Working: the school custodian

By ALYSSA PATRICK
UNLEASHED STAFF
His smile is what first catches people’s attention.
But if they somehow pass it by, students and teachers, faculty and staff are sure to notice the warm, round laugh that usually follows.
The way Vic Wood strides through the halls, sometimes with a ladder under his arm, sometimes a toolbox, it’s easy to forget he works in a crowded high school. After only two years as lead custodian, Wood already seems a fundamental part of Eisenhower High School.

“Vic is the one to go to,” says Lauri Anderson, a math teacher and leadership adviser at Ike. “He’ll drop everything to help you, whether you’re an administrator, teacher or student.”
Wood, a 59-year-old White Swan resident, has been in the business of maintenance and custodial work for about 22 years. Except for a few months at Roosevelt Elementary School five years ago, he has worked in high schools.
“I love it,” he says of his job. “I’m a teaser, always joking around with the high school kids. I can relate to them.”
While Wood is often seen cracking a joke in passing, his job generally doesn’t offer a lot of time to chat. From 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Wood is responsible for the general upkeep of Ike’s 51-year-old building.
The school’s age sometimes generates complaints from members of the staff and students. But, Wood says, “I like this building because it’s old. I told the (other custodians) when I started working here, ‘Just because she’s old doesn’t mean she can’t be pretty.’”
Wood works hard to make Ike pretty. Mornings, it’s his job to unlock the building, go through it turning on lights and completing a general check of the school. Then he checks the work list for any problems that the afternoon or night custodians had noticed and didn’t have a chance to get to.
“Usually, I’ll go check it out myself first,” he says. “Then, if it doesn’t look like something I can fix, I’ll fill out a work request that gets sent to (Yakima School District) maintenance downtown. Then, they come in, and I usually watch them fix it, so hopefully I can just take care of it next time.”
The maintenance workers seem to like having Wood around, too.
“He’s a man’s man,” says Shell Shattuck, a school district maintenance worker. “Meaning, he is a man other men look up to and admire.”
All of that — with the exception of any necessary work orders — happens before 8 a.m.
Once school starts, “I’m a firefighter,” jokes Wood, who spends most of the day “putting out fires.”
These little emergencies can include fixing door closures and ornery radiators, even fishing the occasional cell phone out of a toilet. (Although, Wood has told a couple of students, “There’s no getting that one back.”)
Anderson has known and worked with Wood for eight years and says he is always “putting out fires” for her. She also says Wood has a special talent for not becoming flustered no matter how flustered she might be.
“Whether it’s pulling the bleachers down for an assembly at the last minute, or unplugging the sink in my room, Vic can make anything happen at a moment’s notice,” Anderson says.
As lead custodian, Wood supervises eight other custodians who have various shifts and duties. Essentially, the upkeep of the entire building is his responsibility.
Medical and retirement benefits are included in his job, as well as sick leave and a wage of about $21 per hour.
“Some people around here don’t realize how good they have it,” Wood says. “When I was in a carpenter’s union I had retirement, but I never had paid days off until I started working for the school district. You’ll never find anything as good as the school district other than working for the government.”
Wood sums up his job by simply saying, “I love it.”
And according to Jordan Lehrman, an 18-year-old Ike senior and leadership student, it shows.
“Vic always has a smile on his face,” he says. “And I have never heard him complain about anything.”

— Alyssa Patrick is the student editor of the Yakima Herald-Republic’s Unleashed team. She attends Eisenhower High School.