People Who Actually Like Their Jobs Are Asked What They Do, A Janitor Responds With A Surprisingly Wholesome Story
When you love your job, it’s no longer ‘just’ a job—it’s a calling. Your vocation can be anything: making powerful art, writing captivating novels, being a skilled chef, building huge Viking longboats in your garage, or… even being a janitor.
Most of us probably wouldn’t expect somebody to say that they love working as a janitor, but that’s exactly what happened on an ‘Ask Reddit’ thread. Redditor Lusterkx2 explained that they’re very happy working as a janitor because they have OCD and love cleaning.
What’s more, the job requires minimal interaction with other people and it means that they can listen to podcasts all day long.
A redditor told the internet that they love working as a janitor and explained why
Image credits: Aqua Mechanical (not the actual photo)
The Reddit community absolutely loved Lusterkx2’s answer, upvoting it nearly 10,000 times, and giving the redditor 3 Silver Awards, 2 Gold Awards, 3 Santa Nice Awards, as well as 2 Santa Rocket Nice Awards. Great rewards for a great answer, wouldn’t you say?
Bored Panda talked to Imgur user TheMayansWereOntoSomething, who once used to work as a janitor, about the perception the profession has.
“Janitorial work comes with a lot of solitude. Janitors are usually behind the scenes and being able to do my work without really any distractions, and doing it at my pace was therapeutic in a way,” the Imgurian explained what they enjoyed the most while working as a janitor.
However, being a janitor has some drawbacks. The biggest of which is what other people think of you: “You feel at the bottom of the totem pole. You clean up the mess for others and sometimes that can feel dehumanizing.”
Bored Panda also wanted to know what the Imgur user would tell people who are afraid of giving the profession a go. “A job is a job, and you should always feel proud of whatever work you do.”
“I took that to heart and treated my work site as my baby and kept it maintained to the best of my abilities. The others who worked there appreciated that and let me know. It always feels good to feel appreciated.”
Being a janitor is hard work and isn’t always glamorous
Now, we’ve heard of some of the upsides of working as a janitor, but it can’t be the perfect profession for everyone, right? What are some of the downsides?
The fact is, working as a janitor doesn’t pay much: while it might be enough if your expenses are small, it might be difficult to support your entire family on such a wage. Especially if you’re working part-time and during odd hours.
Whether we like it or not, some people look down on janitors because they view it as unskilled labor. Even if you’ve got a PhD, if you have a mop in your hands, some individuals are bound to look down on you.
Chron writes that working as a janitor is physically demanding and means that you can “get scrapes and bruises from cleaning, moving equipment and using tools to fix things.” Furthermore, you have to deal with ‘gross’ stuff all day long and you can damage your health if you accidentally inhale cleaning chemicals. On the plus side, having to constantly move means that you get a lot of exercise as you work.
OCD is not ‘just a quirk’
Though OCD is a serious condition, there are some people who don’t think so and misinterpret it to be ‘just a quirk.’ Some even believe that telling somebody to “snap out of it” will make a person with the condition suddenly stop being obsessive compulsive. Meanwhile, some individuals with OCD tend to get hurt when they hear other people using the term lightly, without having been medically diagnosed.
According to the International OCD Foundation, people with OCD tend to get stuck on a thought: “These thoughts are linked with intense anxiety driving the individual with OCD to engage in compulsive behavior—their only escape. A person with OCD doesn’t obsessively clean their kitchen just because they like it to be clean. A person with OCD is overwhelmed with anxiety and fear about what will happen if they don’t clean their kitchen properly.”
Dear Pandas, have you ever worked as a janitor? What was it like? What were the upsides and downsides of the job? Would you ever consider working as a janitor? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
Redditors enjoyed the positive story and a few of them had good things to say about janitors
I've never had a job I've liked constantly. I'm an archaeologist and I started as a digger. Which I loved for the first few years (the excitement of discovery, being physically active and out in nature a lot of the time), but eventually the bad weather and the job pressure made me hate it. Then I moved into geophysics (walking up and down fields with a machine that scans the ground) which I hated at first for being exhausting and mind-numbingly boring, but grew to love for its simple rhythms and stress-reliving activity. Now I'm in desk-based research and I like having things warmth year round, hot drinks, an actual toilet and the joy of reading about the history of a new place each week. But I miss getting outside and excising my legs. The only work I have consistently hated was being a waiter.
Thanks for the insights, Jon :) Do you mind telling me a bit more about what it was like working as a digger?
It was back breaking. Unlike the kind of research-led dig carol describes when you are doing it commercially you go in with mattocks and shovels, shifting several tonnes of dirt a day. If you find something you then switch to trowels and end up spending hours kneeling on hard, often cold ground. Bizarrely though, making a written record was often harder, stood still in cold, wet and windy weather, trying to draw a picture of what you had found or describe a particular shade of soil. The worst part is having to do everything to a tight budget. You know you're not doing the best job possible, just the best you can do in the allotted time frame. Some digs were fun and we found great things (Iron age temples, roman house etc.) but eventually too many were dull and frankly too painful for me to say I still enjoyed the job.
There is some tedium to being a digger. It's not like you go in with full sized shovels and start moving loads of dirt. It's using a trowel and a brush. A sifter and buckets. Everything is mapped and recorded. And many days are filled with disappointment at not finding anything significant. That being said, it was one of the best experiences of my life...even working in a sandy environment in high winds. Especially when you're surrounded by good people. I participated in a dig while we were looking for the remains of a Harlan's Ground Sloth. We never found the rest of it...but we had fun looking.
I love my job more than anything in the world, and I've had A LOT of jobs, including being a singer, a teacher, a safari guide, a bouncer and working in the diplomatic corps, to name a few. I work as a transcriber/translator. I can work anywhere in the world with an internet connection, my laptop and a foot pedal. I learn new and interesting things every single day. I choose my own hours and workload. I never have to leave home, or even my bed, but I can still work. I don't have to interact with any human beings. I get paid to stay at home, learn all the time and do something that I find fun, easy and rewarding. It's unbeatable.
It's great that you have found your ideal job. Fair play to you.
I've employed a few cleaners over the years with OCD. And by god they are exceptional at their job. And they enjoy it! Works for both parties!
I've never had a job I've liked constantly. I'm an archaeologist and I started as a digger. Which I loved for the first few years (the excitement of discovery, being physically active and out in nature a lot of the time), but eventually the bad weather and the job pressure made me hate it. Then I moved into geophysics (walking up and down fields with a machine that scans the ground) which I hated at first for being exhausting and mind-numbingly boring, but grew to love for its simple rhythms and stress-reliving activity. Now I'm in desk-based research and I like having things warmth year round, hot drinks, an actual toilet and the joy of reading about the history of a new place each week. But I miss getting outside and excising my legs. The only work I have consistently hated was being a waiter.
Thanks for the insights, Jon :) Do you mind telling me a bit more about what it was like working as a digger?
It was back breaking. Unlike the kind of research-led dig carol describes when you are doing it commercially you go in with mattocks and shovels, shifting several tonnes of dirt a day. If you find something you then switch to trowels and end up spending hours kneeling on hard, often cold ground. Bizarrely though, making a written record was often harder, stood still in cold, wet and windy weather, trying to draw a picture of what you had found or describe a particular shade of soil. The worst part is having to do everything to a tight budget. You know you're not doing the best job possible, just the best you can do in the allotted time frame. Some digs were fun and we found great things (Iron age temples, roman house etc.) but eventually too many were dull and frankly too painful for me to say I still enjoyed the job.
There is some tedium to being a digger. It's not like you go in with full sized shovels and start moving loads of dirt. It's using a trowel and a brush. A sifter and buckets. Everything is mapped and recorded. And many days are filled with disappointment at not finding anything significant. That being said, it was one of the best experiences of my life...even working in a sandy environment in high winds. Especially when you're surrounded by good people. I participated in a dig while we were looking for the remains of a Harlan's Ground Sloth. We never found the rest of it...but we had fun looking.
I love my job more than anything in the world, and I've had A LOT of jobs, including being a singer, a teacher, a safari guide, a bouncer and working in the diplomatic corps, to name a few. I work as a transcriber/translator. I can work anywhere in the world with an internet connection, my laptop and a foot pedal. I learn new and interesting things every single day. I choose my own hours and workload. I never have to leave home, or even my bed, but I can still work. I don't have to interact with any human beings. I get paid to stay at home, learn all the time and do something that I find fun, easy and rewarding. It's unbeatable.
It's great that you have found your ideal job. Fair play to you.
I've employed a few cleaners over the years with OCD. And by god they are exceptional at their job. And they enjoy it! Works for both parties!