Monday, January 5, 2015

"Industrial Arts Building"



“The Industrial Arts Building”
Rae (Tholander) Mangum, Bachelor Degree-1978, St. Johns, AZ
I attended Brigham Young University during the years of 1974 through 1978.  I had a dear friend and boss that I worked for in High School as a housekeeper pay for my tuition and books to go to this wonderful university. It was hard letting someone pay my way. I felt a strong need to earn my own way.

My first job I received was working the early morning janitorial shift cleaning the “Industrial Arts Building”.  What a feeling of satisfaction I received from this job. It was perhaps the dirtiest building to clean due to the functionality of the building. For this reason alone I loved cleaning it. I remember the sinks were so full of glues and other materials that had not been cleaned for a VERY long time. I made it my goal to get those sinks spotless. I remember the professors reactions was “amazement”. They had never seen their sinks look so good. I would do all the emptying of the trashes and cleaning the bathrooms etc. first so I would have the rest of my allotted time to really attack those sinks. I chose one sink a day to work on.

Then it was the stairs next. After buffing the hallway floors to a nice shine, I made my second goal to strip those stairs down to the “bone”. On hands and knees and every possible tool I could find, I made those stairs look brand new.

 I loved having the really dirty jobs and making them look as though they were never used. The professors appreciated my work, which gave me a grand feeling of accomplishment. This was also a fun way to pay my way through school. Fun because I loved making a difference.