Getting your hands dirty at work
Finances can be tough on a college student. When it comes to making money, some will accept doing the less-sought-after jobs. Whether it’s cleaning up puke or having your nose full of dust, some Utah State students work for every penny they make.
Mason Cardon, a junior majoring in Spanish, works at the University Research Greenhouses. Cardon works for the North American Proficiency Testing program, which assists soils and plants labs with their efficiency by sending samples between the labs.
“Basically what I do is dry, grind, sieve and package soil for sampling,” Cardon said. “I also grind plant samples for testing.”
Cardon goes out into the fields and harvests wheat, tomato leaves and other grasses. These samples are then dried for a week or two and ground by a machine into a fine powder.
“I have to wear a paper face mask like a doctor when grinding plants or soils so that I don’t breathe in the dust,” Cardon said. “It’s really dirty.”
Overalls are provided, but Cardon said he still wears older clothes to work every day.
Cardon found out about the job from his father, who is a professor of soil science at Utah State.
When students want to go enjoy the great outdoors, they can rent equipment from the Outdoor Recreation Program. As the equipment gets used, it gets dirty, and that means somebody has to clean it up.
“Most of our jobs entail just getting dirt or mud off the equipment after it has been rented out,” said Paul Reinhardt, a recent USU graduate . “Probably the worst job is cleaning out the ‘groovers.'”
According to Reinhardt, “groovers” are boxes used as restrooms on camping or rafting trips. They are called groovers because when they are sat on, the edges of the box give grooves in the users backside.
“When cleaning out the groovers, we hook up a hose on one side of it and then tip it over and let the hose wash off the sides of the box,” Reinhardt said. “There are no guarantees you will come out clean. And the stench is pretty bad.”
The restrooms aren’t the only equipment that comes back smelling badly.
“Once I was put in charge of cleaning out some tents,” said Kailey Burch, a junior going into exercise science. “While cleaning them out, I came across one someone had thrown up in. Not only did they throw up in it, they didn’t clean it up and instead rolled it up and brought it back to us. Trust me, three day old vomit is not pleasant.”
The real dirt of the ORC jobs can come from the water activity equipment.
“We get pretty muddy and dirty while cleaning off the canoes and rafts,” said Dominick Barratt, a junior going into natural resources. “When people get done with the rafts, they roll the wet raft up in the dirt.”
“The lifejackets can get smelling pretty funky if we don’t clean them after each trip,” Reinhardt said. “We don’t want to deal with mold issues.”
Food is distributed on the trips the ORC helps with, but having to clean up after a meal can lead to some interesting smells, according to Barratt.
“Doing the dishes on one of the trips can get pretty nasty,” Barratt said. “Usually the grossest things associated with this job happen on the trips, whether it’s cleaning up food or the groovers. I don’t know which is worse.”
These students sometimes bring the dirty work home with them.
“When I get home, I just jump right in the shower,” Cardon said. “I am usually caked in dirt. When I blow my nose, dust comes out. My hands get the dirtiest, especially under my nails. I feel dirty all the time.”
– kylekheywood@gmail.com
Twitter: @heywood_kyle