Easy to Spot. Easy to Identify.

A little boy stands clutching his mothers hand on the corner of a crowded city street. The sounds of the city echo around him. People twice his size loom overhead as he struggles to peer between their legs and bodies. Then, with a cry of excitement, the boy yells over the din of the city, “Mommy, look. A policeman!” His mother, barely able to hear his tiny voice turns and looks him in the eye.
“What did you say?”
“A policeman, right over there.”
The little boy points across the street, his tiny hands trembling with excitement. Looking up, his mother strains to see the officer. Sure enough, standing out in the crowd with his neatly pressed uniform, his glistening badge and his professional demeanor, is the policeman waiting to cross traffic with the other pedestrians. His unmistakable uniform sets him apart from everyone else around him. Easy to spot, easy to identify, the boy’s mother says, “Yes, I see him too!”
What about us? Are we easy to spot, easy to identify in a positive rather than a negative way? In our line of work, it seems that more often than not some tend to view our job as menial, low-end, unworthy of acknowledgement. Could this perception come from how we dress or how we look? Do we look professional, act positive, sound knowledgeable and appear trustworthy or do we tend to allow ourselves to be stereotyped by other people past and present?
Unfortunately, in any job, there will always be those who dress as if they don’t care about their work. They are there only as long as they have to be and they tend to try and get by with doing as little work as possible. It’s those kind of people that give a business a bad name.
‘Dressing for success,’ as the saying goes, doesn’t mean we have to wear a certain uniform and act like everyone else. We don’t have to know what everyone else knows either. We should, however, do our very best to be a good, productive worker. By dressing neatly, taking advantage of learning opportunities and by having a positive and upbeat attitude and demeanor, we can shatter the image that has been given janitors and custodians.
Think for a minute about perceptions of a custodian. How many times do you see them portrayed in movies or books as nothing more than background filler, as people who couldn’t get any other job, as riff-raff off of the street or as the lowest of low? Have you ever noticed, even in the real world, how some custodians seem to fit that stereotype to a tee? No wonder others continue to paint this picture of us negatively. If these ones feel they are doing a job that is meaningless, they are going to act and dress the same way.
We can break that mold. By our taking pride in our work, dressing neatly, being friendly, courteous and happy, and by learning as much as we can about all the ins-and-outs of our job, we can help others to appreciate that what we do is necessary and important. It is a foundation upon which the entire building’s reputation stands. Let’s all pull together to create a positive appearance and shatter the preconceived ideas of what a custodian is often viewed as!