Poop on a door!

For those that don't know sometimes my job requires me to be on call for emergency response. This past week was my turn for the short straw. Normally I really don't mind the infrequent calls for an odor complaint or a broken mercury thermometer. These types of call are no big deal and when they are a big deal they are usually interesting and fun. This week however topped (or bottomed) the list of responses.

I got a call at 11:45 pm on Tuesday night from the emergency dispatcher and was given a number to call. I responded the typical way, wrote down the number and called the contact. Here is the conversation:

Me: "Good evening this is Seth the emergency responder on duty, how can I assist you?"

Him: "Yeah, some homeless guy pooped outside and I need you to come clean it up."

Me: "Excuse me?"

Him: "It is a really big stinky diahrrea, a real mess."

Me: "Why does this concern me, I don't clean poop, especially not outside poop."

Him: "Well it is outside but he smeared it all over one of the exterior doors that lead into the facility"

Me: "Call a janitor, my job is emergency response and the feces is not threatening anyone right now."

Him: "I am a janitor."

Ahh it is all perfectly clear now. He doesn't want to do his job so he calls me to clean up the poop. Uh, no I am not falling for it.

Him: "Here let me give you to the security guard he has actually seen it and reported it to me."

Security: "Yeah there's like a shit ton of poop on that door. That dude made a real mess it's like finger paints 'n shit."

Me: "Great. Is there blood in the feces."

Security: "uh I don't know I didn't really look that hard at it. I can go check for you. Would that help?"

Me: "No I really don't care if there is or not, I was just wondering if the painting was a single color or if there was some variation in the work. Put him back on the phone."

Him: "So are you on your way out here?"

Me: "No, I am not going to clean that ever."

Him: "Yeah but I heard on the TV news that pigeon shit is toxic."

Me: "What?! That has nothing to do with this."

Him: "Yes it does."

Me: "No it doesn't"

Him: "Look pigeon shit is like toxic because they are homeless birds and they eat toxic stuff and poop out toxic shit and a homeless dude is like a big toxic pigeon. As a night shift supervisor I am going to make the decision that nobody on my staff is going to clean that up."

Me: "Your group has the training and equipement required to do this job safely and I expect that you do it."

Him: "No."

Me: "OK then a bunch of folks are going to be welcomed to work tomorrow morning by a big ol shit stain on the door. Who is your supervisor?"

He continued to go on and on about the parallels between pigeons and "homeless dudes" stating and restating his refusal to clean the poop and I continued to ask for his supervisors name. Finally he told me and hung up on me.

Look this place is out at 13th and Mission and that is not such a safe place to be at midnight or one in the morning. I was not about to go out there to scrape shit off a door. It is not normally in my personality to pull this kind of attitude; but I'm sorry if you didn't want to clean up shit maybe you shoud go back to school and get out of the custodial arts. I have a graduate degree and I am going to pull rank on this one each and every time.