Our maintenance department consists of four people – Otto, our maintenance supervisor, maintenance workers Kyle and Paulo, and Kiva, our groundskeeper. We all agreed that rather than coming in an hour here and there, that I would just come in on one day and work with them from 5:30 to 9:30 in the morning. After all, it probably wouldn’t be the best idea to work for them as I’m not the most handy guy in the world.
I rolled out of bed at 5:15 am, dragged myself to the coffee maker at 5:20, and stumbled to the car at 5:25. At 5:30 I checked into the maintenance office ready to go. When I arrived, Otto and Paulo were on their Ipads checking to see if any new work orders had come in the prior day. We use a system called Schooldude where staff members can request a work order online. The department has probably completed over 1,000 work orders this year, and that might be conservative given the fact that many jobs still aren’t processed through Schooldude.
I was assigned to work the first couple of hours with Paulo. We covered a lot together. First we checked the heat and fuel tanks at the K-8 School and the high school. Next we removed from graffiti from a wall at the high school. After that we fixed a door that was closing too quickly (a finger pinching hazard) by adjusting the thing-a-ma-bobber on the top of the door that allows it to close with more resistance. Finally, we ran a new wire in a Community High School classroom to a projector. I learned a lot in a couple of hours with Paulo. So much of their job is figuring out how things work on the fly. This job takes a lot of initiative and trial and error.
For the next hour I worked with Otto. We conducted monthly classroom safety inspections. We checked the fire extinguishers, made sure anything with a height over 4 feet off the ground was anchored to the wall, and noted electrical cords and power strips. Otto had done this so much that he was able to give classrooms a quick scan for compliance.
My final hour was with Kiva, our groundskeeper, and this was definitely my favorite part. I got to mow the soccer field! It was a beautiful morning with clear ocean views. Kiva taught me the ins and outs of our brand new mower, and I was off. It was hard to keep straight for the first few minutes, but then I took Kiva’s advice and found that it was easier to steer if I was going fast. Mowing a huge soccer field gives you plenty of time to think…which can be good and bad. That day it was mostly good because after half of my turns I had a commanding view of the ocean. My lines weren’t exactly straight, but I got the job done.
100 Hours in Mendocino Unified 