High Maintenance

I’m living proof that if you loiter around a university long enough, they’ll just give you a diploma to make room for someone who actually wants to learn. The problem with this approach towards higher education is they never give you degrees you can actually use in the real world. Mine is in philosophy, and though I’m technically a college graduate, I’m virtually unemployable. But thanks to my charm, good looks, and willingness to work without health insurance, I had remained gainfully employed until last February.

But as black history month came to an end, so did my time as director of a small medical museum in southwest Alabama. Seems our fledgling non-profit organization had unfortunately become a non-income organization, and as the only paid employee I was sent packing. This was troubling not only because my wife and I were now without income, but also because we were moving in three months, and no one wants to hire a short-timer. Especially one who will need time off to find a house, interview for a new job, and occasionally play golf.

My first instinct was to go to our church. I sat down with the pastor and kindly asked for a refund on our tithe. He informed me it had already been spent on Donald Miller books, but said he just might know of a job for me. Turned out he was on the board of directors for a large, faith-based organization whose regional headquarters was only a few blocks from my house. Later that day I spoke by phone with a man from the organization, and the next Monday I was sitting in his office, wearing my spiffy black suit.

“What do you think about maintenance?” he asked me.
“It should be done on a regular basis,” I replied
“No,” he laughed. “What do you think about working in our maintenance department?”

What could I say? Starving wasn’t really an option, and it would only be for ten weeks. So the next day I came to work wearing my neatly pressed jeans and a polo shirt. It was like casual Friday, on Tuesday. But before I could join my colleagues down at the Home Depot, I had to go through new employee orientation. This involved watching some rather dated videos on the dangers of sexual harassment (Did you know you can be fired for forcing your subordinates to sleep with you?!?), then filling our dozens of forms, some of which may have forfeited my citizenship, though I cannot be sure since I didn’t actually read what I was signing. After the forms were completed a nice lady from HR made a copy of my driver’s license and said, “I’ll also need a copy of your high school diploma for our records.”

“What about my college diploma,” I said, a bit injured she didn’t detect the scholarly musk that I give off.
“No, you just need a high school degree or equivalent for your job,” she replied
“But I went to college, look, here is my old student ID.”
“I’m sure,” she said. “Just bring a copy of your G.E.D. tomorrow, Ok?

After that rather dispiriting exchange I met up with Johnny and Dave, the two men who would spend the next ten weeks shaking their heads at everything I did. Our first maintenance call was to Joshua House, one of the organization’s homes for mentally handicapped adults. We referred to the people living in these homes as our clients, and so far as I could tell the only mental handicap some of them had was the inability to distinguish what can and cannot be flushed down a toilet. For future reference, toilet paper is cool, tuna cans are not.

Upon arriving at Joshua House we were told one of the toilets had backed up, so Johnny and I followed the stench down the hall and located the problem.

“I’m going to need a wrench,” Johnny said.
“Phillips or flat head?” I asked, using terms I heard on “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”.

Johnny reached past me and grabbed the wrench himself, so I went into the living room and sat next to one of our clients, a man I’ll call Hambone, because that’s what he called himself.

“I know you,” he said, as I sat down by him on the couch.
“I don’t think so,” I replied, although he was pretty sure he did.
“You got kids?” he asked, beginning the series of questions he would ask every time he saw me.
“Nope, no kids.”
“You got a brother?” he continued.
“No,” I said.
“You got a sister?”
“Yes!” I exclaimed, glad he finally got one right.
“Tell her Hambone said hi.”

With that I went back into the bathroom to find that Johnny had removed parts of a ceramic garden gnome from the toilet. Hambone later confessed that the gnome had been looking at him funny, and drastic measure had to be taken.

The strangeness of that first day aside, I began to enjoy my work as a maintenance man. I was helping the helpless, and felt as if I was actually making a difference in the world. You know, the kind of crap I always say I want to do with my time, but never actually go out and do. You really sleep well when you know that, thanks to you, someone’s toilet will be functioning properly the next time they break it. And besides, it was only for ten weeks.