James Taylor's workday consists of eight hours, the entirety of which is spent cleaning up the Husky Union Building.

Taylor is visible behind the metal lattice gate in front of Red Radish. In a dark blue T-shirt, he looks at the ground as he steps slowly backward.

His arms sway across his torso at the elbow as he mops the narrow strip of tile behind the counter where the servers stand during the day; it smells like fish sticks and some unidentified gross substance that could be sour ranch.

This is the beginning of Taylor's typical workday for the next three months, after which he'll be assigned a different shift for three months. He likes the continual change, saying it keeps things interesting, although he's been working the 4:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. shift in the same building for just short of 30 years.

"Yeah, if I could do it over again, I would," he says while resting his hand on a mop handle. He stares off into space for a minute. "Just to have someone else keeping an eye on me." He has no wife or children.

He starts wringing out the mop and moves into the back storage room.

"I'm just grateful that God has been so good to me, you know, I['ve] never had a broken arm or anything."

Good isn't usually the kind of word that one thinks of as being a subjective term, but it's hard to understand it in this context because 10 minutes earlier, Taylor mentioned that he was once shot in the face.

It was the day his father died. He was living on Capitol Hill at the time, and he was headed downtown on the bus. The bus was traveling along Rainier Avenue when a man got on, walked up to Taylor and said, "It's your time."

He put a gun up to Taylor's face, slightly above his lip on the right side, and pulled the trigger.

Working Relationship

"Yep, that's what he said. He said, 'It's your time,'" Taylor recalled while sitting on a couch in boss Kurt Ogleby's office. "I don't know why he did it, but that's just what he said. "And you know what? I called in sick, and Kurt said, 'You better have a doctor's note,'" Taylor recounted, laughing. He opens his mouth wide when he laughs, and the scar isn't noticeable.

"I said no such thing!" Ogleby refuted with a broad smile.

Ogleby is one of a handful of people who have been on the job for as long. Although both of them started almost simultaneously, Ogleby has been the boss for a long time now.

The longevity of the core is now in question, because one of its members retired recently and another member is likely on his way out.

"Right now, [Kurt and I] are probably the only ones that are going to stay," Taylor said. "It's like when there's a big party, and then one person leaves ... it gives leeway for all the other people to leave."

Ogleby said he has no plans of going anywhere soon — he has four kids to put through college. Taylor keeps threatening that he's about to retire, but it's always five years off.

"He said he would at 30 years," Ogleby said. "Give him another five, then see what he says."

Ogleby described his relationship with Taylor as a working relationship, whereas Taylor calls it family. It consists largely of Ogleby often repeating the phrase "I don't remember that" and Taylor finding new ways to convince him the said event actually happened.

For example, Taylor's version of the drunk Christmas party 20 years ago will become the drunken summertime party 25 years ago if you're talking to Ogleby.

"James is good-hearted, sometimes to a fault," Ogleby said.

"That's what they say," Taylor replied.

'We're victorious'

"Nothing beats a try but a fail."

That saying was passed down by Taylor's mom. Unlike so many other people who have hollow mantras, he seems to vest a great deal of meaning into these words.

At Pickles and Fries, he's pulling the trash bags out of the cans when he stops abruptly. Looking up through the lenses of his glasses that make his eyes very large, he says, "We're not victims, we're victorious."

The HUB lights are a washed-out yellow with hints of pink and blue that look odd as they shine off his eyewear. It seems he's making a statement about custodial workers in general, or he might be referencing the gun incident, or perhaps the fact that he was raised by his aunt and uncle because his mom died when he was two and his father couldn't take care of him.

"And I'm talking about the Black folks here," he says.

Closing Time

The type of beige lockers found in every break room line the walls, and in the center is a table. Seated are two women, Taylor opposite them. The women are eating homemade Ethiopian wheat bread smeared with organic honey.

"We offered him some, but he didn't want any because he was afraid it had gone bad because we brought it from Ethiopia," says one.

"No, no, I did not say that," Taylor replies.

"Yes you did! I gave you some and you hid it in a napkin, and at the end of the night I found it in the garbage," she says.

"Yeah, OK," he finally admits.

Unlike his coworkers, he doesn't bring food from home, but instead usually heads out to University Teriyaki. He rarely, if ever, buys his food at the school because it's so expensive.

Then it's up to the first floor for the rest of his shift: more sweeping, wiping and mopping. Eventually, he clocks out and takes a bus to Beacon Hill where he lives, and most nights he likes to visit with the 7-11 guy, so he doesn't usually get home until 2 a.m.

When does he sleep?

According to the women in the break room, "all the time."

He eventually admits to it.

"Yeah, I do sleep a lot," he said.

Reach reporter Elizabeth Mortensen features@thedaily.washington.edu.