During the covid-19 pandemic, a lot of schools closed for a long time.

The schools closed on short notice, but parents were definitely informed about the closures.

In today’s story, one janitor explains what happened on the first day schools were closed at the school where he works.

He was there to sanitize everything, but one mom thought he was a daycare employee.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

No, really, school is completely closed

I am on the janitorial team that was sanitizing our public school buildings during the cancellations last week.

Monday I arrive for my first day and I was tackling an auditorium.

It was no secret that schools were closed.

It was on the news, there were signs on the doors, I think the city even sent a text alert about it to anyone signed up for municipal notifications.

And the school absolutely sent emails.

He wasn’t expecting any parents.

But as I’m beginning to clean, with my cart and my janitorial uniform, a woman comes in with two kids, 5 and 7ish.

I say “Hi, I’m sorry, the school is closed for the rest of the—“ and she cuts me off and says “yah yah, I know, I know, but this is the daycare service right?”

“No. What? No. I’m just a member of the cleaning crew.”

“Well where’s the daycare?”

The woman didn’t get it.

“There… what? I don’t think there is one, we’re sanitizing every room today. You could go to the office and ask, but I didn’t see anyone in there, it’s really just us—“

“Oh great, so you’re in charge. I’ll be back at 2:15? Right?”

“I’m not in charge of anything. You’ll need to go to the office, or probably, go home actually. I don’t think there’s any kind of service—“

“What are you talking about? They wouldn’t just cancel school without a daycare service for working parents. Where’s your boss?”

He really needs to get them out of there.

“My boss is also a janitor, trust me, they cannot help you.”

Now at this point the kids had begun to run around the gym which meant I’d have to resanitize whatever they’d touched.

So I said, more firmly,“You need to go, I’m not supposed to let people in here during cleaning.”

At this point I wasn’t sure if she was messing with me or if she really didn’t know.

She seemed busy, she had a cellphone in one hand and no hands on the kids.

She’s making him feel crazy.

Without looking up she says:

“Well you should’ve cleaned before the kids started to arrive, shouldn’t you?”

I’m starting to wonder if I’m the crazy one at this point.

“There are no kids arriving. I’m cleaning. The school is closed.”

She walked away without her kids.

“I know school is closed. That’s why I’m leaving them in the daycare.”

And just like that, she was off.

I was calling after her “Hey, excuse me! Lady! You cannot leave kids in here!”

I didn’t know what to do about it so I took the kids to my boss and asked what we needed to do.

The boss suggested calling the police.

The boss said “So they just left these kids here? Why didn’t you tell her the school was closed?? Who doesn’t know that by now!”

I explained that I did tell her and she either was so checked out she didn’t understand or she chose to ignore me.

So the boss said “This is all way too risky. We can’t keep an eye on them and there are dangerous products and who knows why she left them here? We don’t need this problem. Better call whoever you call about kids with no one to watch them. Cops?”

We also had one of the janitors trying to get a name and number off the kids but they didn’t really know.

Police arrived and found a contact number for the kids’ father.

But we have a few undocumented immigrants on the crew and a couple others who would’ve just been nervous to have cops buzzing around the workplace, so we googled it and ended up calling a child services hotline.

Ultimately a social worker came, and with cops, but they didn’t bother anyone though.

Just focused on the kids.

The cops went through the kids bags and found their last name on a school binder and found a number to call.

They got the kids’ father who was irate.

Both parents arrived.

They had the conservation on speakerphone so I caught bits and pieces.

“What do you mean, they’re where? Aren’t schools closed?”

And he was there within ten minutes.

I guess he called his wife for an explanation during that time because she arrived not too soon afterwards.

The cops and social worker were lecturing them and the woman was like “I left them with a childcare worker in the drop off area!”

How dumb is she?

And they reiterated there was no day care and they had no idea what she was talking about.

So to that point, I thought “ok, I guess she’s just really, really dumb.”

Then the cops let them go with a warning about understanding where they’re leaving their kids and with whom.

The woman’s parting words make him even more curious about what she was up to.

But as they were leaving the woman sneered at my boss “Was it really such a big deal that you had to call the police?”

So… now I wonder whether she was trying to pull a fast one on us or if she was just that stupid.

The world may never know.

But I still laugh at the story.

I can’t imagine a parent leaving kids with someone who clearly says over and over that you can’t leave them there.

What nerve! And those poor kids!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person was bothered by the mom’s sneer.

Another person thinks they had no choice but to call child protective services.

The parent of a 6-year-old weighs in.

This person thinks the mom knew exactly what she was doing.

Finally, another person thanks the janitor for his hard work.

A janitor is not the same as a daycare worker.

This is one wild story.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.