The Life and Times of a Handyman

Jordan Zaradich
October 16, 2007
English 1001
Lei Lani Michel



Early one morning, I found myself doing what I could to help the maintenance man repair the light switch in my bathroom. Giving off a grandfatherly aura around the room, the man was tall with a thin build. Initially, he decided to make conversation by telling me his name was Leroy, and he worked as a maintenance worker for LSU. After we began conversing, I found it to be the opportune moment to conduct my student interview required for my LSU English class. Interested in learning more about a job that was essential to our community, I began to ask him questions about his life.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on July 5th, 1949, Leroy lived with his parents until their unnatural death when he was five years old. After their death, he and his two sisters moved in with their grandfather in Columbus, Ohio. On weekends, he would help his grandfather with his handyman business, which is how he first learned of the trade. He attended Columbus Public High School and was most interested in his woodworking classes. All the work with his grandfather made gave Leroy a fine admiration for anything wooden and electrical. After his graduation from high school, he continued to work with his grandfather, except on a full-time basis. “Working with him was when I learned the most about my job. Technology might be different today, but he taught me how to find new problems and work out solutions for them.” At the age of twenty-five, he married a woman who would be his wife and they moved to the Cincinnati area. While in Cincinnati, Leroy worked for the Saint Peter and Paul church as a custodian. It was his role alone to make sure the building was clean and functioned smoothly. “I was the only custodian working there. It was the first time I had a job on my own, but I knew I could handle it.” After twenty-six years of working as the custodian, he moved to Alexandria, Louisiana. According to him, he wanted to experience a different part of the country.

“It wasn’t what I expected. The dialect was different, mannerisms were different, was all new to me.” Leroy claimed that it was different for him at first, but after a year, he started to grow accustomed to the community. He mentioned that the people were very welcoming and willing to help him acclimate better to their way of living. A few years later, he received a job offer as a maintenance worker for LSU through a friend and gladly accepted. “The Baton Rouge community doesn’t seem as close knit as it was in Alexandria, but I still love it here.” His favorite events are always attending a tailgate at an LSU football game.

Currently, Leroy works as a maintenance repairman for the LSU campus. Working mostly within the Residence halls, it is his job to work on regular household repairs, such as improving fixtures and working on electricity. “The great thing about the job is that every day you get something a little different. Even though it may be a new problem, you use your head and you can figure it out, and you’ve learned something new.” Without handymen, many residents would find that their living conditions would not be as high. Broken air conditioners, flickering lights, and clogged drains are just a few of the discomforts that maintenance workers at LSU are trained to fix. Leroy has been doing handyman work ever since he graduated high school and was first employed by LSU in 2005, just a few months before Hurricane Katrina.

“They gave me the job just a few months before the hurricane hit. When it happened, I was working unpaid overtime for weeks, but I didn’t mind, I knew that it was for a good cause.” As LSU housed Katrina survivors and acted as an operating center, it was his job to make sure that the residences and buildings were running smoothly. There were many problems and in some cases, the temporary residences were abusing their rooms. “One instance, a family had battered down the desks for the scrap wood and in the process, they had dented the walls up with hammers. I was angry, but I did my job and fixed the damage. I was just trying to make things as best as I could for all of them.” Times were very stressful, for he had to stay up for many hours on overtime while working around people who were traumatized from the event. Many had lost all they had, so he did all he could to make sure they were living as comfortable as possible. On some occasions, he had to act as a mediator for different families who had gotten into an argument. “They would argue about silly things. I knew they were all under stress, but I couldn’t believe that some people would actually start a riot when they thought someone from another room had stolen their chair.” Leroy believes his job was important to the relief effort happening in Baton Rouge, but credits most of the hard work to the National Guardsmen who gave up much of their time to help secure New Orleans.

Feeling that I should start wrapping up the interview, I asked him my final question, which was why he decided to work as a handyman for his whole life. “My grandfather was my main inspiration. He did so many things with his life, and I wanted to be like him.” His grandfather was a combat veteran in World War I and an active volunteer within his community. Having served the army and improving the lives of the people around him gave Leroy a high opinion of his grandfather. Besides his grandfather as an inspiration, Leroy said that he enjoyed the work. Working a desk job with a computer, pen, and paper just was not the type of job for him. He wanted to continue doing something that would give him a new challenge every day and would not get old too quickly. “I’ve been doing this since I was a little boy, and I’m still not bored of it. A cup of coffee in the morning and I’m fuelled and motivated for the day. Proud working class and I wouldn’t change that for anything.”

My interview with Leroy gave me a better appreciation for what goes on to keep the campus running, which is what gives this interview significance. Without handymen, we would find ourselves trying to fix problems where we do not know the solution. Leroy, a maintenance employee for LSU, is essential in making sure that our residence halls are maintained so that we may live comfortably on campus. During the Hurricane Katrina crisis, he helped many families by ensuring their living spaces were commodious. Without complaining, he gave up his own time to help the survivors, from their average leak in the ceiling to helping them through emotional stress. Without working men like Leroy, we would not have the functional campus that we have today.