In what ways are the skills you’re developing now going to influence your future?
The skills I am developing now are definitely going to influence my future. I do not do things just to do them I deliberately like to focus on developing skills that will be of benefit for my future. I know how to maintain floors and I have been doing this type of work for about 15 years. In FCI Dublin, I moved from working at Education as an ESL Tutor to working in the Safety Department in 2017. I had already been doing floors at the institution since like 2010. My new boss told me he wanted me to take a Custodial Maintenance class for this new job at safety. I was now going to become an instructor for a Floor Maintenance Class I agreed but in my mind I was like, “Why do I have to take a class to learn how to clean?” I am glad I took this class because I learned all about Chemicals, SDS Sheets, and cleaning equipment. I learned the proper way to clean, disinfect, and maintain areas. It was about a 100 hour class and it was about 6 months long with an education part and labs. I earned a Certificate with the Department of Labor for Custodial Maintenance. Since, I was always part of a floor crew now that I am at FCI Aliceville I am utilizing this skillset to instruct people for a Floor Crew. With all my experience I was also able to secure a job in the Safety Department as soon as I got here.
I started teaching a class on Wednesday. I have about 9-10 students that are in my class. They will be part of this new Floor Crew. On Wednesday they came in for class we started off with introduction to the program and watching a Safety video on OHSA standards on Chemicals, SDS sheets, Using PPE, and reading labels of chemicals. They took a 10 question pre-test first. Then watched the Video and then we read through instruction manuals for Buffing and Stripping Machines. We talked about proper ways to turn on the machines and safety rules. We talked about Stripping the floor and then how to apply the wax. Students took their post-test and then we breaked for lunch. We came back at 12:00pm to start the hands on part of the Class. In this part students learned to apply stripper solution to an area and use the stripping machine to remove wax from the floor. This part is always the hardest for students because the stripping machine can be a little hard to handle at first. Some of the students were naturals they got the hang of it really quick. Each of 4 students that came after lunch this day got to use the machine for about an hour. Then we ended for that day. The next day, which was Thursday 5 other students got to use the machine for about an hour and we stripped almost all day. This floor which I would consider a small project had so much wax on it that it has taken about 8 hours to completely strip! None of the students returned on Friday and my co-workers and I worked on that stripping that floor all day to get it completely stripped and cleaned so that on Monday we can bring back the students to learn how to apply Wax and then learn how to use Buffing Machine. Learning how to maintain floors is a good skill but it is not an easy process it takes many hours to get this job done right especially when the floor has so much wax on it. The good thing is it is ready for wax on Monday. Once the class is complete these students will receive a certificate of completion and will have learned the whole process of floor maintenance and a new job skill.
