Company Blog

The Dirty Work

by Adam Zack — February 14, 2024

We may have to do the dirty work ourselves

Every time I go to a public restroom, especially in an airport, sports stadium or busy restaurant, I think that the job of cleaning the bathroom would be the worst job ever. I hate cleaning my own bathroom, and I know the origin of those splatters. What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? Not worst because the boss was a dick or it was super low pay, worst because it involved duties that were really disgusting. Back in the 80’s we had a maintenance man/janitor in one store named Jerry Hale. He worked for us until his retirement around 2011. One of Jerry’s monthly duties was to clean out the grease trap in the store. The grease trap captures and holds all the oils and solids that go down the sinks and floor drains. Now for those of you who have never smelled a grease trap when it’s being pumped, think of the very worst fart you have ever smelled and multiply it by ten. There’s a reason that grease traps get pumped at 4:00 in the morning: If your customers smelled that heinous aroma they would not be buying any food from you anytime soon at all.

A life-long janitor, Jerry would get down on his hands and knees and scoop out that grease trap by hand, smiling and with a great attitude always. He had lots of gross job duties: Clean the bathrooms? No problem. Kid puked on aisle 2? Page Jerry. Old man with diarrhea on the frozen aisle? Jerry’s got it. No task was beneath Jerry and he never, ever complained about anything he had to do. And what he did was at least as important as any other duty in the store. If you have disgusting bathrooms, I guarantee customers will think the entire store is just as filthy. In every one of our stores and businesses there are jobs that we would absolutely hate to do ourselves but still must be done every day. From the employees that close your store every Friday, Saturday and Sunday to the ones that empty the trash, our thankfulness and respect needs to be shown. After all, if the Jerry’s of our world don’t do it, then we may have to do the dirty work ourselves. Now I wonder what Jerry would say his worst nightmare of a job would be? Probably sitting down and writing a blog every week.