By Matthew Johnson
The work that’s done by the custodian’s is a thankless job and its very rare that someone acknowledges a Custodian’s hard work. Typically, you only hear about a janitor when something goes wrong like a terrible food mess, trash overflowing everywhere or paper towels out of stock. Daeshawn Sandford is the Lead Custodian of the custodians of ELAC and he gave us some insight on the life of a janitor at ELAC. Sanford worked at LAUSD for 15 years as a custodian but said “I like it at ELAC because I like being around the adults and there are good students here. He also gave us a few ways on how students and faculty members can make life easier on all of the janitors.”
Sanford and the rest of the custodians are apart of our education work force and they ensure that the rest of us can learn in an environment that is safe and clean and optimized for retention. A typical day for Sandford usually consists of a new issue everyday because as a custodian the multitude of problems that you have to fix are always changing. Sanford said “Everyday is not really the same,” and he helps out anywhere where they may need the extra help. Some days hell try to start working around buildings F7, F9 and G9 because there’s always leaves that need to be blow and trash to change around those areas.
After blowing down the buildings and opening all of the different restrooms throughout the campus, Sandford and the rest of the custodians take supplies to different restrooms and classrooms and give them to whoever may need them. There is an active Operations Manager on duty who receives calls on any issues that happen in ELAC. After they receive it they then will relay the message to Lead Custodian Sandford and after that he delivers the message to the rest of the custodians. He made it very clear that he is not their boss he doesn’t tell them what to do, he just gives them the instructions that he receives.
When the question “How can ELAC students and faculty help out our custodians to make life easier,” Sanford perked up a bit and seemed very intrigued by the question like he had been waiting to be asked that question. He went on to say “If we can have students stop throwing there cigarette butts on the stairwell that would be very helpful,”. That’s definitely a request that anyone should be able to acquiesce to we are all adults. Another Janitor whose requested anonymity said “Its ridiculous they are thrown to floor when there is trashcans all around.”
I asked Sanford if there was anything else that we can do to help and he said “PHONES or when some has earphones in pay attention to carts if you see us driving around just look up and look around we don’t want to injure anyone.” That is something we are all guilty of and we have to be more alert and clean to help out our team.