I don't know if such a holiday exists. If not, I'm going to be at the forefront of such a crusade. I'll write my local congressman to enact such a holiday. And on the actual "National Hug Your Parks Maintenance Worker" day, all parks personnel will take the day off and anyone entering a park will be required to maintain it or be shot on site.
Some of you really need to appreciate your park systems better. Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to maintain just one park? Do you know the amount of work that goes into making them look nice? Do you know what some people do in the bathrooms? Do you ever wonder who has to clean up after YOU being a sloppy, inconsiderate shit?
Well, I'm here to tell you... ME! That's right. All across these great United States you'll find some wonderful parks. You encounter local parks, state parks and national parks. There are THOUSANDS of people employed by government agencies to keep YOUR parks looking nice.
How about walking up to one of these hard working Parks Maintenance Workers and saying "thank you"? I think a "thank you" is in order from anyone who appreciates a park. And how can you NOT appreciate a park? Parks are a meeting place of beauty and fun for the entire family!
Much like my railroad job where I preached about being safe while around railroad crossings, let me now preach about picking up after yourself in a public park.
PICK UP YOUR TRASH, first and foremost. If you're going to fornicate in a public park or in a public park restroom, clean up after yourself. If you're going to use a public park restroom, use the toilet and not the floor. Don't use the public park restrooms to do other things in like freebasing, sex or satanic rituals involving goats.
Be courteous to those who have to maintain YOUR parks as well as those other citizens who are also utilizing the parks. Be clean. Be civil. Be a human being who cares about themselves and those around them.
And, most of all, show some respect and appreciation to those behind the scenes who do their best to keep things running smooth and looking top notch.
It wasn't until I took this job that I came to realize how thoughtless some people can be. Especially younger people. We have a park that is behind Bingham High School that gets trashed A LOT.
I don't know who had such a bright idea to put a park, complete with bathroom facilities, behind a high school but they should be fired. This just encourages some young people to enact their "dipshit factor" and vandalize whatever is in site.
Last week at this park, someone ripped out a toilet. A TOILET!
In another hidden away park known as Jordan Ridge Park, someone set the trash cans on fire. ON FIRE!
I could give you a list of things I've seen in our park system that is so maddening you could strangle whomever is responsible. I swear if I ever catch someone fucking up one of our parks (or any park I'm in anywhere), I'm going to fuck someone's shit up!
I have two parks I oversee on a regular basis. It just so happens they are the most high profile parks we have in South Jordan. They also contain the most acreage. I believe we have 60 acres of land to maintain in a four day work week. The other parks amount to about 40 or so acres.
The two parks I assist in maintaining with my co-worker and team lead, Reggie, are City Park and River Front Park.
These are HUGE parks. As I've mentioned in a previous blog, River Front Park is so big it has an East and West side.
City Park is not only the park itself but all the city owned land around it that houses our maintenance building, the South Jordan Recreation Center, the South Jordan Senior Center and South Jordan Fire Department #1.
It takes us two days to do River Front Park. That's pretty good considering I'm still new and learning and there is only two people to cover that kind of ground. City Park, however, we weren't able to finish this week.
We got most of the mowing done in this park and I did A LOT of trimming in the park. Actually, on Thursday and Friday, 12 hours of my time went to trimming around many areas of City Park including the building facilities.
Trimming, as I've come to find it, is quite the art form. You have to hold the trimmer and such an angle to get a good, clean cut. You also have to maintain that hold and angle with every move.
This is difficult after a while and very tiring. But once you get the hang of it, it becomes less difficult. But it doesn't become less tiring or back breaking. Trimming, of all things I've done yet, is the hardest.
I am proud of the work I did last week and can see the difference in the park when it's properly mowed and trimmed. Sometimes, depending on grass growth and other factors, there are other things you need to do. Such as edging and pulling weeds.
In a given week, my job consists of pulling unsightly weeds from around children's playgrounds, pavilions, bathrooms, tree rings, walkways and flower beds. There is massive mowing jobs with all the acres of grass we maintain. There is also trimming around all these pieces of land.
There is trash to be emptied and trash to be picked up out of the parks and parking lots. There is clean checks we have to do on the bathrooms and general maintenance to do to keep them clean and stocked with toilet paper.
There is blowing we have to do of all grass clippings from mowing and trimming we must do after we get done with mowing and trimming. All sidewalks and trails must be blown off of these clippings to make the parks look even better. This includes blowing out the gutters, too.
We also have to pinpoint any irrigation problems and fix them if they are simple. If not, we need to make arrangements to get one of our people out to fix the problem.
There is a bit more to my job duties but these are some major things I do (along with everyone else I work with) on a daily basis. Plus, if one crew is having a hard time or is short staffed, we may get called off our property to go assist that crew.
So far, our entire crew is doing an AMAZING job. This blog is in no way meant to sound like whining. It is a way to give you a perspective on the amount of work that goes into taking care of public parks.
So, the next time you're in a public park, think of me and my co-workers. Think of the people who are making your park a wonderful place to go to with your family or friends.
Most of all, clean up after yourself because it is YOUR park, after all. Sure, I get paid government dollars (taxpayer money) to clean up and maintain public parks and I'm completely happy to do it.
But consider that amount of money being put towards something else for us to do. Like new parks and such. It's a shame that some time has to be wasted because we have to take time away from general maintenance like mowing and trimming to replace a toilet or trash cans because someone was inconsiderate.
When people do such things, they're eventually paying for it out of their own pocket. DUH! By the way, don't break off sprinkler heads, okay? And if you notice a problem in your park, notify someone as soon as possible.
So the next time you're in a park enjoying the land, the trees, the facilities, the flowers, etc... think about all the work that goes into that and the people who do it.
You're welcome.
-Mike The Janitor
©2007
Millenoma Publishing
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