Whether the BYU Cougars win or lose, the student custodians are always guaranteed to clean house, no matter how filthy the house gets.

“One of the interesting things of our job is that you put all this effort and work into it,” said Mike Averett, physical facilities special events custodial supervisor, “And then within a two-to-three-hour period, it’s destroyed and you’re brought back to make it look good again.”

Averett has worked at the Marriott Center 26 years ago when BYU employed only two custodians to clean the center’s facilities. During his time as supervisor, Averett said he has seen his share of bizarre happenings.

“Prior to one of the games, we ended up finding someone had problems in the restroom and they left their pants and underwear in the corner,” he said. “You wonder how they got out of the bathroom.”

After football or basketball games, about 65 custodians sweep through the areas, and there’s no lack of mess to clean. Brittany Fitzgerald, who has been a custodian for two years, said some of the more nauseating moments in after-game-clean-ups involve “code blues.”

“One time, I was cleaning the concourse and we moved a trash can, and someone had thrown up there and put the trash can over it,” she said.

Although football games draw the largest crowds, Fitzgerald said, basketball games usually take four to five hours to clean up because of the abundance of trash to pick up on each row.

"Pretty much everyone that works there fills up a trash bag,” she said. “We fill up a couple dumpsters at least."

Custodians also bear the full blunt of school rivalries. Derek Moulton, a senior majoring in business management from Sammamish, Wash., said when University of Utah comes to town, they tend to plug the toilets with soap to flood the locker rooms.

Moulton also said restroom duty is the one job custodians are generally reluctant to do because of some of the surprises behind stall doors.

“It’s amazing how many people miss the toilet,” Moulton said. “Maybe they’re just excited to get back to the game.”

Although clean-up duties don’t usually appeal to the masses, Moulton said he has been a custodian for nearly four years. Most of the custodial staff has worked for at least two to three years.

“The reason I still have a job here is because the pay is pretty good and the main thing is flexibility,” he said. “We can choose what shifts we want to work, and we can work as much as we want or as little as we want.”

Averett said BYU is one of only a few universities nation wide that hires student custodians. Although student custodians enjoy flexible work schedules, they make a lot of sacrifices that tend to go unnoticed.

“I think they need to know that other people appreciate and care about what they’re doing,” he said. “Yes, they’re getting paid for the job, but their friends and everyone else are going out to celebrate, and they’re stuck there to clean up, and sometimes it’s not the funnest stuff to do.”



Copyright Brigham Young University 18 Oct 2005