Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Don't ignore the janitor

happychasing.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 286 posts

Re: Don't ignore the janitor

#221

Post by lupire »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #2

Further, try to abide by their requests. If they want the trash can by the door to your office or cubicle on Thursday evening, move the damn trashcan to the door. They have 100 to empty; it's a trivial task for you. We can get wound up in ourselves and forget to hold a door, or avoid spilling crumbs on our carpet, or log out of our workstation, or use a different hallway when the floor is being waxed, or to move the…

It's hard for me to imagine a place where a janitor would dare make such a request. Usually service star are dreadfully afraid of getting abused by the (relatively) powerful problem all around them who can easily ruin their jobs and therefore lives by spite or just accident .

Re: Don't ignore the janitor

#222

Post by Rayhem »

samatman wrote: post #212
m0llusk wrote: post #198

This can also be something of a trap. For some time now I have worked as a housecleaner and there is a common scenario that I have learned to avoid: Clients are friendly and ask how you are. Cleaners then answer honestly about how this is an opportunity for them and hard physical work is all between them and crushing poverty. Clients are generally unprepared for the extreme problems that people living as cleaners may…

When, and this is not a hypothetical, I'm getting to know someone socially, and they open up about the crushing difficulty of paying the bills with unskilled labor, I respond... like you'd expect a decent human being to respond. One who has been through periods of grinding poverty with no safety net, and escaped it through luck more than anything else. If I've hired someone to clean my house? Personally, I pay what a…

> Making the person who hired you uncomfortable about the contract you both *entered into willingly*

Emphasis mine. If hard physical work is all that's between them and crushing poverty, as the OP said, there's some question of how far you can extend the notion of "willingness".

Re: Don't ignore the janitor

#223

Post by lupire »

vishnugupta wrote: post #50
greendude29 wrote: post #39

Is...being decent to everyone regardless of job status in life a new thing? Has tech come so far that we have to re-teach ourselves the basics and then brag about how we smile at "service staff"? Up next in a techbro blog post: "I have discovered that money doesn't buy happiness, and that being an asshole isn't a good thing."

It’s not exactly limited to tech but is more general to knowledge workers. Especially ones who employ support staff even at their homes. Over time they get so far removed from doing household chores that they begin to treat it as beneath them and hence the staff as unworthy of their respect. I’m saying this being from a nation where employing household cooks, maids etc is norm once a certain income threshold is cross…

It's general advice for any oblivious wealthy people. Many are so insulated from the rest of society that they don't even know they are wealthy.

Re: Don't ignore the janitor

#224

Post by engineer_22 »

dakial1 wrote: post #203

Do people here from outside the US think this is the case everywhere? Because I'm from Latin America (more specifically Brazil) and I don't think ignoring the lower paid staff is the status quo. Actually it is considered pretty rude not to at least acknowledge them and say the usual pleasantries (Good Morning, Hey Jon!, etc...). Having been to the US I'd say I don't think that is a fact everywhere also. In NYC for su…

Using first name is patronizing unless you're already on a first-name basis.

Re: Don't ignore the janitor

#225

Post by mgkimsal »

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #98
Arainach wrote: post #49

This seems harder in our modern world where everything is contracted out to the lowest bidder. I've had great conversations with custodial staff at schools, parks, and other areas that actually hire the workers. At my day job, a giant corporation which hires its engineers but outsources its janitors, chefs, and so on, there's a totally different vibe. Even the few janitors that speak English are both rushed to comple…

One of the janitors in my high school once gave us a lecture on linear algebra. I don't know what he did before he left the former Warsaw Pact country he was from, but it was one of those whoa kind of experiences.

Was reminded of Bob's Burgers episodes with Mr Branca, the school custodian. Multiple times he refers to being president "before the coup" in his home country.

Re: Don't ignore the janitor

#226

Post by mgkimsal »

engineer_22 wrote: post #217
m0llusk wrote: post #198

This can also be something of a trap. For some time now I have worked as a housecleaner and there is a common scenario that I have learned to avoid: Clients are friendly and ask how you are. Cleaners then answer honestly about how this is an opportunity for them and hard physical work is all between them and crushing poverty. Clients are generally unprepared for the extreme problems that people living as cleaners may…

Unpopular opinion: complaining about life circumstances isn't polite conversation with an acquaintance, especially a client. Your interlocutor will feel put upon, that if they don't engage sympathetically and try to help they will be seen as unfeeling or cruel. They may wonder if they are being emotionally manipulated.

Have had people do that to me when I'm buying from them, and first time it felt awkward. Typically, that's the last time I do business with them as well.

2001, I owed someone some money from a business transaction. They'd dragged their feet for weeks getting this done, and we'd already missed an initial deadline. She then sent me an invoice the instant I said "yeah, looks OK", and I got half a dozen calls and emails that afternoon demanding payment then. "Fedex a check". "I need this now". "I have to get my car repaired". The amount was just under $5k. Left a horrible bad taste in my mouth, and I never used that person again. I also told the person who'd connected us who was suitably... taken aback at how aggressive that pestering was, and subsequently they didn't do any more business either.

I've been able to sense it ahead of times sometimes, and in other cases, I've gotten better at ignoring what I take as attempted manipulation. It's also made me perhaps a bit more (over?)sensitive to how what I'm saying to someone might be taken (or twisted).

Re: Don't ignore the janitor

#227

Post by jrootabega »

thro388 wrote: post #97
Arainach wrote: post #49

This seems harder in our modern world where everything is contracted out to the lowest bidder. I've had great conversations with custodial staff at schools, parks, and other areas that actually hire the workers. At my day job, a giant corporation which hires its engineers but outsources its janitors, chefs, and so on, there's a totally different vibe. Even the few janitors that speak English are both rushed to comple…

Perceived power imbalance? Many workers are in country on semi legal basis, ex prison... any false accusation could literally destroy their life.

I'm betting that if I, and most of my colleagues, ever complained about custodial staff, it would be totally ignored. My charitable interpretation of that phrase is that "real" janitors probably don't realize that many of us are "just" janitors of computing, even if we get free vitamin water.

Re: Don't ignore the janitor

#228

Post by JTbane »

lhorie wrote: post #24
grammarnazzzi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Further, try to abide by their requests. If they want the trash can by the door to your office or cubicle on Thursday evening, move the damn trashcan to the door. Better yet, take your damn trashcan out to the damn dumpster your own damn self. Then we can save some damn money and fire the damn janitor. > They have 100 to empty; it's a trivial task for you. It's a trivial part of their job. They're getting paid for…

In Japanese schools, the kids are the ones doing the cleaning. Not just taking out the trash, but cleaning the blackboards, mopping the floor, tidying up the desks, cleaning the bathrooms, etc. The reasoning isn't to save money, however. It is precisely to teach them there's no such thing as work that is beneath them.

I wish this culture existed in the USA, but knowing our society parents would be up in arms about kids doing unpaid labor or some bull.

Re: Don't ignore the janitor

#229

Post by criddell »

engineer_22 wrote: post #224
dakial1 wrote: post #203

Do people here from outside the US think this is the case everywhere? Because I'm from Latin America (more specifically Brazil) and I don't think ignoring the lower paid staff is the status quo. Actually it is considered pretty rude not to at least acknowledge them and say the usual pleasantries (Good Morning, Hey Jon!, etc...). Having been to the US I'd say I don't think that is a fact everywhere also. In NYC for su…

Using first name is patronizing unless you're already on a first-name basis.

No it isn’t.

Re: Don't ignore the janitor

#230

Post by minimilian »

_8j50 wrote: post #194
minimilian wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I use grammarly to avoid citations from the grammar police like this for professional writing but not for HN. You understood what I meant so since this is a comments section keep the policing and unsolicited advice to oneself.

You're welcome.
Post reply on HN