Growing up, my first paying job was as a janitor at a Catholic high school in Seattle. I earned, as I recall, $2.40 an hour to vacuum, sweep, clean blackboards, empty trash, and, in general, pick up garbage after everyone else had gone home. 

There was no time for messing around. The head janitor, who went by the name of Arnie, was a taskmaster with no tolerance for nonsense from a teenager. If you weren’t working pretty much every minute to earn your money, you were considered lazy and sent home.

When he interviewed me for the job, he asked one question: “Can you swing a mop?” 

“Sure,” I responded with confidence. I came from a family of janitors. It was in our blood. 

To my surprise, he put me to the test that very day, and I found myself mopping a hallway. 

“I thought you said you could swing a mop?” he said. 

It was more a statement than a question. 

I started to mumble an answer when he pulled the mop from my hands.  

“I’ll show you this one time.” 

I watched, then assured him I had it. 

He gave me back the mop. 

“Try again.” 

Swing it back and forth, nice and steady, smooth and solid. Rinse in the bucket of water and wring it out. Swing the mop again. 

Satisfied, Arnie walked away.

I was on my own. 

I was given keys to almost every classroom and door in the building. I had access where few did. I was like royalty, only without the royalty or any perks that go with it. 

Each weekday afternoon, when the bell rang and the hundreds of kids filed out the doors or went to practice, I headed for the janitor's closet, where the tools of my trade awaited. 

Strangely, I took pride in keeping the school clean. 

Once I found a wedding band. The teacher, one of my favorites, was relieved when I returned it to him. 

"My wife would not have been happy with me," he said.

That summer, four classmates and I worked Monday to Friday at Blanchet High doing odd jobs, inside and out. We fixed sprinklers on the football field and trimmed bushes. We scrubbed walls, washed windows and buffed floors until they shone like new.  

For our efforts, we were rewarded with a raise to $2.60 an hour. I was delighted with the extra 20 cents and vowed to work even harder.

To bolster my income that summer and pay my high school tuition, I landed a weekend job washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant on Greenwood Avenue. It paid $2.30 an hour to start, with a promise of more if I proved my worth and stuck it out for at least three months. 

I ended up staying a year. 

Friday and Saturday nights were crazy, nonstop. I had to venture out into the dining room to retrieve plastic tubs of dirty dishes. I had to hustle, or the wait staff would reprimand me for being slow, and the cooks would yell at me for falling behind. 

When the dinner rush was over, the cooks, all Chinese, would look at me and one of them would say something in Chinese. Whatever it was, I had no idea, but it must have been funny because they all looked at me and laughed.

I remember when the restaurant owner paid me a compliment one particularly hectic night, when I was moving fast and furious, my apron covered with splashes of grease and food bits, and I was soaked from rinsing dishes. 

“Bailey, you are good worker," he said in broken English.

I can still hear him saying those words, and I can see his face. I thought it was very kind of him. I appreciated it. He noticed. It was the first time someone told me I was a good worker.

“Thank you,” I said. 

Shortly, he bumped my pay to $2.70, a princely sum. 

I didn't make much money back then, but it was enough. Most importantly, I came to understand the value of hard work. 

My wife appreciates it because I still enjoy washing dishes, vacuuming carpets and cleaning floors.

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Bill Buley is the managing editor of The Press. He can be reached at [email protected].