Why managing a custodial team was my favorite job — and what it taught me about how I’m wired

It was 1:15 in the morning — fifteen minutes before the end of my shift.

It had already been a long night. I was tired. Mentally packing up. Thinking about going home.

Then my phone rang.

“Justin, I need you.”

I didn’t ask questions. I headed straight to the 23rd floor.

When I walked into the men’s restroom, I understood why they’d called.

One of the toilets had exploded — overflowed, backed up, whatever you want to call it. The floor was covered. Not a small mess. Not something you ignore and circle back to tomorrow. It had clearly been sitting there for hours.

For whatever reason, the custodian assigned to that floor hadn’t cleaned it or called a lead. So we found out about it at 1:15 a.m. — right before the shift ended.

And in a few hours, people would start showing up for work.

So what do you do?

You put on gloves.
You pull on overshoes.
You get to work.

There was no debate. No dramatic speech. We knew the standard. We knew what “clean” meant. And it wasn’t negotiable.

So we handled it.

By the time the building filled up again, no one knew what had happened at 1:15 in the morning. They walked into a space that simply worked — and never thought about what it took to make it that way.

That was the job.

And here’s the part that surprises people:

It was my favorite job I’ve ever had.

An accident of necessity

It wasn’t a job I ever wanted.

I took it because I needed to.

Bills don’t wait for self-discovery. And when hundreds of other job applications go unanswered, you do what you have to do to put food on the table.

There was no grand strategy behind it. No five-year vision that involved custodial leadership. It was a practical decision in a season where practicality mattered more than preference.

I never would have chosen it as the place where I’d discover how I actually thrive.

But that’s exactly what happened.

Structure + autonomy

That role gave me something I hadn’t consistently experienced before:

Clear expectations — and real freedom inside them.

There were defined monthly objectives.
Safety standards.
Quality metrics.
Accountability rhythms.

I knew what success looked like.

But no one dictated how I had to achieve it.

I could redesign workflows.
Shift assignments.
Improve systems.
Introduce new tools.
Adjust structure when it wasn’t working.

The destination was clear.

The path was mine.

When outcomes are defined but execution is flexible, my brain doesn’t stall.

It accelerates.

The art of the job

And that freedom wasn’t reserved for me.

My team had assigned floors and clear standards. They knew what “clean” meant. They knew what was expected.

But once they understood the basics, they had freedom inside it.

We called it the art of the job.

A new custodian often tries to clean everything, every day. It feels responsible. Thorough. Safe.

But it isn’t sustainable.

You overclean some areas. You waste time cleaning what’s already up to standard. You burn out chasing perfection instead of maintaining excellence.

I didn’t fully understand that until I moved from base cleaner to custodial lead.

But once you understand the art — once you know how to read a space, how to prioritize, how to customize your workflow — the job changes.

It becomes strategic.

It becomes efficient.

It even becomes fun.

My team had the same autonomy I did.

They weren’t micromanaged down to task order. They were trusted with outcomes.

And most people rose to that trust.

At first, when I stepped into the lead role, it was common for employees to call me with questions.

“What should I do about this?”
“How do you want this handled?”

They were looking for direction.

It would have been easy to give it.

Instead, I started asking, “How do you think it should be handled?”

Sometimes they didn’t know. So we talked through it. I’d ask questions. We’d weigh options.

Over time, something shifted.

The calls changed.

Instead of “What should I do?”
It became, “This is what happened, and here’s how I handled it.”

That shift mattered.

When someone truly feels trusted to accomplish the task they’ve been given, something unlocks.

They stop working to avoid mistakes.

They start working to take ownership.

And watching that happen — watching someone grow into confidence — was one of the most satisfying parts of the job.

It wasn’t just cleaning. It was systems.

I worked in a 28-story office building with multiple subfloors, a massive underground garage, and tunnels leading to other facilities. It was basically a small city.

One of my floors had an employee gym.

And it had a reputation.

Complaints from patrons about the showers were constant. Mold. Hard water buildup. Soap scum. Custodians dreaded that assignment because it never felt finished. No matter how hard someone worked, it wasn’t enough.

When I inherited that floor, I decided I was going to fix it.

So I looked at the process.

The team was using a cleaner that technically worked — but it required a long dwell time before scrubbing and rinsing. Multiply that across multiple shower rooms in a four-hour window, and of course things get left behind.

The issue wasn’t effort.

It was systems.

We switched to a faster chemical. That helped.

Then I redesigned the cleaning sequence around it.

Still not enough.

So I zoomed out and restructured assignments across my floors. What could be redistributed? What didn’t require as much time? Where could I create margin?

I reallocated the workload so the gym had the time it actually required.

The complaints stopped.

Then the compliments started.

What changed wasn’t how hard we worked.

It was how the work was designed.

And I had the autonomy to redesign it.

Mastery in unexpected places

Here’s something that still makes me smile.

I now have an advanced certification in janitorial cleaning.

It’s not on my LinkedIn profile.

But it exists.

I can talk about the ideal pH a chemical needs to break down organic waste versus hard water buildup. I can explain the differences between surfactants, pH-based cleaners, and oxidizers — and why you would use one over another in various situations. I can demonstrate the perfect figure-eight dust-mopping technique so you’re not just pushing debris around.

And I genuinely enjoyed learning that.

Not because it was glamorous.

But because it was measurable. Concrete. Improvable.

Give me something with standards and room for refinement, and I’ll lean in.

That surprised me.

Becoming the leader I once needed

There was another layer to that role I didn’t expect.

Every month, I conducted formal performance reviews with each employee on my team. I graded their work. Documented standards. Addressed gaps. Measured improvement.

It wasn’t casual.

It was structured and real.

I would find them on their assigned floor and pull them away for a few minutes. We’d usually sit in an empty conference room — just the two of us — quiet floors around us while the rest of the building slept.

It was a chance for them to disconnect from the work.

We’d talk about their lives. Their goals. The things they were working toward, both inside and outside of work.

And I always tried to highlight at least one thing they were doing really well.

Over time, I noticed something.

That number grew — month after month: more progress, more consistency, more ownership.

More than once, I watched someone wipe their eyes and say,
“I didn’t think I was doing that well.”

Those were some of the most tender moments of that job.

Not because I was being generous.

But because they were being seen.

I knew what it felt like to leave a job unsure of your value.

I didn’t want anyone on my team to wonder where they stood.

So when someone improved, I named it.

When someone stepped up, I acknowledged it.

When someone grew, I said it out loud.

And then I’d watch them walk back onto their floor a little lighter — and continue improving.

For the first time in my career, I wasn’t trying to prove I belonged in the room.

I just did.

When I had room to breathe, I created room for others.

The parts that didn’t work

Let’s not romanticize it.

The pay wasn’t great.
The hours were hard.
And there’s stigma attached to custodial work.

It doesn’t signal “high performer” in most professional circles.

No one sees “Custodial Lead” and assumes strategic thinking.

But here’s what I can’t ignore:

The job that fit me best
wasn’t the one that looked the best on paper.

I’ve had higher-status roles where I felt incompetent.

I’ve had lower-status roles where I felt unstoppable.

That realization forces a hard question:

Was I chasing alignment —
or approval?

Why I’m not still there

If it fit so well, why leave?

Because alignment isn’t the only factor in life.

The hours strained my family.
The schedule wasn’t sustainable long term.
And financially, it didn’t make sense to stay there indefinitely.

I didn’t leave because I failed.

I left because thriving at work while sacrificing everything else isn’t actually thriving.

The job that matched how I’m wired
didn’t match my life.

That tension still sits with me.

The lesson I can’t unlearn

That role proved something I can’t go back from:

I don’t struggle because I’m incapable.

I struggle when the way I’m wired is forced into environments it wasn’t built for.

Give me:

Clear outcomes.
Real autonomy.
Room to improve systems.
Trust instead of constant oversight.

And I expand.

Take those away?

I compress.

The structure I had in that role wasn’t complicated.

But I didn’t know that kind of structure could exist until I experienced it.

Clear standards.
Ownership without surveillance.
Accountability without humiliation.

For many people, highly defined hierarchies and tightly managed systems work beautifully. They provide stability, clarity, and momentum.

For others, those same systems can feel constricting.

Neither experience is wrong.

It’s about fit.

I had spent years assuming that work simply felt harder for me.

I didn’t realize it might have been about wiring.

And once you’ve experienced what alignment feels like,
you start paying closer attention to the environments you’re in.