Its 10:00pm Wednesday night, all my college friends are getting ready to go to the big mid-term party at the local club, but where am I? Head first in a toilet at the back of an office building next door to the club…and why? It's my job. I may not have cared so much about the whole situation until I walked out of the office just as a crowd of college students were walking in next door. I was standing there with a mop in one hand and a bag of garbage in the other. Some of them I knew, others I didn't, but I still felt embarrassed. I just put my cleaning equipment in the back of my van and drove off to the next destination.

I know I have nothing to be ashamed about, I am after all an Engineering student at a well known college. Still, it's moments like these that make me feel a little worthless. Cleaning toilets, moping floors until 3am, emptying trash cans with half filled coffee cups just waiting to spill over you, plus the stereotypical image that society has on janitors makes this a job that only a few could hang on too. I admit, I wouldn't have been doing this for so long only it has some good points as well.

The first is the chance to take a glimpse into the daily lives of people's jobs and work life. Cleaning an engineering company led me to choose engineering as a career choice. I had seen how they work and what kind of projects they were working on. Cleaning residential carpets helped me develop my people skills. I met some really interesting families in my own neighborhood I didn't know anything about. I get to meet managers of many important businesses in my town, I have the opportunity to show that I'm a hard worker to dozens of different companies, and of course I get paid. I get the satisfaction of knowing that I can support myself while in school and while I improve my life.

So let my friend's party, I'll go out on my night off and have just as good a time. Tonight I am a working man in a working mood, I am a janitor.

--Lestat