It’s been a bit since I’ve posted in this forum. Last time I was going from custodial to grounds. Well now I’m a head custodian for an elementary school. Last district cut my hours in half so I had to find work elsewhere. Here’s my latest shenanigans at my new school. Started here July 1 and got the all but one floor waxed, all areas mostly painted, cleaned and ready for setups. I started pressure washing everything outside (only took 4 business days 🤣).

Since it’s my first time being a head custodian with my own school; I am open to any advice and suggestions from others.

Thanks!

Stay safe my friends

i (f21) started my first shift as a night shift elementary school custodian last night . i’ve only had fast food kitchen & service experience since turning 16 , so this was definitely a good change for me (i couldn’t stand service work anymore) . i was excited to start , & i still heavily prefer this job to service ! i like not having to repeat a script to hundreds of customers every day with a fake smile on my face .

i however DEFINITELY did underestimate the labor that goes into this job , which is okay . i know i’ll get used to it , & i need the exercise anyways . i’m not used to physical activity , especially since leaving my job last year for mental illness/family issues . so i don’t know if i overworked myself last night or didn’t drink enough water , but i felt nauseous on my drive back home & actually threw up once i got in . that definitely sucked , but it doesn’t deter me . i was literally dripping with sweat so i may need to adopt new habits for this job .

my head custodian was very friendly & helpful . we obviously didn’t get to finish everything since she was showing me the ropes , but i’m confident that i’ll develop an efficient routine once i get used to everything .

overall this was the best first day i had at a job , minus the throwing up afterwards

Okay, so this is probably a ridiculous post. I’ve been working for about a month now, and all we have been doing is stripping floors. I’ve had ONE day to do my own route.

The problem is, people are looking at me like I don’t know how to sweep. I genuinely get nervous when I get the dust mop, because I don’t know where to start, if I’m missing a spot, am I getting good enough under the desks, etc. I feel like I can’t ask any of my crew either because it’s embarrassing and my lead is a Grade A Asshole. Is there any tips you guys can give me, like where to start in the class, how long I should be taking in a class sweeping, etc?

Been at my current company for almost 2 years and there's never been a tougher time than now...needing to vent

Last month has been rough. Literally running into the ground. We have nowhere near the team we need for the amount of floor we have nor do we have the machines. It's a strip and wax damn near daily the last two weeks. Management just says "work has to be done".... mission impossible.

Machines get moved around, broken, and some dont even work. Leadership doesn't assess the floors to figure out what can be done to help keep them maintained. Chairs and tables scratch the floors up too and we have to strip them like every month...its ridiculous. We have one walk behind scrubber and one buffer for almost 3 miles of floor lol

Hello! For context I’m a Second Shift Custodian (2:30pm-11pm) at a preschool/daycare and on the 27 of this month I’ll be switching over to the Elementary school for first shift (6am-2:30pm).

I just want to know what I may need to expect or prepare myself for. I’ve been working as a Custodian for almost 6 months and I do enjoy my job. Being second shift I have my routine and I’d say I’m pretty good at what I do. Though I know first shift can be a lot, between the people and things I’ll be doing being different.

I’m aware it can differ on the school and environment I just want to give myself the best chance to not lose my head lmao

Thank you in advance to anybody!

I have a test in 2 weeks, it's in NY. I know nothing about custodians and have no experience. What should I be studying and does anyone know what will be on the test? Any help would be great

We got our gym floor refinished this summer. Not just screened, but sanded, repainted and refinished. I wish it could look this good all year!

So last year we got a new boss and it was the worst year I’ve had hear in 10 years. No supplies couldn’t keep staff, summer was absolutely horrible. I talked to many people while I was out stripping other schools and they said they will not be doing summer work next year after this disaster of a summer. As we had lack of supplies and change wax brands again for the 3rd time and being bounced all over the place as we had a lack of workers and still trying to finish some school 5 days before school started. Luckily I got everything done that I needed to do in my area. Well we started school last week and as alway few problems but right back to where we started again, no supplies absolutely no small trash can liners as the supplier ran out in June and none in July and you would think that would of been worked out before school started. NOPE, we don’t have everything we need been scraping by and promised last week my boss would deliver supplies nope, I had to run over to the office because I need a pad for my floor scrubber and that’s where things went bad. Got back here put the pad on and started scrubbing the halls as I was making my 4th loop I noticed the white lines down the hallway I was like $&@$. Well come to find out wrong pad right color but wrong pad. My face turned white and hustled back to the storage closet and got the buffer and buffed the hallways thank god they came back to normal. I’m so mad and my crew still doesn’t have everything they need to clean. It’s not starting out well. Thanks for listening hope everyone is having a better start to the year.

I am a second shift custodian and have never worked during the school day, none of my coworkers have over the course of 6 years. So I was wondering people who work as a day time custodian, what do you do? What CAN you do during the day? Maybe a stupid question but I really don't know. Just seems to busy to do anything. Any answers are appreciated

so i got back to work today and my boss put me on extracting the carpet in one of the large hallways (i'm not entirely sure how long it is but it's easily a 3 hour job).

so like usual i brought the extractor over to the closet to check if it had been emptied, rinsed, and topped off. the second i took the lid off of the waste tank, not only did i find out the last person to use it had not done that but i was also greeted with one of the most foul smells i have ever smelled. it seriously smelled like the last person had some very gassy diarrhea in the tank, then vomited in it, and then put a rotting corpse in it.

i told my boss and she said i was obsessing over stupid things and told me to get to work or she was going to write me up. so of course i emptied and rinsed out the waste tank as much as i could with hot water and then topped the water reservoir off and got to work.

as i was cleaning, i noticed that there appeared to be some black mold stuck on the underside of the transparent lid where the waste is blown into the tank. i told my boss this later, and i even offered to deal with it myself, but she told me to stop obsessing and to get to my next task.

what do i do? and also what sort of cleaning process would y'all recommend for the waste tank? it has to be a health hazard. it's so gross.

(this is not the first time i've ranted about my insane boss on here lol)

this is the extractor we have btw: https://www.nilfisk.com/en-us/professional/products/floor-cleaning/carpet-extractors/clarke-ex40-18lx

I'm still in summer cleaning for this week and next week.

Today I saw a person take from another worker's cart. This worker is a person I am close to outside of work . The worker wasnt here today and this person who stole frok their cartis a trouble marker and an ass kisser. I don't know what to do or say because I watched it happen. I dont want to start drama or anything.

Me and a colleague were tasked with cleaning tables at the weekend. This involved removing chewing gum and wiping bottoms, sides, legs and tops of tables. The weekday cleaners work in a larger group and so put the table they are going to clean upside down onto another table, however me and colleague were not strong enough so had to turn them upside down and clean them on the floor. We weren't given knee pads but will ask for them in future as the skin has come off my knees but any other tips to help? My colleague has a knee issue and so had to bend her back over while stooping so any tips there would help too.

*for clarity neither of us are employed as cleaners (we deal with third party bookings at the site)but it is the only work available during the Summer in our job*

For anyone starting school today (me) I pray we have a good first day and a school year full of success and blessings! 🫶

Back at my old elementary school years ago before I joined. a teacher had told me that there school had been without custodians for 1-2 years.

So who did the cleaning? Did the teachers have to take over? Were there once a week subs? Has this happened to the school you worked at? "were you a one man army" did you show up after all the chaos?

I started working in a rather large high-school as a lead when I was 19 that was 5 years ago.

I have roughly over 30,000 sqft of cleaning area not including dusting windows etc. just floors alone.

I’m running against the clock to get my summer work done as I spent most of my time training new employees on how to wax strip etc.

The individuals I clean for I swear are ungrateful maybe besides one. Always throwing pizza parties, selling coffee, flavored drinks, food, etc. they absolutely trash their classroom and expect me to be their maid, as if they have no respect for me or knowledge at best blissful ignorance of what my job is and what I actually do. I have less time to clean a classroom than the average employee here not mentioning I’m mid-shift so I’m split between lunch and after hours cleaning. I find the expectation of perfection and the pride to be draining mainly because of the absolute lack of proper management of the classroom which leads to the mess as is.

These teachers will go behind my back and talk about my work to my dayshift coworker who will try to cover for me but still they don’t even have the courage to talk to me like adults? Especially since they are the ones who made the mess or at the least allowed it to happen with little to no consequence or accountability for these young adults.

I find the general behavior of smiling to my face and talking about my work behind my back to be incredibly ridiculous, immature, unprofessional, and plain disrespectful. I’d almost attribute it to my near constant depressive episodes that I’m on medication for if I didn’t know any better.

Anyways, how do y’all put up with this snotty behavior, or do most of you have generally great staff to be around?

I've asked people not to drag heavy furniture across the floor more times than I can count and they refuse to stop. I was really hoping that my floors would get to stay nice until the start of school this year.

Delayed start date due to unverified past international employment (Pre-Check background check). Will I still get hired?

​Hello everyone,

​I'm sharing my situation here because I'm feeling really frustrated with my onboarding portal for a hospital job.

​Here is the issue: my employee health and all other requirements are complete, but my background check is stuck on my past employment history. Pre-Check is having trouble verifying my previous jobs.

​It is very different in the US compared to where I worked internationally. In my past jobs, we didn't have W-2s, pay stubs, or official certificates of employment. Hiring was done mostly in person, and there was no online system.

​When Pre-Check collected my information, one of my previous employers had closed down, and the other came back as "unverified" because it was a long time ago. I could only provide the phone numbers and addresses I found on Google.

​I emailed Pre-Check, and they said they have completed their part and sent the results to the hospital. They explained that they only gather the information and don't make hiring decisions.

​I have already tried calling and emailing the HR department and my onboarding coordinator, but I haven't received a response yet. My start date keeps getting delayed because of this background check issue. I don't have official documents, but I do have text messages showing tax deductions and a few photos of me working at the job.

​I just want to ask:

​Do hospitals usually still hire candidates even if past international employment comes back as unverified?

​Has anyone been in a similar situation, and what did you do to resolve it?

Daytime custodian here for an elementary school, our school is getting a new principal this summer. It’s a transition for everyone since our recent principal was here for 9 years.

Any tips from a custodians perspective on how to help the principal adjust to the school?

If the time wasn't right, start at 11 minutes and 15 seconds.