Careers at RTJ Enterprise Cleaning
RTJ Enterprise Cleaning Company hires cleaners, floor care specialists and supervisors across Buffalo and Western New York. If you take pride in finishing a building properly, we would like to hear from you.
What the work is
Most of our openings are evening and overnight commercial cleaning: offices, medical suites, retail and industrial buildings across Erie and Niagara counties. You work from a written scope, you are trained on the equipment and products you will use, and you are supervised by someone who has done the job.
Roles we hire for
- Cleaner: recurring janitorial in commercial buildings, usually evenings or overnight.
- Floor care specialist: scrubbing, burnishing, stripping and refinishing, plus carpet extraction. Machine experience helps; we will train the right person.
- Day porter: daytime presence in a single building, keeping common areas and restrooms right through the day.
- Site supervisor: running crews across several accounts, inspecting against scope and being the client's first call.
- Project and post-construction crew: rough, final and touch-up cleans on job sites, often on a schedule that moves.
What we look for
- Reliability. Commercial cleaning is a promise about a specific building on a specific night.
- Attention to detail: the corners, the edges, the things a client notices.
- Willingness to pass a background check, since our clients trust us with keys and after-hours access.
- Reliable transportation to job sites across the region.
- Comfort working independently or in a small crew with limited supervision on site.
Prior commercial cleaning experience is welcome but not required for cleaner roles. We train. What we cannot train is showing up.
What we offer
- Consistent scheduled hours rather than unpredictable shifts
- Training on equipment, chemistry and safety before you are put on an account
- Assignment to a regular building so you are not relearning a new site every night
- A route into floor care and supervisory work for people who want it
- A locally owned employer where the owners are reachable
How to apply
Download and complete the employment application, then bring it in or ask us where to send it. If you would rather start with a conversation, send us a message or call (716) 444-3622.
Download the employment application (PDF)
RTJ Enterprise Cleaning Company is an equal opportunity employer.
More about this service
What do the first few shifts on a new account look like?
You shadow first, then take part of the building while someone checks the work behind you. Nobody is handed a building and a set of keys on the first night.
- First shift: you walk the building with a supervisor or a senior cleaner and go area by area against the written scope, so you see what the client is paying for and what is not included.
- Next few shifts: you take one section yourself. Trash and restrooms usually come first, because they are the fastest areas to check and the ones a client looks at first.
- By the end of the first week: you run the full route while a supervisor walks it behind you and points at what got missed rather than quietly fixing it.
Expect the walkthrough to turn up items early on. That is what the walkthrough is for, and hearing about a missed area is faster than discovering it three weeks later.
What does a written scope actually specify?
A scope is the document that lists every task on a building, how often each one happens, and what is deliberately left out. Once you can read one, most of the guesswork in the job disappears.
- Every visit: trash and liners, restroom fixtures and restocking, high touch points such as door handles and light switches, entry glass, and vacuuming or dust mopping the traffic lanes.
- Weekly: detail vacuuming along edges and under furniture, damp wiping surfaces that only need it periodically, and spot cleaning walls and doors.
- Monthly or quarterly: high dusting on ledges, vents and light fixtures, baseboard detail, and scheduled machine work on hard floors and carpet.
- Not included: most scopes exclude personal desktops, the insides of refrigerators and microwaves, tenant owned equipment, dishes, and anything outside the building envelope.
The exclusions matter as much as the tasks. If someone in the building asks for something that is not on the scope, the answer is to note it and tell your supervisor, not to agree to it in the hallway or refuse it on the spot. Added work gets priced and put in writing so the next person on that route knows it exists.
How do recurring nights, floor care nights and project days differ?
The clearest difference between them is the shape of the shift: recurring work runs the same sequence every visit, floor care is setup and drying time, and project work changes with the state of the building.
| Aspect | Recurring janitorial night | Floor care night | Project or post construction day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pace | Same route in the same order, timed to finish | Long setup, slow machine passes, then waiting on dry time | Varies with which trades are still working in the space |
| State of the building | Empty or nearly empty | Sections closed off and signed so floors can dry undisturbed | Dust, debris, labels and adhesive on brand new surfaces |
| What goes wrong | Detail work skipped to save time at the end | Slips on a wet floor, streaks, or a finish laid over trapped dust | Marking or dulling new finishes that cannot be tested on |
| How you know you are done | The route is complete and the walkthrough comes back clean | The floor is dry, the area is reopened and the equipment is flushed and put away | The area passes the client or contractor check for that phase |
People who like a predictable finish line tend to prefer recurring accounts. People who like variety usually gravitate toward floor care and post construction cleanup, where no two days match.
Which mistakes make the work take longer?
The expensive mistakes are the ones that force you to redo an area you already finished. Almost all of them come from sequence or from equipment that is not doing what it appears to be doing.
- Working bottom up. Dust falls. High dusting after the desks means the desks get cleaned twice. Dry work before wet work, high before low, far side of the room back toward the door.
- Wiping a disinfectant dry immediately. Products list a contact time on the label, and the surface has to stay visibly wet for it. Spraying and wiping in one motion cleans the surface but does not disinfect it.
- Running a vacuum with a loaded bag or filter. The motor still sounds strong while pickup drops off, so the carpet gets blamed for a machine problem. Check the filter before you decide an area needs a second pass.
- Over wetting during extraction. Too much solution means long dry times and stains that wick back to the surface overnight. Rinse and dry times are part of the method, not optional. This is the difference between a good and a bad commercial carpet cleaning result.
- Grabbing the wrong pad. Pad color is a grade, not decoration. An aggressive pad on a finished floor takes off gloss you then have to put back, which is a long night in commercial floor care.
- Dusting overhead without protecting what is below. Tenting or dropping cloths first is why high angle dusting does not turn into cleaning the same floor twice.
Which habits make the work go smoothly?
The cleaners who do well are predictable. They clean the same building the same way every visit, so the result does not depend on how the night felt.
- Run a fixed sequence. The same order every time means you stop deciding what comes next and stop walking back across finished floors.
- Set up once. Load the cart for the whole zone before you start. Repeated trips to the closet for one item are where a route quietly loses half an hour.
- Leave the building the way you found it. Lights, doors, blinds, chairs pushed back in, equipment stored where it belongs. A building that looks untouched except for being clean is the goal.
- Flag supplies a week out. Liners, paper and chemical are ordered on lead time, so a note about a shelf getting low is useful and an empty closet at 9 p.m. is not.
- Ask what a surface is before you treat it. Stone, sealed concrete, luxury vinyl, wood and coated tile all react differently to the same product, and the wrong choice is usually permanent.
Common questions
More answers on the FAQ page.
What should I wear on a first shift?
Closed toe, slip resistant shoes and clothing you can bend, kneel and reach in. Layers help, because a building running on night setback can be considerably colder than the same building during the day. Ask ahead of time whether the account has a dress code, a badge requirement or a check in procedure at the door, since requirements vary from one client to the next.
How physically demanding is commercial cleaning?
It is steady standing and walking for the length of the shift, with repeated bending, reaching overhead, pushing a vacuum or floor machine, and lifting trash and supplies. Floor care adds moving furniture and handling machines, hoses and water. It is generally not heavy lifting, but it is close to continuous movement, and the pace is set by finishing the building within the window the client allows.
What should I do if I cannot make a scheduled shift?
Call your supervisor as early as you know, not at shift time. Coverage has to be arranged and whoever covers has to be briefed on that building's scope, its access and anything unusual about the site. Early notice is treated very differently from a missed shift with no call.
What happens if I break something or find existing damage?
Report it to your supervisor during the same shift, in writing where you can, with the room or area noted. That includes damage you did not cause but noticed, such as a leak, a cracked fixture or a stained ceiling tile. Reported the same night, it is a routine item. Found by the client weeks later, it becomes a question about who was in the building.
Ready to apply?
Send us a message or call (716) 444-3622.