Wax On Wax Off and Other Power Plant Janitorial Secrets

Two years before the movie Karate Kid came out at the movies in 1984, I had learned the secret of “Wax On, Wax Off”.  One that made a significant difference to my Power Plant Janitorial Powers!

The Student Learns from the Master…. “Wax On… Wax Off”

My Janitorial Master was Pat Braden.  He is the same age as my father.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, Pat Braden reminded me of a rounder version of Red Skelton:

This Picture of Red Skelton reminds me of Pat Braden

Pat was one of the kindest people you would ever meet.  He was the head janitor when I became a janitor at the Coal-Fired Power Plant.  I had worked with him off and on during the 4 summers when I had worked as a summer help.  So I was glad to actually be on his crew as one of the team.

When we had a big waxing job to do, we would schedule a weekend to come in and do it.  That way we could wax an entire area without interruption.  We could strip off the old wax with the stripping chemicals, then neutralize it, then add the sealer, and finally end up with waxing the floors with the best wax we could buy.  As I mentioned in the post “How Many Power Plant Men Can You Put in a 1982 Honda Civic”, we used Johnson Wax’s best wax:  Showplace.

The Best Floor Wax money can buy!

We had been “certified” by Johnson and Johnson to wax floors properly.  This included the proper buffing techniques once the wax had been applied and had properly dried.  A properly waxed and buffed floor is shiny but not a slippery floor.

Floor buffer, used to strip the wax off and buff the wax once it has been applied

We decided to spend one weekend waxing the Engineering shack.  It was a tin building like a Metal Butler Building that the inspectors from Corporate Headquarters would use when they had projects at the plant.  In 1982, that was pretty well all of the time,  as John Blake and Gene Titus were permanent residents of the Engineers Shack.

A simple metal building sort of like this. Only it was green.

The floor in this building had a regular tile floor like you would see in an office building in the 1960’s.  Just the plain square tiles.  It looked like it had never been waxed before, and was probably built on the plant grounds long before the power plant existed.  The floor had been worn out by the traffic over the years.  This was one building that I was expected to keep swept and mopped as part of my daily janitorial responsibilities.

Our Janitor crew consisted of Pat Braden, Doris Voss, James Kanelakos, Ronnie Banks and Curtis Love (and myself of course).  We had decided a couple of days before that for lunch we would eat baked onions.  “Ok”, I thought.  I knew we didn’t get paid much as janitors and we had to be frugal, but I didn’t really think that we were so bad off that we had to resort to eating onions for lunch.  But since no one really asked me for my vote (which would have been to bring in some pizza from Ponca City), we were having baked onions for lunch.

We spent the morning removing all the furniture from the building, and then stripping the floor (even though it looked like it had never been waxed before).  Then we mopped it a couple of times.  By that time it was lunch time, and we headed up to the plant break room where Doris was just finishing up baking our um…. er….. onions.  Yeah.. Baked Onions….

It turned out that these were Purple Onions.  The ends had been cut off of them and butter and salt and pepper had been put on each end as they were wrapped up in tinfoil like a baked potato, and then baked in the oven just as if they were a baked potato.

oh yum… a purple onion…

Well.  I was never one to complain about food, and I was determined not to show my lack of enthusiasm at the thought of eating an onion for lunch, so I sat down and put on my eager hungry expression as I waited for our feast.  —  Well.  The joke was on me.  As I began to eat the baked onion, I realized right away that it didn’t taste like any onion I had ever eaten.  It was kind of sweet and…. well…. it was rather tasty!  Power Plant Culture never ceases to amaze me.

Anyway, after I had eaten my share of onions, we were ready to go back to work waxing the engineers shack.  We spent the rest of the day doing that and when we had decided that the wax had dried enough, we carefully brought the furniture back in and put everything back in order.

So, why am I boring you with all this detail about waxing the floor in a metal building that doesn’t even exist today?  Well.  I have told you now about the “Wax On” part.  Now comes the “Wax Off” part.  The second part of my training to becoming a Jedi Janitor (hmm… snuck in a Star Wars reference I see).

Here is what happened the next Monday when I wheeled the buffing machine out of the janitor closet in the Engineer’s shack.  Gene Titus (who always reminded me of Jerry Reed):

Jerry Reed

and John Blake, both were very pleased with their new shiny floor.  They looked like they were anxious to show it off to someone… anyone that would come by.  I was about to really impress them (I thought) with my fine buffing skills that was really going to make their floor shine.  So, they watched closely as I attached the red buffing pad on the bottom of the buffer:

The black buffing pad is for stripping the wax. The red one is for normal heavy buffing and the white one is for polishing

I began at the far end of the room from the doors and began buffing….  The first thing I noticed was that the buffer was literally removing the wax from the floor.  Yep.  It was taking it right off.  Wax On…. Wax Off…..

Normally John Blake was a likable sensible person.  But when he saw me removing the wax from the floor he had a very concerned expression, and well, I perceived that a sort of extreme hatred was rising up in his demeanor….  I was glad that John was a quiet mild-mannered sort of person, otherwise, I think he would have walloped me one for ruining the floor that he was so proud of minutes before.

I began thinking to myself what I should do.  After all.  The floor really did need buffing, and buffing it was removing the wax.  So as the buffer moved back and forth erasing the shine and bringing back the dull tiles, I thought as hard as I could muster my brain what I should do next….

I figured I would go ahead and buff the entire main room, as if I knew exactly what I was doing, not looking concerned.  I don’t know if the confidence that I exhibited while removing the wax relaxed John just enough so that he could leave the building and continue his job, or if he actually stormed out in distress hoping to drown his sorrows in his morning cup of coffee…

When I finished the room with the red pad… I did what I would have done if the wax had buffed up correctly and had actually still existed on the floor…. I put the white pad on the buffer.  I thought in my mind that the floor was probably so infiltrated with dust that we hadn’t done a proper job (if it was even possible) to clean the floor before applying the wax on Saturday.

So I thought I would try something that they hadn’t taught us in waxing class…  I took a spray bottle and filled it with wax.  Then I started in the same corner where I had begun removing the pride and glory of John Blake’s newly waxed dreams.  I sprayed some wax and buffed it into the floor.  As I guided the buffer back and forth with one hand, I sprayed the floor with the other.  To my surprise, not only did it start to leave a shiny polished floor, but it left a polish that was much more clear than before.  One that was almost like a mirror.

A plain spray bottle like this

As I buffed the room from one end to the next, the entire room became brighter as the lights from the ceiling reflected from the hard polished wax.  I was nearly finished with the room when John walked back in.  He was immediately stunned by the brightly polished floor.

I could see his uncharacteristic desire to kill me melt away and his pleasure with his new Shangri La abode become immediately evident.  John Blake from that moment on viewed me with the respect that most Power Plant janitors normally deserve.

I was so impressed with how well the floor looked when I was done, that I went to the Brown and Root building next door and did the same thing there.

I began to wonder what other uses I could make out of this discovery… Spraying wax on the floor and buffing it right in.  It finally occurred to me that the floor cleaning machine that I used to clean the Turbine room floor might benefit by adding some wax to the mixture.  It had the same type of red buffer pads on it.

We had a Clarke Floor scrubber similar to this one

So, after I had scrubbed the Turbine Generator floor using the regular detergent.  I cleaned out the scrubber and put just water in there and about 1/2 gallon of wax.  Then I went to try out my experiment.  Sure enough…. The bright red Turbine Room floor began to glow.  The bright lights overhead were clearly reflected off the floor.  This was very successful.

This is a picture of the red turbine room floor, only not with the nice wax job.  After I had waxed it, you could see the light bulbs in the floor

So, my next test was to sweep off the turbine-Generators themselves with a red dust mop.  Then spray watered down Johnson Wax directly on the dust mop and mop away on the turbine generators:

Like this only with a mop handle

The Turbine Generators took on the same polished shine.

I distinctly remember one Power Plant Operator that gave me a very nice complement one day for keeping the T-G floor so nicely polished.  His name was Michael Hurst.  He was a True Power Plant Operator.

Michael Hurst is the second Brave Power Plant Operator on the right

As a lowly janitor in a plant of heroes, I found that I was treated with the same respect as everyone else.  I would never forget that complement from him because I could see his earnest sincerity.

A few years ago on December 19, 2008 Michael Hurst died in Oklahoma City.  What was said about Michael after his death was this:  “He had a great sense of humor and a big heart… Many have been blessed with his generosity and his genuine love for people.”  I can include myself in this statement.  I know that everyone shown in the picture above from Joe Gallahar (on the left) to Doris Voss (in the middle) to Pat Quiring (on the right) would agree with that testament about Michael.

There was another sentence after this one that stands on it’s own.  One that is a sign of a True Power Plant Man.  It was also said of Michael Hurst:  “Above all else, the most important thing to him was his family.”  Though I don’t have a picture of Michael’s immediately family.  I believe that I have included a picture above of at least some of his extended family.