Facilities Services student workers cleaning the chapel. Photo by Reed Schick.
Based on the title, you are probably assuming that I am here to rant about how unnecessary facilities is and how it inconvenienced me my freshmen year. Yet looking back on the experiences I have had in the past year, I realize I have learned a lot from my time daily scrubbing toilets.
My desire in writing this article is to show the student body that facilities isn’t that bad, and in fact, it can be beneficial to your resume, character, and social life. Facilities is not always the thrill of a lifetime, but with the right attitude you can make it work for you.
Contrary to popular belief, facilities is an actual job. You can put it on your resume and get a reference from your supervisor. It plays an important part in campus life. A great deal of hard work and a great deal of detail goes into keeping our campus clean and beautiful. I didn’t fully comprehend this until I worked on campus over the summer.
The facilities staff want to make the campus nice for the students. In order to do this, they need capable workers who are willing to do the job. Even if you can’t see the impact of your work, remember you are getting paid with real money that goes into your real account, therefore, making this a real job. Finding ways to make the job fun helps, too.
This may make you think I’m crazy. There are, however, legitimate ways to have fun on the job. Even the mundane jobs can become enjoyable. I cannot count the amount of times I have hummed and danced while mopping bathrooms or dusting railings. It can be fun to do things out of the ordinary, like install carpet or scrape up carpet glue. It is fun to find ways to make the job more exciting. But if you are complaining constantly about how the work study people gave you the worse job, then you won’t get any value out of it. You have to be willing to take the mundane and turn it into enthusiasm.
If you don’t enjoy the work, get to know your coworkers. Cleaning is not fun all the time, but it is nice when you have people to bond with. I have met some of my best friends in facilities. They have made it bearable to come to work on the roughest days. There was one day last year that I clocked in just to be with one of my friends because I was having a hard time. My coworkers were and still are blessings to my life, but without facilities, I may not have gotten to experience them.
Facilities is not always a fun job and it can be disgusting. Yet, there are benefits and it is always easier to get the job done if you aren’t complaining about it. Any job you are going to have in life will have difficult moments, so don’t expect a work study job to be any different. Your “little c calling” right now is to be a student, a hallmate, a friend, and perhaps to be a facilities worker.
You are called to do your job in the best way possible in the position in which God places you. By working to your best ability, you are contributing to this campus. Whether or not you do your job well truly does matter. If you really hate your job, then remember it is only for an academic year, not a lifetime. If you can do your job cleaning toilets well, then you can do your job anywhere someday even better.