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Comment by technotarek | Hacker News Reader

PSA for the younger reader and / or parents: Try being the janitor.

I was effectively the janitor for a public ice arena outside Detroit from the age of 14 to 16. I cleaned public restrooms, as well as hockey locker rooms. I emptied large trash bins (thankfully before recycling was mainstream). I cleaned below the bleachers. That was probably the worst. But, if I may say, that experience helped mold me, for the better. People were rude to me, but it wasn’t quite as consistently bad as I might have thought. Perhaps it was my age that softened the treatment and showed slightly more humanity. In any case, I wear the experience as a proud badge of honor (as if you can’t tell). And yes, just be nice.

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Over in Japan, it's quite common in schools for the students to clean the classrooms, club rooms, hallways, and occasionally also the restrooms themselves. The schools mandate it as part of the curriculum, since it teaches vital life skills and builds character.

The schools have janitors on their payroll, of course.

When did this policy come about?

I don't know the details, but it's been a long-standing tradition for as long as anyone can remember.

Cleaning up after yourself and keeping everything nice and tidy for everyone are just facts of life in Japanese society.

The secondary school I went to in Germany made students clean and rake the outside areas. Though with a class of around twenty it never took longer than an hour.

I never inquired why we did it, not expecting a straight answer anyways. I suspect it had more to do with discouraging littering than any deeper character lesson.

I also think my teenage job was monumental in my career. Mostly that it helped me get my first industry job.

Then my first intern industry job sucked, which got me a fantastic first job.

> a fantastic first job

Of maybe it was a normal job which you were respecting to its true value? Being treated as a human being sometimes feel uplifting compared to other experiences.

I hired an intern (in France it’s a two-year contract for 20-year-olds where I pay their study and they get shit pay). One the first two days, she worked 6.45 hours (contract is 7hrs).

It’s her first job in an office (has once worked as a vendor) and I’m tempted to terminate her. She has learnt less at school than I thought. Maybe she’s young. I thought when you really wanted a job your worked 8hrs the first day, just in case. I can’t tell her that, because as an employer it’s forbidden in France. If I fire her, she’ll have to find a new employer before the beginning of the classes, which is impossible, so she would have to only start school next year.

But I fully expect that the reason she hasn’t learnt enough at school (like, not learnt Ctrl+Z, or using Caps Locks for a single uppercase, I mean common you’re a digital native, I’m not, I was expecting her to do most of our marketing), is the same why she worked 6.45.

I’m also upset that you can pass Baccalauréat and license degree and not master basic typing.

It was more of the opportunity I got. I've been told it's a high prestige job, and I've learned enough to start my own company. It's also the highest paid $/hr in my field.

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