Image: SOURCE: COLUMNS It isn't hard to find Margaret Bolton when walking through the geography-geology building. All you have to do is follow the sound of cheery conversation. Bolton is a well-known and beloved presence to many faculty, staff and students in the building. "I love to talk; that's just part of my nature," Bolton said. "When I'm out of the building, everybody knows it." A UGA employee for nearly 20 years, Bolton is one of the geography-geology building's two service workers. Her job varies from cleaning the restrooms and hallways to dusting off the giant, revolving globe in the building's entrance. "This is our home," she said, gesturing around the foyer. "We are here eight hours, so we want to keep it presentable." However, Bolton finds her day-to-day interactions with the students, faculty and other staff members to be the most rewarding part of her job. "I'm a people person, so I always try to be friendly and outgoing to people," she said. "I love talking to the students and the professors. They aren't strangers to me in this building." During all her time at UGA, Bolton has been incredibly impressed by the students coming in and out of the building she cleans. "They have always been so respectful and so nice," she said. Before she began working at UGA, Bolton was a certified nursing assistant mainly being responsible for taking care of elderly patients either in retirement facilities, hospice care or their homes. In 1997, she stopped working as a full-time CNA to take care of her three young children. That was when she began working as a building service worker for UGA, beginning first at the River's Crossing building. Her hard work over the years has paid off. In 2014, 2015 and 2016, Bolton was a finalist in the UGA Customer Service Award. While this certainly sounds like quite a career change, Bolton finds many similarities in the two jobs. "The jump wasn't too different because either way I'm dealing with people," she said. Now that her children are grown, Bolton also works part time as an in-home care provider every other weekend. Bolton has been married for 31 years to Vernois Bolton, a carpenter in Facilities Management at the university. She has three adult children—one of whom, Sentel Bolton, works in UGA's recycling center—and three grandchildren. In her spare time, Bolton tends her garden and is involved with a community group that helps its members in financially difficult times. She and her husband like to attend concerts and go to movies. She is incredibly appreciative of all the people she gets to meet through her job at UGA. "It makes me feel good that these people recognize me here, not only to clean the building," she said, "they also recognize me as a human being here."
