custodians

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custodians
By ER

There were a lot of issues with our head custodian this year who upset a lot of teachers. First, she would act very negatively and roll her eyes if anyone requested something. At the same time, most teachers took the time
to clean up their rooms before the custodians came in (i.e. picking up loose papers, pencils) because we are understaffed for custodians. Also, she got angry when a couple of us tried to come in early (before the school year started) so we could get some files together (even though she was finished cleaning our rooms). Sometimes I really think she has power struggles with us just because

she can. For example, if we are out of copy paper, we tell her, and she generally rolls her eyes and then takes a day to get it. She is the only one who can get it for us, so this is very inconvenient. I realize that she is overworked and underpaid (sound familiar?!), but I often see her sitting around joking with the cafeteria aides while we wait for our copy paper. I wish something could be done to make the job of being custodian more appealing because this woman is not the best candidate. However, there is such a shortage of custodians that they just take what they can get! Don't get me wrong; I do appreciate what custodians do, but they need to do their jobs and not take out their frustrations on hard-working teachers.