Campus night owls enjoy making a clean sweep of MU

by Jon Stemmle

very day we walk into our offices around campus unaware of the work done nightly. Some people may notice an empty trash can. Others might realize the coffee stain in their carpet has disappeared. Most, however, have no idea the number of mops, vacuums and brooms that come to life every night at MU, keeping classrooms, offices and research areas spotless.

Floor Care Technician Bryan Keller is a member of Custodial & Special Services' floor care team, cleaning carpets and floors throughout campus.

With more than five million gross square feet of space to cover it is only natural that custodial crews work virtually around the clock.

For the last 35 years, Harold Curtis has been one of those living the night life.

"I've always been on nights and wouldn't even consider working during the day," said Curtis, assistant manager of custodial operations in Custodial & Special Services. "I chose nights because, at the time, I had a part-time job in town during the day and it worked out better for me. The longer I went on working here the more I liked nights. I like getting around to doing different things during the day."

Curtis isn't the only "night owl" on the custodial staff. Custodial & Special Services has four custodial teams and one floor-team — consisting of 51 employees — working nights.

While work between the day and night crews is divided evenly, night crews traditionally clean areas that are in heavy use during the day, which includes most floor and carpet cleaning. The night crews clean 2.5 million gross square feet of MU building space, not including the five MU parking garages.

"We feel our employees are more productive when they have relationships with the people in their buildings," said Julia Curry, director of Custodial & Special Services. "Currently, there are more buildings scheduled for cleaning during the day than at night. The trend now will be to assign new buildings that come on-line to the night crews, unless there is a special need or request for day cleaning."

Silent Night, Lonely Night

Possibly the biggest difference between working day and night shifts is the people. Night employees work in a quiet environment, with typically only the noise of a vacuum cleaner to break the silence. This silence, however, is part of the appeal.

"It's basically the same every night, you just clean different parts of the same building," said Curtis. "You don't see the traffic at night, aside from when ball games let out, and without people all around it makes it a lot easier to clean. The only hard part is you don't have the communication with building coordinators and people you're cleaning for."

Along with communication difficulties, the other common problem with night work is a lack of time with family, a factor that leads to increased turnover among night employees.

For Curtis and many of the "old-timers" nights are the only time to work.

"For me and a lot of the older people we like it quieter," Curtis said. "We wouldn't change that for anything."