I can see the attraction to janitorial work: no politics, a defined scope, knowing when you're done, not taking problem home, no reinventing and learning the new wheel every 2 years, etc...
I'd miss the building something part, and the intellectual challenges, be it understanding the business logic better, or debugging complex issue.
But, to be honest, unless I'm very mis-informed, the difference in renumeration would be the first issue I'd face.
> But, to be honest, unless I'm very mis-informed, the difference in renumeration would be the first issue I'd face.
Contract based cleaning was actually fairly lucrative not too long ago, particularly for overnight cleaning. It paid 2-3 times (maybe more) what you would make from being employed as janitorial staff. This all changed when large managed service companies started to be a thing and a local contract cleaner couldn't compete with professional salesmen. In turn it meant that well paying cleaning jobs became a thing of the past.
Source: My father ran his own one or two man cleaning business. He was making much more at this in 1990 than when he retired (as an employee) in 2010.
I didn't much care for janitorial work, but man I'd jump at the chance to go pump gas in a full service gas station again, if I could keep my IT salary of course.
