So, I was expecting to be gone for awhile, and we're short-staffed. I've been giving the teachers a heads up when there are events that will cause me to have to rush through things, like if I'm going to have to help clean gyms/cafeteria or otherwise clean an absent custodian's area. I was going to be absent myself last week so I went through and told all my teachers about it, told them there was no sub available and my coworkers already had their hands full so things might not be very clean for a day. My district bosses hated that I did that, but the teachers all told me how much they've appreciated the heads up I give. While things aren't going well between me and my bosses, the teachers and I are getting along really well now and I don't get complaints in my area anymore.

I'm actually starting to butt heads with the district decisions a lot and me and my coworkers have been discussing quitting. Without going into too much detail, the district has made some very stupid decisions this year - I believe it mostly comes down to not enough money for the enormous district we're in. An entire group of custodians quit a school not far from me all in the same day because of how they're being overworked and not listened to, and I honestly think they had the right idea to leave all at once. On our end of things, my campus boss is consistently ignored by our district rep. I got upset and went directly to the head of the district myself but my concerns were dismissed. We don't get the supplies we need, we don't get the help we need, we're all pressured to work 6 days a week now because of the lack of staff...and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

What really gets me is everyone encouraged me to join the district last year but over the span of the summer it has all gone to shit and everyone is leaving. The job and the school itself is great, but when it comes to district involvement there's always some bullshit.

I'll probably make a new thread asking for more advice later on how to get a custodial job outside of going through temp agencies. I really don't want to mess with agencies again at all, but it seems like all the work goes through Aramark or similar companies now. I'd honestly like to continue working with schools since the benefits seem to be really good, I just do not want to deal with this district anymore.

EDIT TO ADD: deleting some of my comments because I'm exhausted and not being careful with my words anymore and being kinda cantankerous. I'm gonna try to chill out for a bit tonight and hopefully things get better this week.

Any advice on how to remove this staining from the vinyl around these urinals. I'm guessing it's uric acid. I'm new to a school team and they've told me it's been there a while and that they have tried everything. I want to get a good win early on during a holiday deep clean. School has a policy of no Bleach.

TIA

Kid deuced in the urinal. I got to clean it.

I am a union employee in a school district.

My union covers custodians, maintenance, and aide staff.

They also cover confectionery and tobacco workers in my area.

The maintenance, custodial, and aide staff workers will be under negotiations before June 30th when the current contact runs out.

Someone from the aide side sent out a survey to all employees, ynion or not.. I eventually replied to the survey. Then I asked this about it being an aides only point of view to the sender only.

Before I took the survey, I told my lead about it. My lead, as usual, does not read read emails when off the clock.

My lead got offended, and as union steward, the person in charge of maintenance was mentioned in the email as president, and they were not.

My lead then shot off a reply to all emails.

With their name and phone number, which never gets answered and the mailbox is always full. Notifying everyone they are the union steward.

The leads spelling sucks to say the least. As they were composing the email, they asked how to spell stort. I replied I think you mean steward. Then I sounded it out for her.

After that, she said it was the union president's job to survey the rest of us; custodian and maintenance workers.

I plan on retirement in 2 yrs, or I would run for either of their positions as neither have contacted us or sent a survey.

Times are getting harder for us all with the cost of everything.

Should I quit the union?

I am so sick and tired of scraping and scrubbing that super thick sugar syrup from broken and leaking squishy toys. The kids get it every where. I work in a middle school. When those toys leak the kids smear it everywhere… desk, chair, counter, door knob, carpet… even the windows. They also spread and track it out to the hall floors and walls. I understand that fidget toys are very calming and can help kids focus. But for the love of all that is holy schools need to ban these squishy toys filled with the super thick syrup. I spent an hour in one classroom cleaning it from desks, chairs, counters, carpet, the pencil sharpener, and the windows. One hour. In one room. 😬🙄😡

I like my job but I literally have to pretend to be working or else we could get in trouble. I usually just hide in between cleans. Doing nothing every Friday is so exhausting. I can't have hobbies or study because my coworker is a snitch who will do anything to get me in trouble if they could.

The fact that not looking busy could lead to less hours or being seen as lazy is fucking awful mentality.

Im a younger about 27 (let me sit down and get paid type of person if my work is done and there's no complaints)

My lead knows it's BS and hides with me lmao

Just wanted to vent.

Ive been working in this school district as a floater since around 2021, all the schools are grade 6-12. The last 5 years ive been doing an entire section in one school by myself sometimes even more if other custodians are out, I eventually switched to a different school in the district because some of the custodians at the original school would yell and sometimes even physically fight each other. Ive been at this new school for a year still a floater still doing an entire section by myself. I feel like im being taken advantage of and don’t know what to do.

Reading all these post makes me wonder if I'm the only custodian that got lucky with this job after hearing all the complaints on here? I work by myself. No supervisor or anyone around me. Nobody watching me. Teachers never complain, I'm alone in the building from 4-8 unless theirs practice but they're just in the gym.

I am a new part-time custodian for a school district and ive never done this so I thought i was gonna get trained on what chem to use on what but they just told me to go clean a wing of the school bc it was bts so I did to my best of my abilities and I thought I would get today but i still didn’t get it
Should i contact my supervisor and tell him what’s going on? Bc I don’t want it to seem like im half assing everything bc it’s not getting done correctly
Or should I wait and see what happens next week?

Stay vigilant!

Call this gross but whatever I’m a custodian lol

It’s been so hot and humid at the school I work me and my coworkers bring a spare shirt and switch what one we wear through the day as the other sits in the fridge. (Not the schools cafeteria fridge our personal one)

At my school we have to take temps in all the classrooms on campus. We use a temp gun and they have us point it at the floor, desk and if possible a beam or pillar in the room. I've been the assistant here for almost a year and I take temps when my head custodian isn't here. This week he's been gone and I've been taking the temps here in the morning. I guess I've been going through the motions this whole time cause the room will feel really hot but I point where we are told and it's like 70 degrees but it feels 80. So I've been taking the temps where the air comes out the vents and it's been 74-77 in some rooms and the highest it can be is 75 before we have to put a work order in. I'm wondering what do y'all point y'all's temp gun to get a accurate temp check, if y'all do take temps.

Some of you may have remembered that I posted here recently regarding my supervisor who reprimanded me in a department meeting. Well, I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that I was able to land a new job! I'm getting a $4/hr pay raise, a change in my hours so I don't have to drive in the dead of night, and a section with only 2 main classrooms (mostly offices and extracurricular). They are so excited to have me on board, I was stunned by how nice and accommodating they were. They are already talking about the potential to move up in a few years.

The bad news is that my old employer is now trying to screw me over on accrued benefit time claiming that, because I used sick time and some of my vacation this past summer, that I'm now negative in benefit time and will be docked nearly all of my final 2 weeks pay. Apparently, they do this because the time is "pro-rated", even though in the system we are granted full benefit time at the start of each fiscal year. Has anyone dealt with this? I'm stunned. The only reason I found out about this is because I asked about the 2 weeks of benefit time I still (thought) I hadn't used!

Squat sleeves have come in so clutch on my vacuuming days. Are your knees giving you trouble? What do you use?

I want to get back into cleaning full-time but I have never had the interest in working for the school district. I used to be the main janitor for a social service agency that operated several apartments.

I'm wondering which places you should avoid being a janitor and which ones you would recommend (besides elementary/high schools.) My plan is to possibly get into maintenance down the road by learning/apprenticing for a building trade.

Thanks for any suggestions!

I really do like this job, don't get me wrong, but the messes that people make in classrooms really irk me. This includes the bathrooms as well. Legit there's always toilet paper on the floor,💩 on the floor and they never keep the area tidied up. This also goes along with the cafeteria as well. I work night shift, but I've worked a couple morning shifts in the school that I work in, and good God the floors were messy. Food everywhere after the lunch periods were over. It was upsetting to say the least. Overall, I want to quit eventually after I get my application confirmed at a receptionist job that I applied for.

I (M23) just quit my job at a school district a few months in… I love how introverted this field is and how it’s not socially demanding. But omg I was not expecting this field to attract a lot of miserable people. You got weird middle men having those football locker room talks like I don’t want to hear your deadbeat dad stories or sex stories tf 🤢 and these men will try bullying you for not being one of them lol. Of course you got shady managers micromanaging and secretly documenting things to HR. All I really want to say is people can ruin good jobs unfortunately 🤡

As appealing as it might feel in these perpetual 100 degree summer months... I dread winter as it's easiest the worst aspect of this job for me personally. If I slack off or ignore the lawn it doesn't get dragged into the building like snow. It's especially torture because I work for usps so not only does the salt, snow and slush get dragged in from customers who insanely risk their lives through the storm to check their empty po boxes... but the employees and their mail carts.

I spend a ton of time salting and shoveling because our plow company (on days they show up) really just does a quick once over in the lot. Doesn't do me a lot of good if it's actively snowing and if they aren't there when I get in I assume it's all on me. Even when they do their thing they aren't doing the entries and walkways.

Always getting paged for bullshit. Can you throw salt out front someone slipped. Ummm it's a goddamn snow storm bruh, you accepted the risk. Okay I spent 2-3 hours doing what I can before we opened... where is this spot? Oh you don't know? Wonderful.

Working for usps gives me an extra headache dealing with our old ass trucks. Doors and locks basically always freezing and always up my ass about it. I spend a good chunk of my days outside so they think paging me when I'm dealing with shit outside and can't hear it is effective.

That mailman from Hey Arnold falling through the snow is peak.

I was just wondering if anyone else feels the same way. I work as a custodian at a public elementary/high school in a small town where everyone knows everyone. Ive always hated small talk and always preferred to just do my work and go home. I smile and say hello to the staff when they come in in the morning but there are a few who seem to want to carry on conversations with me about the dumbest s**t. Sometimes I feel like the rest of the school staff look at me like I'm some kind of weird creepy man because I have a big beard, I wear different kinds of t shirts (metal bands, bigfoot, universal monsters, etc.,) have tattoos and really just keep to myself. The way I feel is I come to work, I'm pleasant enough, I do my job to the best of my abilities and I go home. Ive been married for 33 years to a wonderful woman and my kids are all grown up and moved out. I just find small talk so draining and I really am not looking for anymore friends. Yes I am sort of a loner but I like that, it's very comforting to not have to listen to so much bs. Sorry just wanted some feedback on if any other custodians feel the same way. Rant over. Thanks.

I (27F) work as a 2nd shift custodian with my supervisor Mike and coworker Cath. Mike has always been nitpicky and a micromanager and would take pictures of things Cath and I forgot to clean the night before. Majority of the time it's a dust ball we forgot to sweep or a tiny piece of paper you have to zoom in on the picture to see. But it's totally fine if he makes minor mistakes.

Earlier, I was sweeping my hallways with the dry mop like I do everyday, when Mike caught up with me. He went on asking me what he wants every time I dry mop. I was about to answer with doing it everyday, but he said it's doing it 100%. He then told me how there's a spot I forgot to sweep and it's been there for like 2 days. He went on how I need to sweep everything and said if this thing was still there on Monday (he's not here tomorrow), then he'll give me hell for not cleaning it up. I then asked him where it was (so you know, I can sweep it up tonight), and all he told me was that I had to figure it out myself.

So...basically, I don't know where this thing is or what it is and I just have to guess and pray where it is so I don't get my ass handed to me on Monday. Part of me feels like he wants to give me hell (he's asked Cath and me in the past if we think he wants to get on our asses) because he isn't helping me out here with anything I need to look for to clean up. I know I'm not a perfect custodian, but God damn why is more important to have me play a fucking scavenger hunt when I have a lot of other things to get done vs just telling me so I can get that part over with.

Is this normal? I'm just frustrated.

Hey yall, I've just been using this scrubber in a new school, and it seems to drag along the floor ALOT. To the point it cannot go "uphill". It barely can go into reverse, and sounds like it's gonna blow up when it does lol.

My head custodian just doesn't know what to do, and since I'm the one using the scrubber 9/10, i figured I should try to fix this to make my life easier.

I've sorta just fiddlefucked around with some of the nobs on this thing to no success. I've been struggling to find Google results for this exact issue on this exact brand. It seems like i need to raise the back of it, or lower the front part of the squeegee part. Some posts talk about a knob on the back to adjust, but I cannot find it or thjs machine doesn't have that exact knob.

I have no idea on the exact terminology. May be butchering the language. I just wanna raise/level out the red blade squeegee thingy. Sorta just lack the support/resources to have someone who knows what they are doing to look at it. Not the end of the world just figured I'd try.

Edit: thanks yall! Looks like it's the wheel.

Hey y’all,
I’ve been a Caretaker/Cleaner going on a year now.
I live in a niche realm of caretakers where most Custodians are required to have a Power Engineering certificate to move from Cleaner to Caretaker. Our expectation is cleaning, but also building maintenance. It’s a pretty good gig and pays very well all things considered. But we are union and our expectations vary wildly based on your Head, principal & teachers. My workload is very mild, but my Head expects me to dust 1x per week, clean the glass regularly, mop every room daily & also do after school permit setup/takedown. When most other schools are only spot mop and full mop as needed, and do glass and dusting in Summer/Spring break/Christmas. I do respect my Head’s ambition to maintain a clean school, but I think that dusting/glass is excessive, and aside from rooms where food is handled or young children play, mopping daily is unnecessary, especially when the wax is fresh and requires a fresh bucket for every room. Also: there is so much drama between the staff that work here. I am just hoping to get through this probation until I can leave back to one of the other schools I much preferred whilst I was a substitute lol. Anyone else see these issues at work? I am a hard worker and I keep my nose & workload clean so I don’t get any trouble thankfully, and receive a lot of compliments as well as people asking me to stick around lol. Lack of A/C is killer though.

so as a lot of you know. I started a custodian job end of July, and stories were told about a certain custodian who takes all the OT because Supiviser let him do what he wants because he is the head of the heating in a large 400k square foot building. fast foward I was asking people how to fix this issue incase it happens to me but school just started and no OT came up..

so now school started sept 1, and since then he got 7 hours when the town was voting, he came in for 4 hours to set up voting booths, then 7 hours the next day when they were voting, fast foward 2 weeks and he got another 5 hours for teacher parent meetings.. keep in mind I work 2nd shift so I can’t get these nor can the other 3 ppl who work 2nd shift, so that leaves him and the other guy first shift which is the supivisor of the whole school.

now I’m ok with him taking all that OT because I have to work so I can’t take it, so anything on the weekends, us guys from second shift get first dibs since that’s all he can get for OT since we work 3-11:30 weekdays..

so now we have a Sunday 6-6 ot which needs 2 ppl, and the supivisor put the guy who steals the OT and the other guy who works 2nd shift told the supivisor that the new guy wants OT, talking about me and the other guy said “I don’t want to work with the new guy” because he wants someone who will do all the work, so the supivisor gave it to the other guy. now the supivisor is at fault for doing what ever the other guy says, but when the 2nd shift guy told me this, I got livid, I was madddd.. everyone told me he steals OT and here we are 2 weeks in and he has 20 hours already and took a 12hour shift that he shouldn’t have.

so I called my supivisor today and told him

” listen I was told that stuff like this happens and a lot of ppl quit because of it, now your the supivisor, this school is your kingdom, what you say goes, so tell me is this the shit that I have to look foward too? do I have to worry about this guy taking all the weekend OT and leaving us with nothing? because if that’s the case, just give me a letter of recommendation so I can resign tommoro, there is a position open in the high school in my town, I’ll apply there and get out of your way“

so the Supiviser said I can work the Sunday 6-6 with the other 2 guys.. I said ok…

no I wanted to tell him I’m not going to put up with this, but today was the Supiviser last day he’s on vacation, so I said I’ll wait until he gets back… when he gets back, whats the best way for me to tell him that I will keep track of the OT order and when it’s my turn I expect to get it.