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*** warning this is a rant and nothing more read on if you want *** What is it with people and cleaning the building? If 10 of us show up it takes less than 30 minutes, but, if 2 show up it takes hours. Why is it that it is always the same two that show up every week, do the others not use the building? Today, as we were showing up to clean there were a group of mid twenties leaving the building in basketball gear. There is also another group I know that uses the church for basketball, yet, the majority of them I have never seen help clean. I mean really guys… Most of it is just vacuuming, how hard is that, it isn’t even like you are going to get dirty? Today, the group of 4-6 that cleaned the building, two of them were physically impaired and one of which was in a wheelchair. It isn’t hard work! I just don’t get it.
*** end of rant ***
Sorry about this, this happened this morning and has just kept getting worse all day, I hope this helps me let go of it.
SilentDawning, do you want to respond to this one? 😆 
(Inside joke)
It is maddening, I tell ya! But so it is. Hire the custodians back. It provided a job and kept the facilities nice. There is this insidious idea kreeping in to the church. The church loves to hand out assignments. They tell you it is service. Sometimes it is but many times it is just cost savings for the church, free labor and all. The church needs to learn a little bit better about human behavior. People do no like to be told what to do. They want to feel like they are vested in the process and what they have to say matters. The church is totally inept in that regard. When Salt Lake takes all the money and gives back a pittance no one feels the need to invest their time since they have already paid. If the church does not want to pay for everything then it is going to have to turn the majority of responsibilities and expenses back to the stakes to manage. Like I said if you want people to take responsibility you have to give then control. It will never work the way it is. It is just human behavior. You can only guilt people into action for so long before it loses it effectiveness.
I’m with Cadence on this one. I do understand what you’re saying Oneofmany, and I’m sure the exact same thing happens in many a ward. But, frankly I have hardly used the building in over 10 years and I really liked having the custodians – even when they were cut back to part time and shared among buildings. There are three reasons I don’t help: I haven’t used the building, I don’t like to be assigned to do anything and be told it’s my responsibility (I might actually help if they asked me if I wanted to and on my own schedule), and I think they should see the error in their ways and hire back the custodians. I don’t clean up much as I can barely keep my own house clean. This isn’t a particularly church problem.
I agree, getting rid of paid cleaners was wrong. Better them than shopping malls.
I agree I preferred having the custodians. That said, by saying that I haven’t helped the situation at all and neither did my rant but it made me feel better. Are you, DJ and Cadence, proposing that we just stop cleaning? I do have a follow up question, I wasn’t around much before they did away such things but didn’t there used to be some sort of building donation or something like that was requested over and above tithing that helped pay for custodians?
I enjoy cleaning the building, while I don’t care much for cleaning my own home lol. All I can say is that I think it’s a matter or priorities…there was one time I forgot I was “assigned” and didn’t go, but if I had remembered would certainly have shown up. Wards that have an effective system to remind members have greater success, I think. It’s a matter of cleaning not being high on the list for most people but I’d bet most don’t mind. I can see how cleaning the building is an issue for a lot of members. How it’s a trigger for what’s wrong with the Church and how it does things….like rescue visits is for me. But cleaning the building is something I actually like and don’t mind. I like some physical labor and don’t always get a lot because of my desk job, and in the scheme of things this isn’t that bad. So when several people/families are assigned and not everyone shows up I think it’s just a matter of them not minding the idea and willing to do it, but not important enough to put a reminder somewhere to do it.
Oneofmany wrote:I agree I preferred having the custodians. That said, by saying that I haven’t helped the situation at all and neither did my rant but it made me feel better. Are you, DJ and Cadence, proposing that we just stop cleaning?
I do have a follow up question, I wasn’t around much before they did away such things but didn’t there used to be some sort of building donation or something like that was requested over and above tithing that helped pay for custodians?
I think a grass roots protest might be effective, but I don’t think it would get off the ground.
There was a building fund at one time, as I recall it was abolished sometime in the mid 80s. It was like fast offering, a donation in addition to tithing. The money was used to pay the bills, although I don’t recall if it was used for custodians – but at the time, each building had at least one full time custodian and some large buildings had more than one. The money was also used if you needed a new meeting house (but local funds supplemented church funds) – in that case they asked for more. Families and singles were often asked to commit to a certain amount to the fund, but we weren’t asked if we were full building fund payers. Temples had building funds, also. It did seem like at one point my bishop did little else besides beg us for money, so it was great when the church eliminated the building fund and announced those things would be covered by tithing. We did still have full time custodians for several years after the change and then part time and shared custodians. This is also where the current ward budget system came from where attendance determines how much the ward gets back from Salt Lake for ward activities.
Some time ago I was in a unit that shared a building with two other wards. We’d rotate the responsibility, each unit would have the responsibility for a month then it would pass to a different ward. Our unit probably had about 25% of the people that the other units had so when it was our turn every family was guaranteed an opportunity to clean that month, some families did it multiple times. Meanwhile if you were in one of the other wards you might only clean the building once a year, if that… and of course being a smaller unit we were already doubled up on callings. 
I remember that inequality briefly getting to me but then I approached cleaning as an opportunity to serve and ended up missing it once I moved and was in a larger ward, the once per year variety. I was really disappointed that in the new ward you couldn’t sign up to clean the building, you were just told when it was your turn. I get more out of service when I have the desire to do it, not when someone tells me to do it. Plus the sense of entitlement to your service rubs me a bit wrong. I’d much rather go in of my own volition.
Families that receive assistance from the church are encouraged to help with cleaning the building as often as they can. It’s an opportunity for them to feel more empowered. I do wonder though… some of the people receiving assistance don’t have jobs. That could be their job… or is it already, just doing away with the employment paperwork?
Why not a hybrid approach? The members clean the building but every 2 or 3 months some professional crew comes in to do a more thorough job of it. That way the members could be left with a small subset of the tasks that the building requires with the expectation that the pros will come in and handle the other. Is this not the way it’s done currently?
Just recently I’ve been doing a lot of physical work – lifting, walking up hundreds of stairs etc – I don’t want to do this in my spare time. I just try to take good care of the building. I sometimes house sit, if the ward is expecting workmen or do the FHC. Both of these are more restful.
Cleaning the building is a microcosm for service in the Church in general. I agree, Joni, but I want my service to be because I want to do it, not because I have been commanded to or assigned to or guilted into. I absolutely do NOT want to return to the time when the members had to pay to help build and maintain the meetinghouses – or the time when individual wards had their own budgets based on member contributions. I saw SO much inequity among the wards and branches in the same stakes, with the rich wards doing all kinds of things and the poor wards having no way to do much of anything. I also understand the need to channel funds to units in third-world areas where donations are next to impossible outside of fast offerings. I understand the desire to return to paid custodians, but I prefer having those on assistance carry the bulk of that responsibility, with members who want to help being able to do so. I don’t like pressure or assignments for this, but I understand why it happens so often. It’s easier, and people tend to gravitate toward that which is easiest.
I do like the idea of those receiving assistance doing the bulk of the work, and that seems to fit with the church’s welfare principles. In my ward it doesn’t seem to work that way, though. In fact, I have seen instances where they have refused to – even after having received months (even years) of assistance and still get assistance. Assistance can be a tough, tough call and I don’t envy bishops for having to deal with it and I know more than one person who has left the church over issues with it.
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