- -
Women janitor sleeps,
sweeps, jams, cleans
in Avery Laboratory
By Dianne Barry
"Out; night I came sweeping into . .
. well, there's always piles of toilet
paper on the floor in the bathroom, so
I thought nothing of it, except for this
horrible smell. And so I'm sweeping
over this paper, arid suddenly there's
this defecation all over the floor. Well,
I thought, 'Someone's just insane!
That's what it has to be.'" said Joyce
Felton, a night custodian on second
floor Avery.
The 22-year-old journalism student
said ibis is just one of the messes she
usually has to clean up, except in this
case it happened twice.
"About tjo weeks later, I entered
the bathroom to clean, and here was
this same horrible smell. Sure enouah
it was Hi-; same
Felin" said
tfing all oser again,'
"Cy this time ! thought. I probably
had an enemy out to net me," she said.
However the third time it happened,
Gerald L.uehrs, a custodian responsible
for the first end basement floors in
Avery, found iUr: uvrs, she added.
"I dido'
said, "hi. o i
ted so bad then," she
tot : c led up with the
i now I icnt those out. I
rm. 'or ,. dollar a night to
t '' " '' b frts tired of it,
' , uv rumbles of
md !,ave to pay him
bad i; i
pay ano'h-'.'
do them, on
I'll picma
discontent
more."
oh i.: sa;o
'. . ,;:; ..robal)ly her best
anecdo'e
custodian
iboni f i experiences as a
j iiyrig to ihink of ways to
h s or .nee dotes sound good
"' n' o lenv to title them. I
' ' ''--d !'.;. one should !
make st
in print
finally d,
called 'r1y
said, :.-f
o" L y (.Yemen t ,'" she
".rr; :!: was to l-o
(.'Uor night ide.
interview-:; ,
l.ou t , ,.'! !',- :
'l in, toi s,'" said
n.i! manager of
John 15 1 i ! no. i ii
the custodian srrvii e
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'-lit hs I
"Even 'custodian' isn't a very
dignified term. We've been trying to
think of words like 'sanitarians' or
'housekeeping engineers,'" he said.
Felton agreed there is a stigma with
custodial work.
"I used to be pretty embarrassed
when I'd run into some old friends
whom I hadn't seen in a long time.
They'd ask me what I was doing, and
I'd tell them I was a janitor. I'd think
they'd think 'Oh, well, you made it
pretty big in life, didn't you?'" she
said with a laugh.
It seemed her only socially
redeeming quality was that she also
was going to school, she added.
She has worked as a night
custodian for a year and a half and
said she likes most aspects of her job.
"I here's a lot of advantages," she
said. "One is that you have the day
free, instead of being stuck
somewhere. And if you want to take a
little nap at work, you can usually
sleep and have a janitor buddy wake
you up. If you get lonely and want
someone to talk to, there's always
your janitor buddies."
She said she worked in many
buildings on campus besides Avery.
She said a person gets to know a
building and the people in it in an
unusual way.
"You feel like you're intimately
involved with every department you're
working for, except that all the people
are ghosts. You do get to know people
in a strange way. You see what books
they read, what cigarets they smoke,
what they try to hide, stuffed way
down under the garbage. You get to
see their personal habits. I don't know
it it's being snoopy. It's not meant to
be."
Felton said the least interesting
department is the math department.
'There was just nothing there I
could relate to at all," she said.
a
- " '
fx:-' J 1 .1
5 'ai'C
v .-ff'ir lit W 5 lr H
Janitor Joyce Felton takes a break from job duties
'The most interesting place is
Nebraska Hall because they have a big
room where they keep leftover
anthropology stuff. Nebraska Hal! is so
big, instead of hiding or sleeping, you
just wander about. They have these big
bones and mummies and things."
The worst building is Bessey Hall,
she said, because persons put dead rats
and sometimes even dead monkeys in
the garbage.
Felton has also worked in the
Fnqineering BMg., Stout Hall and the
Administration bklq. She is transferred
that often because she always got in
trouble, she said.
"I must have settled down though,
Ixjcause I've (xen in Avery for almost
a year," sh" said. Custodians do net
moved quite often to other buildings
when someone misses-a night, of work,
she added.
Felton said three custodians work
in Avery, and sometimes they have
jam sessions. She said she brings her
guitar, and Earl, a custodian on third
floor, will play.
"But we haven't gotten up enough
nerve yet for Earl to bring his electric
guitar and amplifiers. We particularly
had jam sessions in the summer.
Before that we used to play cards a
lot. I lost $10 one night in a poker
game."
Aside from seeing the custodians in
your buildings and your supervisor,
you don't see many other custodians,
she said, except at the monthl
V
meetings.
Dzerk said the custodians meet
monthly on company time and are
updated on new cleaning items and
methods and review complaints,
memos and safety procedures.
The custodians also have a
custodial employe's fund, handled by
a president and treasurer, he said.
"If you're in the hospital for three
days, you get flowers. For two days,
no flowers," he said.
Dzerk, who said he prefers to f;
called either "nijht supervisor" or
"the concerned phantom," said there
also is a- Christmas party when fuds
are available. It's a luncheon a! the
. . . f , w
" ' ' i t " ( I k : I
A,X
' ' 1' I
1
Nebraska Union, he said, "where we
try to keep up their (the custodial
staff's) morale."
"The Christmas party is about the j
only time we can really let off steam," I
another supervisor- said.
"Wo ;;e a depressing lot," Felton
said. "It's the type of job you have to ?-.
be proud of because no one else I
appreciates the j b you do. You really f
yet down on people's personal habits. $
It's like cleaning up after pigs." I
i
bno said her work would be easier
if people would clean up alter
themselves.
"But they know someone else will
do it, so it never enters their heads. !
don't really blame them for act i no lib.:
pigs. I ei-ss I've none it mysrir, bid
when peopit; get. in public, they .:nd
to lorgot. I don't know anyone who
puts their cigarets out on the floor i,i
their home," she said.
Derk said a person can tell by the
cleanliness of the area if the professor
aliows smoking in the classroom. The
mess doubles when you have the
vending areas, he added.
"Cleaning up after yourself not
only saves the custodian time, but it's
better both economically and
ecologically," he said.
"Most every service is a ntceuwi."
evil. It's ccrting the parents for the
mess the students make," he said.
Felton s.iid she doubted
that j
efficiency could lx- increased. 4
"I wouldn't mind being a janitor f
C 1 f . i i
ioi a long imic n trie joo was going to
stay this way, but it isn't. Rumors
have it that these' efficiency experts n
will hang over our heads and tell us we
have to do more area. It won't work.
People will just quit."
She said assigning larger areas to
custodians would reduce efficiency in
cleaning.
"If a custodian is gone, you gel all
these letters about bow come a
wa.depaiH.'i ba:,kcl wasn't emptied.
They don't no Ike what we do, just
when we don't do it," Derk said.
"ll's boring as hell being a janitor,"
Felton s.iid, "but for some reason, I
don't I- now. I just don't- mind it."
6
S
fririny, ( b..-:.: 'A,, 1'j73
daily nebraskan
pan)
