• Occupational Hazards

    When I found out that I would be working in Support Services (Janitorial Crew) for a second time, I already knew that I would be getting myself into some disgustingly interesting situations. It was just part of the job description when there were up to eighteen hundred campers running around every week. I couldn’t tell you how many times I ended up getting covered in “trash juice” or how many boxers I had to fish out of trees after the week’s campers went home. However, despite all the strange and disgusting things that could have happened, I never was fazed. I would often joke with my crew members that my first summer taught me not to be disgusted by anything and it was true. This was camp and we were bound to find things left so graciously behind for us by campers or wildlife.

    One such occasion occurred within the first two days that work started, during the staff orientation. It was our first day out in the field and we were introducing the new SSers to the wonderful world of bucketing (cleaning a bathroom). After going through a not so brief introduction and instruction period with our crew leaders, we were paired up and sent to tackle a bathroom in one of the camper cabins. I was paired up with a girl that I instantly bonded with and it wasn’t long before we were swapping stories and laughing our heads off.

    In the middle of our cleaning, we heard a faint scream. We didn’t have to wonder about the cause of the commotion when one of the other SSers rushed into the room with a slightly disgusted, but very amused expression. “One of the girls just found a dead rat in the toilet!” My friend, Chanel, made a disgusted noise and I just smiled… it was the perfect way to welcome the new SSers into the summer.

    Another example of one of the more interesting findings of the crew I was on happened latter in the summer while we were doing our “TP” run through the High School girls’ cabins. The basics of the TP run were simple: we walked around to all of the “wet” cabins (cabins with bathrooms in them) and would refill their toilet paper dispensers, do a quick spray down of the counters and mirrors (if we could see them, that is), empty their trashcans, and change out their Party Bags (just take a guess at what those are). Simple enough, right?

    After finishing the third cabin on our run, my crew and I were making the short hike up a small hill to our fourth cabin when we were suddenly bombarded with a stench that made us stop in our tracks. We couldn’t really place what the smell was, but it bore some resemblance to a dead animal mixed with vomit. At first we tried to ignore it as we did the first side of the cabin, but as we started to near the opposite end of the cabin, the stench had gotten so strong that I started having trouble breathing.

    Then we found it.

    In all honesty, it did look like the massacred remains of a dead animal mixed with vomit and it was all over the place, swept up into a not so little pile right in the dead center of the small deck that led into the cabins. Side stepping around the pile, Chanel slowly opened the door to the cabin and I feared what she would find in there. “Agh! It’s in here too!” we heard her yell. Well isn’t that just lovely? I thought to myself as I surveyed the surrounding area to see if there was more of… whatever that was piled up around. To my joy there weren’t any more piles, but I did find a collection of cans and glass bottles of various shapes and sizes strewn about the hillside.

    Turning to my second crew mate, Jessica, I told her to go help Chanel inside while I went to investigate this trail of evidence. Jessica simply nodded and went inside to discuss how we should take care of this mess with Chanel while I went to pick up the first can. The label on the small can was ripped off, but when I tentatively picked it up I was bombarded with the overwhelming odor of anchovies. Well, that explained some things. The next can still had its label on it, proudly proclaiming that it was once the container of Spam in bright yellow letters. The container after that was a bottle of clam juice and right next to that was a bottle of pickled pig’s feet. There were more containers scattered around me, but I really didn’t feel the need to know what was in them.

    “So what should we do about this?” Jessica asked me when I returned.
    “Well, we don’t have a shovel or anything to scoop it up with, so we have two options: we could either call back to shop and for help or we can get some gloves and pick it up ourselves.” Both Jessica and Chanel cringed at option number two and honestly I wasn’t too thrilled about it either.
    “They did not tell us how to deal with this in orientation,” Jessica sighed dejectedly.

    At that exact moment, our boss came driving up the hill on our golf cart and for once we were overjoyed that he was there. Once we flagged him down, we took him up to the cabin to show the mess that I was starting to think was the aftermath of either a prank or truth and dare night. It was my first time actually entering the cabin and sure enough, it was all over on the inside as well. There were anchovies squished into the carpet and the remnants of a pickled pig’s foot sticking out from underneath a towel… among other things.

    After looking at the mess, our boss told us that we wouldn’t be the ones cleaning this mess up. Apparently messes of this caliber were left for the campers to clean up during free time. The three of us on the crew just smiled at one another, grabbed our supplies and gleefully went off to our next cabin, trying not to think of how long it would take the stench to leave our clothes.