I was walking along the bike path today, shooting B-roll for a video I’m working on, when two of my old bosses rode past me. They were both on their way home from work. One of them rode a bike to work when I worked for him way back in 2008. He was a strange cat who vehemently opposed owning a house. He and his wife were life-long renters and they intended to stay that way until the day they died. They also didn’t believe in saving money. He would receive a pension from the state when he retired, and I suppose he would also receive social security. So, every penny that wasn’t withheld or paid to bills was spent as fast as it came in.

The other one was a fucking tool. He had been a custodian, just like me, until he was promoted to a supervisorial role, and I think his promotion was shortly before I was transferred to his school. He had the swagger of someone who had been a nobody his whole life, and now he had a little bit of authority and he was going to let everyone know about it.

One of my duties was to clean the boy’s bathroom. This was at a junior high school. The walls in the bathroom were tiled, floor to ceiling, with 5 or 6 inch white tiles. There were four sinks along one wall with a hand dryer on either side. One day, my boss comes up to me and says, “Now, Richard, normally the average custodian uses about 10 bottles of soap per week, but you’re well below that. Are you not filling the soap dispensers?”

“No, the kids don’t use soap.”

“The kids aren’t washing their hands?”

“No, the kids aren’t using the soap.”

“⌛️ ⏳ ⌛️ ⏳ ⌛️ ⏳ ⌛️ ⏳”

“Soooo, the kids aren’t washing their hands?”

“No, the kids aren’t using the soap. They get their hands wet, but they aren’t using the soap.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The wall under the hand dryers is dirty.”

“⌛️ ⏳ ⌛️ ⏳ ⌛️ ⏳ ⌛️ ⏳”

“Come here, let me show you.”

I take him into the bathroom and I show him the wall underneath the hand dryer that I, unfortunately, had just cleaned, but the grout was still dirty enough to convey my point. “See, the wall under the hand dryers is dirty.”

“⌛️ ⏳ ⌛️ ⏳ ⌛️ ⏳ ⌛️ ⏳. What does that mean?”

“The kids come in here with dirty hands, they run their dirty hands under the faucet, get them wet, and then dry them off at the hand dryers. The air from the hand dryers blows the dirty water off of their hands, and onto the white tiled wall.”

“⌛️ ⏳ ⌛️ ⏳ ⌛️ ⏳ ⌛️ ⏳. Oh, so you think the kids aren’t using the soap?”

No shit, that was an actual conversation that I had with this fucking guy.

To say that we didn’t understand each other is an understatement. At the time, I still had my own carpet cleaning business, but I was working for the school district as a substitute custodian to make some extra money. I very much saw my custodian job as a side hustle, but when the opportunity to apply for a full-time position came up, I decided to take it because it paid more and came with benefits. That was a mistake, and I should have just kept my substitute position.

When I was a substitute, nobody gave a shit what I did. I could come and go as I pleased, which worked out nicely because I couldn’t always get to work on time when my carpet cleaning jobs ran late. When I took the full-time position, and started working for the tool, my being late became a problem. For whatever reason, he thought it was paramount that I be at work at 3:30 p.m. on the dot, just in case he needed to relay information to me. Why he couldn’t leave me a note or call me is anyone’s guess.

We came to blows about it one afternoon, and explained to him for about the third time that my priority was always going to be my own business, not my nighttime custodian job. This came as a huge shock to him. He said, “I thought your carpet cleaning business was just a side job.”

“No,” I said, emphatically, “This is my side job.”

I don’t know how he didn’t get it when I pulled into the parking lot every afternoon in a $50,000 box van, but he didn’t. Parking the van in the school parking lot became a problem, too. Various staff would see it parked out there and think it was another Oklahoma City Bombing waiting to happen, so I started riding my bike to work. Riding my bike to and from that job was what planted the seed of a car-free lifestyle in my mind. I loved riding home from work at night. The air was cool, the streets were empty, and I just felt free.

Riding my bike to work also helped to plant another seed, that I’m probably lucky didn’t take root: drinking at work. I worked at night, and I worked alone. There was another custodian, but our paths very rarely crossed. He cleaned one half of the school, and I cleaned the other. One Friday night, he called in sick, which meant I had the whole campus to myself.

I went home for dinner, and I had a few drinks. Then, I went back to work with a flask of Southern Comfort. On my way back to work, I stopped by 7-11 and bought a Double-Gulp of Coke. I dumped in my Southern Comfort, and went to work. The second half of my night was the most enjoyable four hours of my working life.

I can see how people slip into a life of alcoholism. I loved being drunk at work. Plus, who would want to be sober and clean bloody shit off toilets and walls. The following pictures are all from my time at that school, but they are different incidents. 🤮

I’m surprised every custodian isn’t drunk at work. Years earlier, I had heard about a district custodian who used to drink on the job and he too would put his booze in a 7-11 cup, which is where I got the idea in the first place. His mistake, though, was that he left his cup on a teacher’s desk and she found it the next morning and reported it to the principal.

I can see how easily something like that could happen to someone who is drunk on the job. That night was the first and last time I ever drank on the job, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about that night often. I didn’t stay at that job very long after that either. I had a big carpet cleaning job coming up that was going to take two days, and pay me more than I made in a month as a custodian, so I quit.

From time to time, I see my old boss around town and I’m always on my bike. Whenever I see him, he always looks bemused and seems to pity me. So, it was funny to see him riding his bike home from work today.