My Job

I am an employee at the department of streets and sanitation. Our department takes care of the streets, and we take care of the sewers, too. I go to work at midnight, and I work an eight-hour shift. It took me a while to get accustomed to working at night, but now I’m used to it. 

Most people work in the daytime and are able to complete their job during that time. Their workplace closes at night, which called “business hours.” They don’t have to be at their workplace day and night to take care of things. However, sewer workers need to be available 24 hours a day. You can’t close our office. Someone has to be on duty at all times. If a sewer breaks in the middle of the night, we have to fix it right then. If we don’t 
repair it right away, the problem will continue to get worse. 

One night I was on duty and there was a problem in a nearby community. I received a call from a homeowner who informed me that the sewer was broken. I asked her how she knew. She told me there was dirty water coming back up into their street.

I didn’t go to fix the problem, because that’s not actually my job. My job is to identify a problem and then figure out how to solve it. The homeowner told me about the problem, and then I looked at the map on the computer. It showed that she was right. We have sensors under the street, so that we know when there is a leak. The sensors confirm the leak. 

I dispatched a team to fix the problem. Some of them were on duty, but others were off duty. I telephoned them at home and asked them to meet the team on the homeowner’s street. The workers had to close the street for several hours while they repaired the sewer. First, they dug a hole to get to the sewer, and then they discovered the leak. After that, they had to replace a part of the pipeline. That took a lot of hard work, but they were able to finish it. 

Most nights it is not particularly difficult to do my job. However, when we have a problem, we have to get it solved immediately, which is why I’m on night duty. 

My wife is a police officer. She works nights, too. She and I both know it’s important to have people on duty 24 hours every day. We make sure that when you wake up in the morning the city is safe and healthy.