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Comment by jarek | Hacker News Reader

Sorry to be painfully practical in a thread about inspirational stories, but what college has a cleaning staff of one?

Yes, that really does make it sound like a bogus anecdote.

On the other hand, if there is a woman out there capable of cleaning an entire university then I'd want to know her name. What an improbably industrious woman this Dorothy must have been!

And why would any professor presume that their students had ever met the cleaning staff?

That is missing the point of the story. All of the students see the cleaning staff around, but no one takes interest in them. Seeing someone regularly, just walking by, and not even knowing their name is a bit of a disappointment, and an opportunity missed.

No, it's not missing the point at all. The professor in this story is making an invalid assumption that all of their students have met the custodian. It is atypical for custodial staff to perform their duties during normal business hours. Custodians typically work during the evening. If you were a student who had a 10:00AM class in the building and no other classes in that particular building and the custodian starts cleaning at 5:00PM, it is very likely that you have never met them. The pop quiz question that faults you for poor social graces does so on the baseless, invalid assumption that you have met the custodian. As the old saying goes, when you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME.

Also, what random peasant farmer could read?

That and wasn't Nat King Cole a guy?

"Mrs. John Smith" means the wife of John Smith

George Washington has cleaning ladies.... For Free, but their tuition is one of the highest in the country at around 50k a year.

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