“I’ve worked night shifts for Facilities for 40 years. I’ve always been a night person. As a kid, I would wake up in the middle of the night and try to make oatmeal cookies.

I retire at the end of the January and I’ll miss providing a service. I don’t look at it as work.

I follow my own “Golden Rule of custodial.” Which is, the cleaner you leave it as a custodian, the cleaner the customer is going to leave it for you. No one wants to be the first one to mess something up. Because there is a difference between someone trying to make a basket in a waste can and missing and that same person just leaving trash on the ground.

For the person taking my place, I would tell them to pay attention to details. Be here as much as you can be because if you let those details slide, it will take you a month of Sunday’s to bring it back up.

Being here and keeping up on the details are the most important.”

— Ray Stout, facilities nightshift custodian