I want to thank Albion’s custodians for their work, patience and dedication to keeping our campus clean. Thank you for making Albion more comfortable to live in, study in and experience, and for making cleanliness one less thing to worry about when acclimating to college.
As of 2023, over 2.2 million people in the U.S. work as janitors, with the average yearly wage of $31,496 – that’s roughly half of the national average wage of $67,727. Most of the work custodians and janitors do seems invisible, but that’s a misconception of their labor. Custodians’ work does not involve just removing trash from bins; it’s also cleaning, disinfecting handles, sweeping floors and so much more.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, I think it became a little clearer to everyone how essential janitors and custodians were to keeping our lives clean and safe. Nurses and doctors were commonly celebrated, but a lot of the cleanup work and prolonged risk was felt by janitorial staff. They had to directly work with contaminated items for large amounts of time, and sometimes, they were not told of the risk they were at when handling those items.
Besides helping keep sicknesses at a minimum on such a small campus, janitors provide one other comfort: peace of mind. I can’t express the nerves I felt during my first week of college, with classes and work being my priorities. Not having to think about dirty tables during lunch or unhygienic dorm hallways became one less thing for me to worry about.
Whether the library I studied in was going to be clean never crossed my mind, and who else is there to thank? Those hallways, classrooms and tables didn’t clean themselves. There are workers going from bathroom to bathroom, hall to hall, changing trash bags and wiping tables, who deserve our gratitude.
Custodians also replenish the things we use every day without thinking twice about it. Our hand soap, toilet paper, paper towels, shower curtains – anything we need, they replace it. When I bump into them during the mornings, I always think about how they need to be shown the same respect as any other staff.
The patience it takes to deal with students is astronomical. I’ve witnessed some bizarre messes: vomit on the floor, broken bathroom handles, ramen noodles clogging drains and unflushed or flooded toilets, just to name a few.
At our age, I would think basic manners and cleanliness would not be something people need to be reminded of, but it’s happened that I’ve seen garbage left behind on tables in places like the KC or Baldwin several times.
I imagine it’s frustrating to see full-grown adults who think that they don’t need to pick up after themselves because the workers will. It’s easy to take the cleanliness of our spaces for granted; we tend to forget that there are people who keep our spaces clean for our continued use, and many of us could be more respectful.
Because so much of the work custodians do seems invisible, it’s common for their work to go unnoticed and unappreciated, and I think that’s unfair. A person’s work should be valued, especially when it’s not exactly the most pleasant service to provide.
We have the opportunity to change how we treat custodians. The general courtesy of saying “good morning” or “hello” and giving workers a passing smile might feel like a small gesture, but if it does any good for the workers who might feel underappreciated, it’s worth it. Custodians, like all the staff here at Albion, should be valued for their efforts.
After all, custodians are human, just like everyone else. They deserve a “thank you.”
So thank you, custodians, for keeping our dear Albion clean!
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