The invisibles of the tech industry

[tugrik]

I'm a network engineer. While I've been fortunate enough in my current job to have pretty normal hours, most of the decade and a half prior I've ended up working all around the clock. This is the nature of the network beast in most Silicon Valley offices, as the real work happens during those after-business-hours "maintenance windows". As a result I've often been the person who turns out the lights in the buildingj; the last lonely one to head home. The ghost towns of empty tech-building lots are familiar, comfy places.

However, there's often one person who leaves after me: the janitor.

I have a lot of respect for these people. I know how grungy tech workers and office workers in general can be. These folks do the jobs nobody else wants to do: cleaning the break rooms, scrubbing the toilets, vacuuming acres of carpet. Nearly every one of them I've met has done their job with a smile. They're often quite eager to chat with those of us who stay late. Even if there's often a language barrier (and one hell of an economic barrier), there's a bit of a shared-world vibe in those after-hours crossings. It's usually just be the 'how did your day go' stuff... but it can also be as involved as watching each other's back when the empty building starts making unfamiliar noises (or gets unfamiliar late-night visitors).

The embarrassingly small amount these folk get paid for the amount of work they do is downright criminal, in my opinion. Without them we'd be working in filth, our office buildings slowly getting grungier and grungier like a bad frat house. They're an important part of our high-tech lifestyle but most everybody would rather not acknowledge they exist. Out of sight, invisible, out of mind. Just add a little 'grounds services' fee to the rent and hope you never see them. Cleaning just happens, right?

Tonight on the news I saw how the local janitor's union is going to go on strike. It turns out that the service agencies in my city, San Jose, pay the lowest wage of any of the big tech cities. What's $20/hr in New York, $14/hr in Chicago and $17 in nearby SanFran is only $11/hr down here in the heart of the Silicon Valley - where the cost of living is at the highest. This isn't at tiny little companies or government contracts -- those guys get paid better. This is at industry giants like Google, Cisco, Apple and IBM. These are all companies that made stupid bank during the dot-boom and now, even during the downturn, are still soaked with cash. A fraction of what they spend on those famous employee perks would vastly improve the lives of those cleaning their buildings.

They're getting away with it because of a lot of easy finger pointing. The big companies pay "service groups" and say that they pay what's "normal for the industry". The actual living wages of the employees is Not Their Problem and they don't want to hear it. The service groups that actually pay the janitors say they don't get enough money from the companies to raise the wages or provide basic health insurance, and since the companies won't pay more, it's Not Their Problem either.

Because of this batch of finger-pointing, the janitor union got nowhere with the service companies that pay the wages. They're going to picket the actual big tech companies instead. I fully support this. Stop cleaning the offices. Make it hurt. Make it so that getting a living wage becomes *someone's* problem enough to get it fixed. With some effort and some luck, maybe they can shame these huge businesses into paying just the tiny bit more that'd be required to improve these workers' lives. The service groups should get a harsh light beamed on them too, just to make sure they don't soak up the increase themselves (as often happens with middlemen in any industry).

And if getting the tech companies to pay up means some money comes back out of my own pay check? So be it. I don't care if they're "just janitors". They're tech workers too, dammit. And they deserve a fair shake.

Comments

[foxfeather.livejournal.com]

I work overnights doing emergency dispatch, and having been here almost five years now I've gotten to know our custodians, too. I agree with you completely - the one guy that always came in here and did such an amazing job is paid beans. He drives a school bus part time to make up for it. : / At least our company gives *every* employee the same benefits package, based on how long you have worked here, regardless of wage. And the janitorial salaries are competetive, but still - really sad. : / He always told me the best thing we could do for him is just not be such slobs in the office - seriously it's amazing how trashy professional people can be if they don't have to clean it up. x.x
Having worked in a lot of service industries, it makes me sad the attitude most companies have towards 'disposable' employees. Especially when said companies are making insane profits. Instead of paying fair wages and having good employees who care about their work and are taken care of, they just want the cheapest and who cares about the consequences. :

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

This is why unions are important. Because large companies don't care, they usually have to be made to care. And especially when they can politically insulate themselves by paying a contractor, who can then pay peanuts to their workers.

[foxfeather.livejournal.com]

I've had pretty bad experiences with unions - but things might just be different out here in the midwest. There are a lot of good companies out here that you are much better off working for than being in the union sector. For instance the place I work for is mostly private but there are a few union parts of it, archaic relics from years past and they SUCK. Working for the company we get guaranteed cost of living + seniority raises every year. And a nice schedule of benefits increases, etc, pension - and on and on. The office that works parallel to us via union is AWFUL. They have all sorts of horrible, arbitrary rules that for some reason seem impossible to change. Everyone always wants to jump ship from them and get into the company itself. And I know a lot of other places in town where the unions go on strike and they just find people to replace them. : /

[shaterri.livejournal.com]

While this actually comes as a shock to me, I'm afraid I have to disagree with you here. Not with the sentiment -- I agree that $11/hr is likely too little and that they've got a valid grievance, and that they deserve a measure of respect -- but with the romantization you're applying to the position. I'm sorry, but these people are not 'tech workers' in any meaningful fashion, and applying that phrase to them dilutes the merits of what's actually a useful term. Your job would be functionally different if you were working at Apple vs. Microsoft vs. HP vs. Cisco; but the company a janitor works for has no bearing on what they do. I am grateful that someone does the job (and admit that I don't keep my work area as neat as I could, though I do go out of my way to mitigate the impact on others), but frankly janitorial work strikes me as the very definition of 'unskilled labor'. A janitor has no decisions to make while they do their job, and virtually no way of showing any skill at it beyond 'work hard' vs. 'don't work hard'; and while you may bump into them from time to time (and more often in tech than other industries), no real people skills are involved either -- there's no customer service requirement for the position. There isn't even (usually) heavy lifting involved -- wastebaskets don't often get *that* full. I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a job that requires less exercise of brainpower over the course of a workday. That the people who do it are usually nice folks is to their credit and I respect them as people, but it's got nothing to do with the work itself.

[tugrik.livejournal.com]

My apologies for the "romantization" then. What I feel about it, though, is still important to me: They show up to work the same places I do. They work hard, at least from what I've seen in person. They're surrounded by the same industry and its odd environments, complete with the economic ups and downs, even if they don't do the 'skilled' part of the job. They're necessary to the process as a whole. And... they're also human, with needs.

These aren't an abstract 'people'. They're people I see every day. People who smile at me and even open the door for me if I don't get it for them first. Even if that's just job-requirement, I still appreciate it, and as such appreciate them.

And it really bums me out to know just how hard it is to keep afloat in the Bay Area and how little companies get away with paying them... 'tech worker' status or not. That's my real point.

Sorry for sounding all cheezy and white-boy-priv activist whiny; I know my rant will do very little to help anybody. It just really burned me up when I saw the $11 figure, so I had to say something.

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

I know some pretty unskilled (and overpaid) tech workers. ;-) At least the janitor, you know he's working.

[thakur.livejournal.com]

Janitorial work has a surprisingly high skill requirement actually. They need to know how to use machines ,tools and chemicals without risk to themselves and others. They need some self management skills to complete the task of cleaning a floor ,say, in a reasonable time. They need to clean stuff in the right order and be flexible enough to replan if something gets in the way, like someone using their office after hours. They are are dealing with other staff in the course of their duties.
Yes they DO have an impact on the company operations from a lot of angles. They are the ones who stop you catching Hepatitis, Gstroenteritis ,Salmonella or worse still... Cholera or Typhoid from the toilet or food prep facilities. They are also the ones who keep the work environment welcoming and hence productive for you 'gods' to do your best work in. They are the ones who get the dirt before it starts collecting inside IT equipment and putting it off the air, So yes, the cleaning staff have a big impact....more than you realise. for this they get paid shit wages even here in Australia.
To a degree trades people are in the same boat but I will leave that to another time.

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

Tangential, but I'm suddenly imagining my friends as janitors and what they would do to make the job less monotonous - make subtle changes at workstations and see if people notice/complain? Do internal calculations related to how the surface area of the floor mopped changes at timed intervals? Replace all of the standard cleaning products with 'green' options? (Okay, probably not on $11/hr.) Leave random friendly notes or artwork on various cubicles? Create puzzles and leave them in the break room for others to solve based around timely themes? Make a better cup of coffee?

I'd probably write stories or poems in my head, or jot them down on those cheap brown paper towels.

It is worth mentioning that brainpower is one of those curses blessings that will emerge in unexpected ways if not actively shut down. Though I think I've done the latter more than once.

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

Eleven bucks an hour in the bay? That's practically inhuman. God help anyone trying to raise a family on that.

Not only do they raise families...

[ideaphile.livejournal.com]

They often send money back to their extended families in Mexico, El Salvador, or wherever they're from. If you make the effort to talk with them, they may tell you how they're doing. (But they usually won't open up quickly, if at all.)

Janitors usually work 60+ hours a week (just like tech workers) and they get paid overtime (unlike most tech workers). There are usually at least two wage-earners per family. So that means the family income is $60K/year or more. One can raise a family on that quite nicely, even in the Bay Area. It usually means sharing living quarters between two families, but a lot of tech workers do that, too.

The difference between these workers and most Silicon Valley tech workers is that most tech workers can't imagine living without iPods, laptops, fast Internet connections, and cars. When an immigrant janitor doesn't have a TV, he isn't making a philosophical point about the quality of the programming. He's saving money that his cousins can use to emigrate to the US and join him in the family's janitorial service.

Bottom line, these people are very happy to have these jobs because it keeps them out of the fields and sweat shops and gives them a reasonable chance of sending their kids to college.

They would be even happier to take more money for the same work, but when there are many agencies competing for the $11/hour positions, why would a company suddenly choose to pay $15/hour? Stockholders would rightly complain that such a decision would be a breach of the management's fiduciary responsibilities.

I seem to keep saying this over and over, but: Supply and demand isn't just a good idea. It's the law.

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[tikaani.livejournal.com]

At least when I worked in NYC, the cleaning people had a contract with the building's management, not whomever occupied it. While the larger "Campus" companies might be owner/operators for their own buildings, most middle and small firms are cleaned by whomever comes with the rent.

Of course, the point of a Union is collective power against a large employer such as your Cisco/Apple/Google. Part of the blame lies in the membership accepting the $11/hr contract to begin with and not pressing their leaders better in the last negotiations.

[centauress.livejournal.com]

Here's another (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/fashion/15WORK.html?_r=4) hidden population of the tech boom, too. I like the quote (http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/05/gender-diversity-so-fashionable-and.html) where I got this link, too.

Funny how a rising tide doesn't seem to be lifting all boats - only yachts - and how privatizing things seems to not make it less expensive or the median wage rise.

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

Wow, really? Please.

[silverjames.livejournal.com]

Anyone who has never had to do physical labor in a job should try it sometime - especially before talking about the ease of which such a job is done. This goes for janitorial work, highway construction, farming, waiting tables... Walk a mile in the service industry before you open your mouth unless it is to say "thank you."

Tug, while $11 -$20 an hour seems excessive *here*, our cost of living is probably 1/4 of what it is in the bay area. Here, school teachers start at $24,000 a year, service industry folks make minimum wage. I can't imagine trying to survive out there on that pay.

Those doing menial jobs do live two and three families in small homes, driving rat-trap vehicles or spending extra time on the bus (our mass transit system sucks), older sibling look after younger siblings and a new winter coat is something to celebrate.

I've never understood the current corporate mindset and likely never will. Employees at every level are disposable, company loyalty is almost laughed at... I remember when an employee started with and then retired from (twenty or thirty years later) the same company. I look around today and realize I'm a dinosaur and I'm saddened - not because I'm an anachronism, but because the world has gotten to this point. It's a sad state of affairs.

[cooner.livejournal.com]

Arrgh. I remember a couple years ago reading an in-flight magazine on an airplane, and an article about business that was clearly written for a more executive-minded audience. There was an interviewee in the article who was bemoaning the sad fact that "employees just don't have the company loyalty that they used to, and you can't count on them anymore."

I was just seething over that comment ... WTF? Big businesses have by and large treated employees as disposable for decades now, cutting benefits, letting worker pay stagnate while executives take home larger salaries, laying off workers for any excuse possible, and outsourcing what work they possibly can ... and you're surprised that employees aren't as loyal as they used to be? Arrrgh.

[jeran.livejournal.com]

Personally I don't think action against the tech companies will do any good. I'm betting they're paying some fairly good bucks per-janitor to the service companies. My experience is that any time you add a middleman, he's going to want to not only cover his expenses but make a good profit. So, instantly knock 20% off for the middleman's take. At least. Some take more. The temptation's great, given that the service company's goal is the maximum profit per janitor. And the tech company's goal is to pay less per janitor than they'd pay employing them directly. End result is a big squeeze on what's being paid to the janitor. Any gains from economies of scale get lost to everybody else's desire for profits or cost savings.

If the unions want to do some good, put some pressure on to get rid of the service companies, or at least change things so the tech companies pay the janitors directly and the service company is a minimal presence that's only paid to put janitors and companies in contact. The more layers you have between the people who write the checks and the people who actually do the work, the more problems and inefficiencies you have. You know that from tech work.

[http://users.livejournal.com/krin_o_o_/]

The availablility of labor that will work at substandard
wages offered by companies that refuse to follow the law
makes it possible.

I hear it all the time in NC in the poltry and hog industry, "We can't find workers who will do the job this dirty!"

No, time and again it has been shown that if they offer decent wages and fix substandard and hazardous working conditions people FLOCK to those companies to work.

But, since the workers are afraid of fighting for a decent wage because they can be fired in a second and replaced with somebody fresh from over the border and even possibly deported when their boss suddenly 'notices' their imigration status, they get shafted.

Substandard wages like that should be a big huge *NEON* sign for an immediate investigation of an industry for unfair employment practices and hiring regulations by the authorities.

- krin

[luphinus.livejournal.com]

I sort of agree. They do the jobs no one else wants to do.

But that's the nature of unskilled labor. When I was younger I did the raking the leaves and pull the weeds thing at a community college. I was unskilled. I didn't know jack back then.

On the news lastnight I saw that the average wage in SJ is $11.50/hr ($15.75/hr in SF) for janitors. Last year I was making only $12/hr doing Customer Service for a diabetes meter company, I had people's lives in my hands essentially. Credit card numbers, addresses, medicare information, etc. I'm now making only a few more dollars an hour than that. While I'm not a network engineer, yet, I do have to have a decent level of technical understanding in my current job, and the ability to communicate effectively. The janitor's union wants them to be paid as much as me. I don't think that's fair to _me_ and my coworkers. I can honestly say that I WOULD do their job if I got paid what I'm making now. I don't want to deal with customers who call with their problems. I'd rather sweep the floors and even clean the toilets of those people making twice what I am.

Janitors do their jobs because they're not skilled at anything else. Or they cannot communicate well enough to do what they're skilled at because they don't speak the 'common language of business' in this country.

$11.50/hr is damn good for unskilled labor. You won't find that the janitors at a high school are making that much. Janitors for large tech companies get paid more than other janitors because they do more work, walk those acres of carpet, but it's still unskilled work.

I'm sure you're right about most people who just ignore them. But I thank them every time I see them wiping down the coffee spills on the counter in the break rooms, or taking out the trash in the bathrooms. I wish that tech people, in a corporate environment would be cleaner, so those janitors wouldn't have to work as hard. Though mostly I'd rather people were cleaner so I wouldn't have to put up with it until the janitors come around to do the job they're paid for.

[tikaani.livejournal.com]

At least in the local school districts here, the custodian contracts are much like teacher ones, with annual step raises and shift differentials and specified additions for licenses (like boiler certifications).

[theassassinnox.livejournal.com]

I had not idea that there was a problem. Thanks for the insight.

Hopefully they get the cash they deserve. *nods*

[paka.livejournal.com]

I don't think I can say anything without being "wrong," but thank you for being compassionate. You rock.

[tugrik.livejournal.com]

"wrong" howso?

[goldwing.livejournal.com]

Someone's going to have to clean up. The tech co's will see that it's much cheaper to increase the janitor wages instead of paying a tech to scrub toilets. Good for the janitors. Just about all I've met have been just as friendly. In fact, usually I feel more at ease talking with janitors then other engineers. Less attitude!

[thphilster.livejournal.com]

Being one of these invisible people a big hunk of my life, that really is a kind post and i'm not being sarcastic in the least. A lot of people look hardcore down on these jobs, yet they desperately need this infrastructure to keep their ops in shape. The reason of a lot of the disdain is the appearance by these workers that they are too lazy or stupid to get a better job. Many people don't understand that there is a sizable segment of these workers who are not stupid or lazy. Many times they have life circumstances that force them to have employment like this.

I wish more people noticed the invisibles, like you do!

[wildw0lf.livejournal.com]

I had no idea all they only made was $11/hr...I think you'd almost make more working at fast food LOL!

Seriously though, what is wrong with the tech companies like Google, etc, hiring their own janitors themselves instead of paying another company to do it? Wouldn't it be better (and cheaper) for them to hire in-house?

And I had no idea that in NYC they were even paid as high as $20/hr, which is almost $40,000/year. I mean right now, I'm not earning much more than a janitor in NYC for helpdesk work!