Thursday, December 4, 2025

Microstory 2554: Janitor

Generated by Google Flow text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 3
This is the best job I’ve ever had, which may sound crazy when you look at my job title, and you learn that it’s the first time I’ve ever been a janitor. I actually know a little bit about the way it works now, thanks to the Foundation. Let me start at the beginning. I’m not some hot shot career-driven professional. Like I said, I’ve never cleaned before, but I’ve never exactly been the CEO either. I’ve always worked other menial jobs, and in fact had a self-imposed rule that I wouldn’t ever make cleaning my primary responsibility. This was just an offer that I couldn’t pass up. First of all, I don’t work for the Foundation, I’m on contract, and the way the contract is written, my employer is not allowed to pay me any less than $25.00 an hour. If you do the math, that is an insane amount for a janitor. No one else is making that much. I told my cousin about it, who lived thousands of miles away at the time, and he just had to get in on it too, so he moved his family out here. First of all, that’s crazy, right? Who moves for a janitorial position? He didn’t even apply for the job first. He thought that admitting he would have to relocate would hurt his chances, so he packed up right away, and just went for it. Sure, they lived with me for a few months, but then they were able to move out to their own place, so it went all right. Here’s his theory on why the Foundation dictates that we’re supposed to be making that much. They’re trying to fix the world, right? I mean, not just for people with disease. They wanna make the whole planet a better place to live in. What’s the point of being healthy if we’re all miserable for other reasons? That’s why they pay people to get cured. It sounds like another insane proposition, but it works, because it’s a charitable organization, and they see the payments as an opportunity to expand on what they do. It’s not just a random additional feature. By demanding that my employers pay me a lot of money, they’re raising the bar. First of all, they’re saying, “we’ll contract with you, but only if you pay the worker you assign to us a lot of money.” But this is also like saying to the whole world, “look, see? It’s possible to pay people more.” And workers will say, “hey, I deserve more money too.” And then hopefully we all start getting more. I don’t really have the knowledge on how to find market trends, or whatever, but I bet it’s helping. I bet they’ve changed the economy in greater ways. I bet my salary has made a positive difference in other people’s lives; people I will never meet, or even hear of. It’s not the most glamorous job, and I still don’t love it, but it puts food on the table, and better food than we’ve ever had before, so I’m not complainin’.

No comments :

Post a Comment