The Interface - 12/03/09

Jen Anderson wakes up every weekday at 2 a.m. to begin work at 4:00 a.m. as leader of custodial team 7 at the College. The three members of team 7 clean and maintain Hillcrest, the Robert A. Jones ’59 House, Sunderland, Chellis House, Farrell House and Gifford Hall. The Sisyphean task of the custodians is arguably one of the most important and challenging responsibilities on campus, yet Anderson’s easy laughter and full smile downplay this fact.

Anderson, 47, is a mother of three, a grandmother of one and a lifelong Vermonter. She grew up on her father’s apple orchard on Lake Champlain.

“It was right on the lake, so you got to see bald eagles and deer and hawks,” she said. “It was such an awesome spot.”

After having the orchard in the family for 35 years, Anderson and her siblings sold it in 1999. “It got to be so expensive. It was hard to sell that,” she said.

After holding jobs at a diner in Shoreham, Vt., and the Vites and Herbs Shoppe in the Marble Works, Anderson began work as a custodian at the College in 2004.

“It’s a really nice place to work, nice campus, good benefits, pay is pretty good,” she said.

At the same time, however, Anderson described “the whole custodian thing” that she found hanging over her head.

“Some people just look at you like ‘You’re a custodian? Oh.’ You can imagine,” she said, her warm laughter making light of the situation.

I asked her if such disrespectful behavior troubled her. “Well, it depends,” she said. “Obviously, if people walk by you and...” she shielded her eyes with her hand. “But that’s only a few [people]. It’s an important job. The College wouldn’t be the College [without custodians].”

Anderson is right. The custodians are integral members of our community and it would behoove us to acknowledge them when we see them (to prevent any hypocrisy on my part, I should note that I lived an entire year in Gifford without introducing myself to Anderson. Better late than never, though, I figure). Both faculty and students depend on custodians in so many different ways.

Who reorganizes classroom chairs after they’ve been moved for meetings or study groups?

“They’ll put the chairs in little circles — they love the little circles — or they’ll push all the chairs back and it takes forever to put them back,” said Anderson, chuckling.

Who has to repair the shattered windows and broken vending machines that result from the detestable, destructive machismo of drunken fools?

“Most of the stuff I don’t mind, the beer cans or whatever, but when they start smashing stuff, I want to say, ‘Have a little respect for the building. It’s been here forever.’ I want people to have a good time; just don’t smash up my building,” Anderson said, laughing again.

Who is responsible for stemming the spread of infectious diseases by maintaining the strictest hygienic standards?

“If someone in a suite has flu symptoms, we have to go into the suite and clean it everyday, the kitchenettes and the bathrooms and the doorknobs,” Anderson said. “It’s like, ‘Oh God!’”

I asked Anderson whether she receives the respect and kindness she deserves. “On the whole, the kids in this dorm are really awesome. You have the really friendly ones, the not so friendly ones. It’s a whole gamut,” she said.

There are about 100 custodians divided into 13 teams on campus. “We all hate each other,” Roger Miro, another member of team 7, said jokingly. “No, it’s just like anything else. There are some you get along with and some you don’t,” Anderson said.

Miro, 43, is tall man with a voice as smooth and deep as Baloo the Bear’s in “The Jungle Book.” He grew up on Long Island, moved to Vermont when he was 21 and then relocated to North Carolina where he began a successful cleaning business. He returned to Vermont after he got married and became the father of two stepchildren and a daughter.

“I like being able to walk outside and breathe the fresh air, no neighbors. Down in North Carolina it was neighbor, neighbor, neighbor, neighbor. They were all lined up like maggots,” Miro said. “The first time I came up here there was a little bit of culture shock.”

Miro is a talented guitarist. “If I would’ve taken the right road, if I wasn’t so stubborn, I would’ve made it a business,” he said. I asked him about what he’d like to do now. “I’d like to win the lottery and just do nothing,” Miro said, laughing deeply. “I’ve been working since I was 12. I just want to travel the world on a yacht or something.”

The college custodians are important figures in our lives as members of the Middlebury community. We should reach out and connect with them not just because we are all indebted to them for their constant, difficult work, but also because they are interesting, wonderful people. Even the simplest hello can make a mutually positive difference.

“If you get kids that are really awesome and they talk to you, it makes the day go nicer,” Anderson said. “Custodians, on the whole, really appreciate a friendly smile, a thank you, a ‘hey-how’re-you-doin’?’”