Forums » Smalltalk » AMA: City Janitor

I'm a public parking garage janitor in a big city that likes to try to cosplay as a small town and whose existence usually gets overlooked by the rest of the country (Portland, OR*). I also previously worked as a janitor for two different companies at the airport (almost entirely indoors) for a few years pre-COVID, and have lived in various parts of Portland Metro (which includes some of the surrounding cities) for over a decade after having previously always lived in small or rural towns.

Besides the actual garage levels, it's also my duty to maintain some (but not all) sidewalks, restrooms, offices areas, and spaces shared with other businesses in the same building. The company I work for also manages multiple locations downtown, and I've cleaned at all currently operational ones at least once (including one flat-top), but have mostly only worked a select few locations.


* If you have questions about things regarding the local ICE facility, I encourage you to look up reports from our local news orgs instead, and to review multiple as biases in various directions still exist and different ones have sometimes had access to different information and moments. I work downtown, and that's not where the facility is at. Same thing if you're curious how the National Guard thing is going.

What is the weirdest (not necessarily gross) thing that you have come across while working?

That's sort of difficult, since there's so many different ways to measure it. There's often very practical and seemingly important things that just seem to get abandoned, and I find it really confusing, but the things themselves usually aren't actually weird to see in general.

I think maybe I'll go with the bit of graffiti where it looks like someone was just doing their geometry homework or something on the pavement. Like, it's just shapes and literal math written out.

Have there been any different challenges between having to clean an airport and cleaning a parking garage?

Absolutely!

What I did at the airport was almost entirely indoors, while what I do now is mostly outdoors (but also still mostly covered, so I'm only in the direct sun and rain a little). So I'm more exposed to the weather now, and it's trickier to regulate my body heat.

When I worked at the airport, my first position was challenging in terms of time; I really struggled to get all the things I needed to within my shift. The second one, on the other hand, I spent most of my shift looking around for things to politely maintain without bothering anyone, then had the focused time crunch once the area closed for the evening, and the main challenge was keeping everything overall looking pretty. For the parking garages, it fluctuates a lot, but there's no extremes in time vs. tidiness; I do what I can in the time I have, and sometimes that allows me to get more detail work done and be more thorough, while others I'm unable to get to all my tasks in that shift and need to rely on the next person. There's only so clean you can reasonably get a public, open-air parking garage. Ah! But it's now the season for leaves to be the bane of my existence, and that's not something I ever needed to worry about in my positions at the airport.

Something not specific to the jobs themselves, but rather other circumstances: transportation. I have to rely on public transit, and my commute when I worked at the airport was almost 2 hours one-way because of where I lived at the time; the trip was also a lot more prone to various delays just because of the sheer distance, and because of the schedule I worked, I had the option to wait a couple hours after my shift for transit to start running again, or get a bike to ride home in the middle of the night (I eventually did that). Where I live and where I work are much closer now, and the longest part of my trip is just the walk between home and the nearest bus stop (about 10 minutes or so at my quick walking pace).

And, of course, there's more paperwork involved in working in secure parts of an airport vs. working at a public parking garage.

OMG, are any of these things now back at your place just getting normal usage?

So I recently actually changed jobs but I was working security for a building and all I did was sit there and stare at cameras all night. I met one of the people that actually walks around the main part of my city and cleans up those streets trying to not be specific sorry lol

And what they did was walk around and like sweep up stuff off the ground and they said they have cleaned up some gross stuff so I assume that's just part of it.

But do you think it's a pretty mindless job where you can zone out and do your thing (mindless does not mean easy. My job is mindless but hard af lol) or do you have to stay pretty present to do a good job

Well, I know I still have some mismatched winter gloves from when I worked at the airport, and I also got a few of those neck pillows (people leave those laying around all the time) and I think a couple other small things? Some of it was old Lost & Found items that no one ever claimed and the airline employees were tired of seeing. But with my current job, I have to be extremely selective about bringing anything home because I know the sorts of things that might be in/on it. Last weekend I found some sunglasses and basic protective goggles that are actually snug enough for my little head, hosed them down with some sanitizing spray, then washed them with soap later on and brought them home. Neat, squishy unicorn toy I found awhile back, though? Too worried about stuff it might have absorbed. Most of what I bring home is just pennies and sometimes other coins (which I also wash, it really is needed).

Anything that seems worth $50+ (or is, like, literally someone's ID or something) is supposed to go into the Lost & Found anyway, and I don't really see those items after that besides a couple times something ultimately ended up in the trash. A few weeks ago, there was actually a guy who showed up just in time looking for his big binder of legal documents (like, he might have been a lawyer type stuff from what I heard), because a supervisor was literally asking me to throw it away in that moment because it was taking up too much space.

When I find intact clothes, blankets, or empty bags that aren't really enough to bother with the Lost & Found, I don't like to just throw them away unless they're clearly gross, but I also don't trust it enough to bring it home even when it's something that might fit me. That habit I've been developing for things like that is it leave it on/by one of the street garbage cans in case someone recognizes it or otherwise thinks it'd be useful. There are a lot of homeless folks and such around, and one directly asked me for a backpack I was about to throw away once (it was kinda gross, and I was hesitant and explained that it was gross, but he insisted). And if none of them take it, at least it's already at a trash can.




Yeah, definitely some pretty gross stuff sometimes. Things I wouldn't have been able to handle when I was younger. Amusingly, I'd originally applied for a different position, but didn't even finish training before deciding I'd rather deal with the gross stuff than fussy pay machines and potentially angry people, so they let me switch.

The main issue with zoning out is actually safety. I'm walking around among parked and moving cars all the time, so I need to keep alert to that. Once in awhile I'll also be approached by someone (usually just asking for directions or something), or I'll stumble across someone in some sort of situation and need to figure out whether to let them be or pass a message on to security (I haven't had to deal with any actual emergencies yet). Occasionally, if it seems safe to do so, I'll actually go ahead and clean fairly close to some, and in those moments I definitely keep alert for any sign of distress or anger at my presence, but so far those folks haven't fussed any.

Things like that aside... yeah, my brain still does some wandering and I do sort of semi-autopilot at times.

So I remembered something else today.

Other than the handles (which get cleaned very regularly), the doors and walls inside our little operational space (offices, restroom, supply rooms, etc.) don't really get cleaned much; I think they mostly just get re-painted if they start looking bad enough. I periodically try to pick at least one to give a good wipe-down when I have the time.

Another thing to know is that when surfaces are wetted, you can sometimes see things that you couldn't before, as the moisture will behave a little differently on different surfaces. Fine dirt, oils, general surface wear, old sealant patches, etc. - it can all leave marks or patterns that are invisible until wet.

So one day I was cleaning some doors, and I went to go wipe down the inside of the front door at one of our buildings. As I wiped it, up near the top of the door, a single child's footprint appeared. I was too focused on cleaning to actually stop and properly look at it, but it was very clearly a foot, a little too large to just be that side-of-the-fist trick. I kept cleaning until whatever oils or whatever it was were gone before I finally stopped, looked back at a coworker who happened to be present, and just asked, "Did you see that too?" She confirmed, agreed it was weird, and expressed that she didn't want to think about how that might have happened.