

ThreadHijackMan · 10-23-2005, 05:54 AM

Is that your own personal use 45 cal handgun listed in the photo section of the site you have listed as your homepage?

Just curious.

I was going to make a sincere comment on the value of what you do and the benefits but I didnt think you'd appreciate that either.

Anyway...hope things go better for you.

chronos · 10-23-2005, 06:31 AM

Kitsune,
I have the unique experience of having been a janitor for 10 years and a sysadmin/computer consultant for 11. I specialize in storage networking and have migrations like yours before and know what that's like. So I can give you an informed opinion on things.

Sure, being a janitor, it's nice that you don't bring your work home with you but that's about the only benefit of the job. Our peak work periods are late at night and holidays because that's when people aren't around to get in our way. I worked every single holiday (including christmas) for a 10 year period. I had to work in schools during the summer when it was 100 degrees scrubbing floors with toxic chemicals to remove the wax with no air conditioning (it cost to much to keep it going just for the janitors). The disrespect heaped on us by everyone else was infuriating. Anything stolen - it was the janitors. Someone shit on the floor and wiped it on the walls - call the janitors. Don't worry about making a mess - that's the janitor's job. It was just horrible.

I got a break and got onto a help desk working 70+ hours a week and I was happier than being a janitor. I've had to travel extensively all over the world and missed many family events (weddings, funerals, bdays, etc) and I still am happier than if I was a janitor. I make 10x what I made as a janitor. The opportunities it has provided me has been worth the sacrifice.

It's the "golden handcuffs" of computer work. When times are rough... they are REALLY rough and you hate every moment of it but you must be there because the company "needs" you. When times are good ... they are REALLY good and you can decide to take a 1/2 day or maybe go on a really nice vacation in europe. Or maybe a vendor takes you on a boondoggle or a day of golf.

Me.... I'm in this industry for about 2 more years and then I'm getting out. I appreciate everything it did for me and the opps it provided, but I'm trying to start a family and want to focus on my own life for a change. I'm not sure what I'll do, but I can tell you I won't go back to being a janitor.

Jerry

Kitsune · 10-23-2005, 07:28 AM

Good luck finding something you enjoy doing, Chronos. I'm really happy that you were able to transition and move up like you did!

I know a lot of us in this industry would like to escape it, but it always brings us back for different reasons. I really, truly enjoy the work! ...I just don't always like the politics and the way the work treats us. For the majority of the time, the job isn't difficult and anyone could do it, but for all of the times something breaks and the world spins into a catastrophe, the stress is all-consuming. It'll get better on this side, I'm sure. It has just been one of those days/weeks/quarters/years. Everything, EVERYTHING is being treated like it is the end of the world. Learning that any disuption is not going to lead to people losing their lives has taken quite a bit of effort when upper management tries to get problems fixed faster with threats of job loss.

Um, yeah. That makes everyone work harder.

The lack of respect people have for janitors is appalling! I really feel for the poor crew in this building -- they're treated pretty badly. The language barrier makes them looked down upon even more, sometimes sub-human, which is so depressing. They're people and damn hard workers at that.

Um, yes, that is my .45, THM.

richlevy · 10-23-2005, 10:58 AM

I logged on for a client from home and spent three hours babysitting a test cycle. Did I mind? Not really, because I could work from home and getting that extra cycle in was good for the project which meant it saved me time further down the line.

Unless things heat up, I don't have to work 50 hour weeks. Since I'm data conversion, and not support, my job ends a week or so after the project finishes, unless something was missed and a cleanup is needed, which is extremely rare.

All in all, it's better than being a janitor.

xoxoxoBruce · 10-23-2005, 12:46 PM

Quote:

...I just don't always like the politics and the way the work treats us.

I think that's a common thread to most jobs.

Did the janitor thing.

10-23-2005, 03:45 PM

I was a janitor once for three whole months after I got sick and my brain was still really fried (yes, believe it or not, I was once even more incoherent than I am now). I was paid a flat rate to clean a car dealership (repair bays excluded) 6 nights a week. My boss who was 6'4" and in great physical shape could do the entire thing in 5 hours. He based the pay on HIS performance. I, who could not even lift the heavy lid to the dealership's industrial sized dumpster, took 8 hours. Such is life.

The real pisser on that job was that the boss had just gotten a lucrative contract to clean a bunch of casino's about 100 miles away in Cripple Creek. He threw me and the dealership to the dogs, and I got to bear the brunt of this. The problem was that the boss wouldn't give me one of those floor buffing machines. He said he'd come down once a week with a machine and buff and polish the floors himself. Well, he didn't.

You know how car dealerships like to have those polished, shiny showroom floors? Well, the dealership's floors were clean since I swept and mopped them every night, but they did not have that "see yourself in the reflection gloss". The salesmen were p.o.ed about this, and threw pennies on the floor every night to show their displeasure. I would sweep up the pennies and leave notes on their desks thanking them for the tips and informing them that they needed to call Eric and giving them his number. I tried calling Eric myself, but all I ever got was his answering machine.

The dealership was vast. It consisted of both a new and used car salesroom in two seperate buildings. The second building was a sprawling affair with two stories to it. I'd come in at 10:00pm when the last salemen were just leaving, and if I was lucky, be out of there by 6 or 7:00am. The salesmen were pigs with a fondness for fast food, by the way. When I came in, the trash cans in each cubicle would be overflowing with smelly boxes of Kentucky Fried, half eaten, Burger King Whoppers and entire 20 oz containers of Pepsi, still 3/4 full, just thrown into the trash.

The dealership was not exactly the best part of town to be in alone at 2:00am in the morning, either. The front lots were well lit, but the lot behind the buildings sat in total darkness and the cars in it were often subject to acts of vandalism. The dealership had hired one of those rent a security guy folks, and he would doze happily away in his car while gang members sprayed the vehicles around him with graffiti.

Normally, I had Saturday night off since the dealership was closed Sundays, and I waited until Sunday evening to do my janitorial work. But one Saturday, I decided to come in that night instead because I had something I wanted to do the next day. When I arrived a little before 11:000pm (running a bit late that night), I noticed that the repair bay behind its glass windows was filled with smoke. The security guy was sound asleep in his Honda around back, as usual. I couldn't see any flames, just lots of smoke. I wondered if somehow one of the mechanics had left a car in there with its engine on. So, I opened the repair bay door to check it out. The billows of noxious fumes made me retch, and the stinging fumes made tears start to run down my cheeks. I quickly slammed the door shut and called 911. The fire department was having a busy night, and it took them a while to arrive.

When they finally got there, they threw open the main repair bay doors and billows of nasty stuff poured out. The smell made me gag all over again. Turns out someone had left a parts cleaning machine on filled with some sort of solvent and on top of that machine was a pile of oily rags. The rags had just begun to smolder into flame when the firemen arrived. They told me the entire dealership would have gone up in fire in another half hour. The firemen asked me if I was supposed to clean the repair bay and I told them that no, this was supposed to be done by the mechanics before they left each night.

The firemen forced me to go to the emergency room to be checked for smoke inhalation - literally forced me - a big husky firemen drove me down there personally. I cooled my jets there for the next 3 hours since it was a busy night and I obviously wasn't in danger of suddenly expiring on the spot. My eyes wouldn't stop tearing, though, and it was discovered that one of my contact lenses had melted onto my eye from the fumes. Needless to say, the dealership didn't get cleaned that night, and I was off work for the next three days with a patch over my injured eye, eating vicodins for the incredible pain.

The dealership was cited and fined by the fire department, and Eric fired me for not cleaning it up that night. Looking back on it all, I'd have let the place burn down. No one was in it and it was insured to the max. Frankly, I think that may have been the idea, since they were losing money - the salesmen had been complaining to me of low sales.

Janitors now have my deepest respect!

wolf · 10-23-2005, 04:13 PM

I clean up other people's messes in a different way.

If I could get paid what I do now to run a floor buffer, I'd be THERE.

Clodfobble · 10-23-2005, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by marichiko

The salesmen were p.o.ed about this, and threw pennies on the floor every night to show their displeasure.

Are you sure that's what they were doing? Seems a little subtle--"The floor is dirty, man, hey I know, I throw some pennies on it to get the janitor's attention..." At my old workplace one of our favorite time-killers was "penny fighting." We'd seriously throw pennies at each other, and we only picked them up again if we were re-firing them at the enemy.

Sounds like the job sucked, I'm just saying maybe they weren't purposely mocking you.

10-23-2005, 04:31 PM

The floors were a MAJOR bone of contention. I had discussions with the sales manager about them. I showed him the janitorial supply closet which contained no buffing machine, and told him that I was doing the best I could with a broom and mop. I even went and bought some of that "make your linoleum shine" stuff out of my own pocket to no avail. I would spend HOURS on the floors which is one reason why the job took me so long to complete. Once the salesmen understood that shiny floors were beyond my control, they stopped throwing the pennies. The floors really WERE bad news, and in the entire time I worked there, Eric came down with the buffing machine exactly once. His was a small outfit and he owned only two machines, both of which stayed up in Cripple Creek at the casinos.

SteveDallas · 10-23-2005, 05:18 PM

My earliest memory of my dad's job was that he did some kind of desk stuff at a local fishing tackle wholesaler. At some point when I was about 8 or 9 he started going on the road selling stuff for them. He then left this job and became the western NC sales rep for a tackle company based in Charleston, SC. He eventually ended up doing the same job for a similar company from Alabama after the Charleston company went belly-up. (I remember him saying that his last paycheck bounced. I'm not sure if he ever collected the money or not.)

During these times, he did a lot of driving around to places that were almost all within a day's round trip of our house. With some exceptions, the accounts were small bait shops and marinas. (For a while one of the companies was the suppier of bicycle accessories and parts to Kroger mega-supermarkets, and so he would stop in there to top up their supplies of horns, inner tubes, and pumps and straighten up the displays.) I occasionally went with him and, in my youthful naivete, initially wondered what the heck he got paid for as I hung out watching him chat for an hour or two with the owner of a fishing hole that wouldn't have looked out of place as a Dukes of Hazzard set. Of course, these visits were always concluded, seemingly as an afterthought, with orders for fishing rods, lures, and whatnot.

At some point in the mid 90s this dried up too, and he ended up working at one of the larger of his accounts, a bait store owned by a guy whom he had known for ages.

When that ended with the friend's retirement and liquidation of the store, there being nobody willing or able to take it over, Dad went to work as a janitor for the local school district.

The point of this very long and winding story, is that he told me it was the best job he ever had. Of course he was working for the state, so he got state employee fringe benefits, but apparently he regarded showing up and cleaning up kids' puke for a steady salary plus benefits & vacation time as superior to selling casting reels on commission.

10-23-2005, 05:21 AM	#1
Kitsune still eats dirt Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Tampa, FL Posts: 3,031	The Janitor's Job 6am, Sunday morning. No one is up at this hour unless they're off to church. That's not my thing, so instead I've already downed a large Dunkin' Donuts coffee and I'm sitting here in my shared cubical, praying what I'm about to do goes right. I'll issue some commands and begin to pray that everything works. I guess Sunday morning is going to be more of a religious experience than I had originally planned. But, oh, the janitor. They come in, mop the floor, then leave. They don't carry a pager, don't get beeped in the middle of the night, don't deal with emergencies other than some spilled drink or flooded bathroom. They don't do work that involves company data -- you know the kind -- that people become furious over if it is not available for thirty seconds. Both of us clean up messes, both of us deal with "disasters". One of us just gets more sleep than the other. I suppose there is the issue of pay... This morning I get to do one of those special tasks that literally makes me want to throw up. Move a database from an ancient, shaky cluster, and drop it on a new one that I get to build just hours beforehand. Oh, yeah, its Windows, so you know its going to be fun. Backups? They have none. If at anytime during the disk transfer on the EMC frame gets screwed up, its all over. But its worth it, right? Having to take your job home with you each night isn't really that much of an issue. Carrying the pager is all part of the way the world works now. There are hundreds, thousands that would trade me. Many would give up even more sleep each night for their careers. I watch the workers here on visas to see what hours they're pulling and its a hell of a lot more than I am. They walk home to single bedroom apartments with no furniture, sleep on the floor next to six other people they live with but don't know, and return each day with minimal shuteye to do the same thing all over again. They seem to love it. I don't even have kids, so why am I complaining? I should be able to do this around the clock, just like they told me I should in college when I was in engineering. All-nighters are the norm. Trembling hands and blurred vision at 4:30am are nothing to worry about. These are the joys of the working world, the American Dream, the path to home/boat ownership that everyone loves and strives for. Fuck. This isn't working.

10-23-2005, 06:31 AM	#3
chronos Dry Nurse Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 23	Kitsune, I have the unique experience of having been a janitor for 10 years and a sysadmin/computer consultant for 11. I specialize in storage networking and have migrations like yours before and know what that's like. So I can give you an informed opinion on things. Sure, being a janitor, it's nice that you don't bring your work home with you but that's about the only benefit of the job. Our peak work periods are late at night and holidays because that's when people aren't around to get in our way. I worked every single holiday (including christmas) for a 10 year period. I had to work in schools during the summer when it was 100 degrees scrubbing floors with toxic chemicals to remove the wax with no air conditioning (it cost to much to keep it going just for the janitors). The disrespect heaped on us by everyone else was infuriating. Anything stolen - it was the janitors. Someone shit on the floor and wiped it on the walls - call the janitors. Don't worry about making a mess - that's the janitor's job. It was just horrible. I got a break and got onto a help desk working 70+ hours a week and I was happier than being a janitor. I've had to travel extensively all over the world and missed many family events (weddings, funerals, bdays, etc) and I still am happier than if I was a janitor. I make 10x what I made as a janitor. The opportunities it has provided me has been worth the sacrifice. It's the "golden handcuffs" of computer work. When times are rough... they are REALLY rough and you hate every moment of it but you must be there because the company "needs" you. When times are good ... they are REALLY good and you can decide to take a 1/2 day or maybe go on a really nice vacation in europe. Or maybe a vendor takes you on a boondoggle or a day of golf. Me.... I'm in this industry for about 2 more years and then I'm getting out. I appreciate everything it did for me and the opps it provided, but I'm trying to start a family and want to focus on my own life for a change. I'm not sure what I'll do, but I can tell you I won't go back to being a janitor. Jerry Last edited by chronos; 10-23-2005 at 06:33 AM.

10-23-2005, 10:58 AM	#5
richlevy King Of Wishful Thinking Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Philadelphia Suburbs Posts: 6,669	I logged on for a client from home and spent three hours babysitting a test cycle. Did I mind? Not really, because I could work from home and getting that extra cycle in was good for the project which meant it saved me time further down the line. Unless things heat up, I don't have to work 50 hour weeks. Since I'm data conversion, and not support, my job ends a week or so after the project finishes, unless something was missed and a cleanup is needed, which is extremely rare. All in all, it's better than being a janitor. __________________ Exercise your rights and remember your obligations - VOTE! I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. -- Barack Hussein Obama

10-23-2005, 03:45 PM	#7
marichiko Guest Posts: n/a	I was a janitor once for three whole months after I got sick and my brain was still really fried (yes, believe it or not, I was once even more incoherent than I am now). I was paid a flat rate to clean a car dealership (repair bays excluded) 6 nights a week. My boss who was 6'4" and in great physical shape could do the entire thing in 5 hours. He based the pay on HIS performance. I, who could not even lift the heavy lid to the dealership's industrial sized dumpster, took 8 hours. Such is life. The real pisser on that job was that the boss had just gotten a lucrative contract to clean a bunch of casino's about 100 miles away in Cripple Creek. He threw me and the dealership to the dogs, and I got to bear the brunt of this. The problem was that the boss wouldn't give me one of those floor buffing machines. He said he'd come down once a week with a machine and buff and polish the floors himself. Well, he didn't. You know how car dealerships like to have those polished, shiny showroom floors? Well, the dealership's floors were clean since I swept and mopped them every night, but they did not have that "see yourself in the reflection gloss". The salesmen were p.o.ed about this, and threw pennies on the floor every night to show their displeasure. I would sweep up the pennies and leave notes on their desks thanking them for the tips and informing them that they needed to call Eric and giving them his number. I tried calling Eric myself, but all I ever got was his answering machine. The dealership was vast. It consisted of both a new and used car salesroom in two seperate buildings. The second building was a sprawling affair with two stories to it. I'd come in at 10:00pm when the last salemen were just leaving, and if I was lucky, be out of there by 6 or 7:00am. The salesmen were pigs with a fondness for fast food, by the way. When I came in, the trash cans in each cubicle would be overflowing with smelly boxes of Kentucky Fried, half eaten, Burger King Whoppers and entire 20 oz containers of Pepsi, still 3/4 full, just thrown into the trash. The dealership was not exactly the best part of town to be in alone at 2:00am in the morning, either. The front lots were well lit, but the lot behind the buildings sat in total darkness and the cars in it were often subject to acts of vandalism. The dealership had hired one of those rent a security guy folks, and he would doze happily away in his car while gang members sprayed the vehicles around him with graffiti. Normally, I had Saturday night off since the dealership was closed Sundays, and I waited until Sunday evening to do my janitorial work. But one Saturday, I decided to come in that night instead because I had something I wanted to do the next day. When I arrived a little before 11:000pm (running a bit late that night), I noticed that the repair bay behind its glass windows was filled with smoke. The security guy was sound asleep in his Honda around back, as usual. I couldn't see any flames, just lots of smoke. I wondered if somehow one of the mechanics had left a car in there with its engine on. So, I opened the repair bay door to check it out. The billows of noxious fumes made me retch, and the stinging fumes made tears start to run down my cheeks. I quickly slammed the door shut and called 911. The fire department was having a busy night, and it took them a while to arrive. When they finally got there, they threw open the main repair bay doors and billows of nasty stuff poured out. The smell made me gag all over again. Turns out someone had left a parts cleaning machine on filled with some sort of solvent and on top of that machine was a pile of oily rags. The rags had just begun to smolder into flame when the firemen arrived. They told me the entire dealership would have gone up in fire in another half hour. The firemen asked me if I was supposed to clean the repair bay and I told them that no, this was supposed to be done by the mechanics before they left each night. The firemen forced me to go to the emergency room to be checked for smoke inhalation - literally forced me - a big husky firemen drove me down there personally. I cooled my jets there for the next 3 hours since it was a busy night and I obviously wasn't in danger of suddenly expiring on the spot. My eyes wouldn't stop tearing, though, and it was discovered that one of my contact lenses had melted onto my eye from the fumes. Needless to say, the dealership didn't get cleaned that night, and I was off work for the next three days with a patch over my injured eye, eating vicodins for the incredible pain. The dealership was cited and fined by the fire department, and Eric fired me for not cleaning it up that night. Looking back on it all, I'd have let the place burn down. No one was in it and it was insured to the max. Frankly, I think that may have been the idea, since they were losing money - the salesmen had been complaining to me of low sales. Janitors now have my deepest respect! Last edited by marichiko; 10-23-2005 at 04:02 PM.

10-23-2005, 04:13 PM	#8
wolf lobber of scimitars Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Phila Burbs Posts: 20,774	I clean up other people's messes in a different way. If I could get paid what I do now to run a floor buffer, I'd be THERE. __________________ wolf eht htiw og "Conspiracies are the norm, not the exception." --G. Edward Griffin The Creature from Jekyll Island High Priestess of the Church of the Whale Penis

10-23-2005, 05:54 AM	#2
ThreadHijackMan Changing the flow Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 51	Is that your own personal use 45 cal handgun listed in the photo section of the site you have listed as your homepage? Just curious. I was going to make a sincere comment on the value of what you do and the benefits but I didnt think you'd appreciate that either. Anyway...hope things go better for you.

10-23-2005, 07:28 AM	#4
Kitsune still eats dirt Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Tampa, FL Posts: 3,031	Good luck finding something you enjoy doing, Chronos. I'm really happy that you were able to transition and move up like you did! I know a lot of us in this industry would like to escape it, but it always brings us back for different reasons. I really, truly enjoy the work! ...I just don't always like the politics and the way the work treats us. For the majority of the time, the job isn't difficult and anyone could do it, but for all of the times something breaks and the world spins into a catastrophe, the stress is all-consuming. It'll get better on this side, I'm sure. It has just been one of those days/weeks/quarters/years. Everything, EVERYTHING is being treated like it is the end of the world. Learning that any disuption is not going to lead to people losing their lives has taken quite a bit of effort when upper management tries to get problems fixed faster with threats of job loss. Um, yeah. That makes everyone work harder. The lack of respect people have for janitors is appalling! I really feel for the poor crew in this building -- they're treated pretty badly. The language barrier makes them looked down upon even more, sometimes sub-human, which is so depressing. They're people and damn hard workers at that. Um, yes, that is my .45, THM.

10-23-2005, 04:31 PM	#10
marichiko Guest Posts: n/a	The floors were a MAJOR bone of contention. I had discussions with the sales manager about them. I showed him the janitorial supply closet which contained no buffing machine, and told him that I was doing the best I could with a broom and mop. I even went and bought some of that "make your linoleum shine" stuff out of my own pocket to no avail. I would spend HOURS on the floors which is one reason why the job took me so long to complete. Once the salesmen understood that shiny floors were beyond my control, they stopped throwing the pennies. The floors really WERE bad news, and in the entire time I worked there, Eric came down with the buffing machine exactly once. His was a small outfit and he owned only two machines, both of which stayed up in Cripple Creek at the casinos.

10-23-2005, 05:18 PM	#11
SteveDallas Your Bartender Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Philly Burbs, PA Posts: 7,651	My earliest memory of my dad's job was that he did some kind of desk stuff at a local fishing tackle wholesaler. At some point when I was about 8 or 9 he started going on the road selling stuff for them. He then left this job and became the western NC sales rep for a tackle company based in Charleston, SC. He eventually ended up doing the same job for a similar company from Alabama after the Charleston company went belly-up. (I remember him saying that his last paycheck bounced. I'm not sure if he ever collected the money or not.) During these times, he did a lot of driving around to places that were almost all within a day's round trip of our house. With some exceptions, the accounts were small bait shops and marinas. (For a while one of the companies was the suppier of bicycle accessories and parts to Kroger mega-supermarkets, and so he would stop in there to top up their supplies of horns, inner tubes, and pumps and straighten up the displays.) I occasionally went with him and, in my youthful naivete, initially wondered what the heck he got paid for as I hung out watching him chat for an hour or two with the owner of a fishing hole that wouldn't have looked out of place as a Dukes of Hazzard set. Of course, these visits were always concluded, seemingly as an afterthought, with orders for fishing rods, lures, and whatnot. At some point in the mid 90s this dried up too, and he ended up working at one of the larger of his accounts, a bait store owned by a guy whom he had known for ages. When that ended with the friend's retirement and liquidation of the store, there being nobody willing or able to take it over, Dad went to work as a janitor for the local school district. The point of this very long and winding story, is that he told me it was the best job he ever had. Of course he was working for the state, so he got state employee fringe benefits, but apparently he regarded showing up and cleaning up kids' puke for a steady salary plus benefits & vacation time as superior to selling casting reels on commission. Last edited by SteveDallas; 10-23-2005 at 05:21 PM.

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