After work, Gloria Murphy goes to her daughter’s house. 

They talk, turn on old television shows and laugh with Murphy’s grandsons. 

That’s how the 65-year-old custodian plans to spend her time when she retires in January.

For 26 years, Murphy has been one of the 83 custodians who keep USF’s academic buildings clean – from the heavily-trafficked Library to classrooms.

Everything needs to be cleaned, Murphy said.

Related: OPINION: Here’s a list of USF’s best and worst bathrooms – The Oracle 

The staff oversees 81 buildings and approximately 4.2 million gross square-feet. They go through 15 cases of paper towels, 17 cases of jumbo toilet paper and over 5,000 trash bags each day, according to a facilities fact sheet.

“I just like coming into work and doing what I got to do,” Murphy said, matter-of-factly. “This is the longest job that I ever had.”

But when Murphy talks about her daughter and grandsons, her face lights up.

“We just sit around and talk and stuff like that with my grandsons because I be talking trash and they just like to laugh and stuff,” she said with a smile.

While she might try to stay behind the scenes, several students know Murphy by name. Sometimes she can’t remember theirs, but they still tell her about their days while she cleans the bathrooms between classes.

The custodians try to inconvenience the students as little as possible, only closing one bathroom at a time and cleaning rooms between classes.

Tony Hardy, a 39-year-old senior custodian who oversees a team of up to five workers, said he’s gotten to know some of the students in the 18 years he’s worked at USF. 

He said there are a lot of students who help him out, even if they’re the ones making the messes in the first place. 

But he doesn’t mind.

“We need them to mess up because if they didn’t mess up, there wouldn’t be no job,” Hardy said, shrugging.

Hardy recalled one time he was cleaning the men’s restroom while two students were using it. 

When one messed up the work Hardy had just done, the other student stepped in, saying, “Hey, don’t mess up the restroom, Tony just cleaned this.”

Neither Hardy nor Murphy has had a bad experience with students, they said.

In fact, they said they know students and faculty appreciate the work they are doing to keep the campus clean.

The days are broken into two shifts: the first is from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and the second starts at 3:30 p.m. and goes until midnight, said Olga Salvick, assistant director of building services. 

The custodians get the bulk of their work done at the beginning of the day and late at night, Salvick said. 

Murphy’s favorite place to clean is the John and Grace Allen Building, USF’s oldest building.

She got to know everyone there and would pause for a minute or two to talk to the friends she made in the building.

“I love that building,” she said.

Related: Some USF building management’s attempt to mitigate custodial understaffing – The Oracle 

When Hardy’s shift cleaning some USF Heath buildings ends, he goes home to watch TV. His favorites are the older shows, such as “Friends” and “Frasier.”

“No one likes actually cleaning stuff,” he said. “But you have to maintain the buildings to maintain the image of the campus.”

He said his colleagues are the best and the hardest part of the job. While he likes overseeing his co-workers, the different attitudes can be challenging.

“It gets kind of difficult but it be good at the same time,” he said. 

Both Hardy and Murphy have been a part of big changes at the university. They’ve seen buildings constructed and shared feedback on new initiatives, such as the custodians’ new training program, Salvick said.

“[They are] great individuals, very hard working [and] dedicated to the university’s success,” Salvick said of Hardy and Murphy.

One of the after-work shows Murphy likes watching with her daughter is “Columbo,” which she said she couldn’t stand as a kid but has grown to love.

Looking forward to her retirement in three months, Murphy smiled. 

She said she’s got some work to get done at her house back in Sarasota. But her first plan is to spend the early weeks of her retirement with family.