Sweeping the university, one floor at a time
The Taggart Student Center is the main hub of campus. The streams of students coming and going in the bustling minutes between classes is vastly different from the silence at the end of a janitor’s shift at 1 a.m.
The mind conjures images of overflowing trash cans, messy bathrooms and dirty floors when the end of the day comes in the TSC, but the janitors say it’s not that bad. In fact, they tend to have a good time cleaning at the end of a day, when everyone else is eating dinner and sleeping.
“It’s really not that bad,” Chad Larsen said, as he put on the first of many pairs of rubber gloves he wears each night.
Larsen has been a janitor in the TSC for about a month, and said the social interactions with students are the best part of his job.
“You can be quiet, but the more you get to know the students the better your job is,” he said.
The janitors in the TSC clean in teams, and Larsen’s partner is Scott Arbon, a freshman in landscape architecture.
Larsen and Arbon banter back-and-forth, joking about names for what they do.
“You’re going to be a facilities technician,” Larsen said to Arbon.
Arbon has been working as a janitor for about three months, but doesn’t necessarily agree that the students are the best part of his job.
“Our jobs are not that glamorous, but I really like vacuuming,” he said, smiling to let Larsen in on the joke. “But really, I don’t mind it at all. We get to talk to a lot of people, and that’s great.”
The janitors have the same basic jobs each day, which one janitor, Don Rindlisbacher, said can be monotonous.
“It’s mundane, but it’s got to be done, and it’s a fun place to work,” he said.
Each day, aside from the jobs the janitors do every day, there’s also what’s called a detail.
“Detail just means we clean something extra, like mopping the floor mats in the offices, or cleaning all the nooks and crannies in the bathrooms,” Larsen said.
Not all the janitors are students at USU, as Larsen and Rindlisbacher can attest to. Larsen is a USU alumnus, as is Rindlisbacher.
Larsen lives with his wife, and both have stayed in Logan because her family is in North Logan, he said. Rindlisbacher has a wife and children and works two jobs.
Rindlisbacher said he has worked in other places before, such as the Logan Regional Hospital, but he said he needed a change, so when a janitorial job opened at USU, he took it. He is now one of four full-time night janitors in the TSC.
Over the four years Rindlisbacher has worked in the TSC, he said he’s gotten to know a lot of the student leaders, which is always the highlight for him.
“We may not be on a first-name basis, but we know each other, and I’ve really liked seeing them around,” he said.
Larsen said knowing the people whose offices he and Arbon clean helps them with their job.
“When students know you, they’re a lot more likely to clean up after themselves, to help you out,” he said.
The janitors don’t only clean the TSC, though. They often help set up for events, which they said helps to alleviate some of the boredom they can get from the routine.
“We got to help set up with Mardi Gras, and tear down and stuff like that,” Arbon said. “It was really cool to be able to do that.”
Rindlisbacher has also been helping with mechanical maintenance.
“I’ve been helping tear apart machines; helping with the maintenance side of things, not just cleaning,” he said. “It’s nice to be able to do both.”
The janitors have had some odd experiences while working at USU, and Rindlisbacher said he saw two guys about to get into a fight in the Aggie Terrace one night when he got off work.
“There were these guys, and they were standing nose to nose,” he said. “I was parked right behind them, so as I pulled out I just told them they didn’t want to do this, and they should stop. They separated after that.”
Larsen said it can be a little weird here in the TSC late at night, and he’s sometimes scared himself.
“Sometimes when it’s really late and nobody’s around, you catch a glance of yourself moving, and that’s kinda weird,” he said. “And the TSC is an old building, so it makes some weird noises.”
The janitors may not have a glamorous job, but Arbon said that’s not the point.
“It’s about the students, they really make the job worth it,” he said.
– april.ashland@aggiemail.usu.edu