Cleaning Up

You Never Really Know What Someone Is Thinking

Photo by Photos of Korea on Unsplash

Paul and Rick fought on the Tuesday before winter break, and again on the Wednesday, classes resumed. The first argument was over the cigarette butts. Paul flicked the last of his cigarette on the ground even though a black metal canister was beside him. Rick, the building’s maintenance man, walked by just as the butt landed on the ground.

In a polite way for Rick but a rude way to Paul, Rick barked that Paul should use the ashtray. Paul shouted where Rick could put the ashtray. The second argument continued from the first over the disposal method of cigarettes but was also fueled by Paul’s inattentiveness to clean spaces. Rick had just mopped the floor, and Paul walked through it rather than around.

As the Omni Center’s full-time maintenance man, Rick walks a tightrope of self-restraint in word and action. His job is menial enough — unplugging toilets, changing lights, cleaning up vomit — without people deliberately and immediately wrecking what he just finished wiping up. On this second day of blatant defiance of common courtesy, Rick ignored self-restraint and came to our office. He complained loudly and expletively to us about Paul. He demanded we do something to stop Paul, or he would.

I agreed with Rick and understood his frustrations with our students. My…