Moving heavy furniture and other odd and sundry jobs

Oftentimes one is expected to go above and beyond one's job description. It happens to a lot of teachers, I've noticed. The other day as I arrived expecting to begin teaching a large group of kindergarten students, I realized I needed a large table for the hallway. After rummaging around, another teacher and I found two rectangle tables. We asked the custodian if he could haul them from the third floor to the first floor. He replied, "I don't know what to tell you". We asked if he had a wrench to lower the tables to the appropriate height for small children. He replied, "I don't know what to tell you". We asked if he wanted us to take care of the tables ourselves. He replied, "I don't know what to tell you". Apparently he must have reached a point of request saturation. We decided that we would take care of things ourselves. The custodian wandered off to deal with a flood in one of the first grade rooms and to locate and deliver chairs to another room. My friend and I lugged an extremely heavy and bulky table out of our room, down the hall, cross the passageway to the other side of the building and then into the freight elevator. Upon reaching the first floor, we hauled the table out of the elevator, down the hall, around the corner and finally placed it where we wanted it. The table was not the appropriate height. We went back upstairs and did it all over again with the second table. By this time, we were sweating profusely. We needed to locate ten chairs at this point, but had run out of time. We abandoned the project until the next day.

The next day we were back at it, locating all the chairs and (blessed relief!) met a volunteer who sometimes helps out the custodian. He had the particular wrench we needed and he was willing and able to go around and lower the tables. He also showed up to our room with a cart and hauled the chairs down to the first floor. Thank goodness for volunteers! Where would the public schools be without them? My neck and back hurt and I must say that I dislike being in a total lather by 10 am but we were ready to start the kindergarten class! God bless volunteers!