Confessions of a Custodian

Tue, 2010-07-06 11:10 — Nathan Alberson

I'll censor it for you...

"It all started," Becky said, "in the 1930s or whenever the CENSORED it was when Bell made the telephone and Franklin invented electricity. Because before that you just stayed on the farm and raised the CENSORED chickens."

Becky was forty-five years old. She said she didn't like to look in mirrors, because she'd been pretty once, and life had bleached the beauty right out of her face. Years of smoking had given her a cackling laugh. She was laughing that laugh now. But tears trembled in her eyelids.

"And that CENSORED," she said. "That CENSORED who started the feminist movement. Thanks a lot from all of us . Because before that the women all stayed home. And if it wasn't for her, we could all be at home and make the babies and do the laundry and have a CENSORED tea-party. But no. Some people see a good thing and they have to CENSORED it up for everybody else. censored that stupid CENSORED CENSORED."

We were sitting outside on our smoke break. I always sat with the smokers because they were the mellowest and funniest people. I smoked too. And I said some of those censored words. Those were the two bad habits I picked up during the four years I worked as a janitor.

I don't remember why Becky gave that speech. Probably because upper-management cut a benefit or imposed a brainless new rule. When work got rough, Becky bemoaned the passing of the good old days. I do know I'll never forget that hilarious, profane, tragic monologue by Becky. That was when it all came together for me.

I didn't do well in high school. But I was too smart for high school. I was clever and well-read and I'd seen a lot of movies. If you trimmed my hair and dressed me in a shirt and tie, I could look respectable. I had big blue eyes and straight white teeth. I was going places.

Actually, the place where God took me was Custodian Level III at a big ten University. Mopping vomit and cleaning toilets. I thought the pay was okay, but my older, wiser workmates would sometimes find a nickel or quarter on the ground and flick it to me, saying, "Hey look! It's one of our paychecks!"

This is the first of four posts I'll write about my four years as a janitor. And the moral of the story is going to be that every man should spend four years as a janitor. Especially those men who are going to spend the rest of their life working with words and ideas.

Because you can argue feminism or abortion or health-care or whatever with a fresh-faced grad student. But it's an entirely other beast to see the effects of these things in a forty-five year old woman who never had the money to isolate herself from the pain that they cause. Again and again, toiling with my ugly, vulgar, blue-collar friends, I saw the havoc wrecked by a society that has abandoned God.

I'll try to make the pain real for you, and talk about how God taught me to witness to such people. I've got a few stories to tell. I'll keep them clean, but they won't be children's stories. To do God's work, we have to be willing to get throat-deep in manure. God had to humble me to make me do it. He's still humbling me. If he ever stopped, I would be lost.

Stay tuned for Part 2 . . .

Note: As always, please use a variation of your real name when posting (e.g. John, JDoe, John Doe) and a working e-mail.

Comments

Tue, 2010-07-06 14:22 — Anne

I'm staying tuned, Nathan,

I'm staying tuned, Nathan, and looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

Tue, 2010-07-13 14:35 — Patrick Hart

Thanks for sharing your

Thanks for sharing your experience. I too despite my degree, have wanted to be a janitor. Some of the reasons for that are the same reasons I still work in restaurants. The people I work with are still young, but I remember working in a hotel in the inner city, where peoples lives were long drawn out, but you had the greatest opportunities to share living water with them and learn from the choices they made. I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Thu, 2010-07-15 09:27 — David Baker

Nathan, Good post. It

Nathan,

Good post. It resonates with me! Jobs like that really do get you into the nitty-gritty.

God has put me in some interesting positions so far! I didn't thank God always at the time but they were all (mostly) good for me. It started with a T.V. Guide delivery route at age 10, then paper routes, then pizza joints (4 that I remember), night boat shuttle driver, a butterscotch corn factory, a Jewish deli, mopping stairwells for rent in Art school, graphic artist, exterminator, night custodian jobs (to go with the day job), freelance artwork, cop, almost a missionary and now part time school bus driver and God-willing someday a pastor. Along the way I got to meet thousands of people and learn about life a bit.

I look forward to your future posts and encourage younger readers to pay attention to the gifts from God right in front of their faces. When God puts us in places and jobs it isn't accidental. It is for our good and also so we can better "love our neighbor."

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