National Clothesline

He always arrives on time and ready to work. He is an excellent presser and when his work is caught up he immediately looks for another task to perform, whether it’s helping someone else on staff or simply cleaning up.

Tim Zielinski is a model employee, and not just in the eyes of his proud father, Frank, who owns the drycleaners that employs him in Suffolk, VA.

In fact, everybody else at Cleanerama wholeheartedly agrees that he is the star of the plant.

“Everybody else has problems and problems,” noted Frank Zielinski. “For a kid who was born with Down’s Syndrome — I mean, how many more problems do you think you need? But, he just doesn’t have any problems whatsoever. He comes to work with a smile on his face and ready to do the job. He’s always willing to help out and make somebody else’s job easier. He likes to please people. He never asks for a thing.”

Tim seems to possess a boundless supply of energy and an extraordinary inner drive. His competitive nature fuels him to always be the best at anything he does. In fact, Tim has accrued more than 80 medals and trophies altogether.

“He’s got more bling in his room than you can shake a stick at,” his father laughed.

Many of the awards are in the category of weightlifting. He first started engaging in the exercise over 15 years ago and these days he can bench press 260 pounds and lift over 300 pounds in a dead lift.

More recently, however, he has fostered a deep love for the game of golf. His impressive skills just seemed to come naturally to him.

“He amazes me,” said the elder Zielinski. “For instance, if you would see his golf swing, you would think somebody taught him on TV. His swing, his stroke, his coordination is phenomenal. I never taught him that.”

During the past Fall, Tim participated in the Special Olympics Virginia Beach Invitational where the course par was 66.

He shot nine over and walked away with a gold medal. Prior to that, he competed in Lincoln, NE, at the Special Olympics National Invitational and took home the silver.

Such success does not surprise anybody who works alongside Tim on a daily basis. He always brings an enormous passion and a positive attitude to every task at hand.

“I work every day and at work I press all the shirts and pants,” Tim explained. “I like working there and helping my father and mom. I like it every day.”

That has been the case for eight years now, ever since his parents originally purchased Cleanerama. They simply wanted to own a business that could support them and help occupy their son in a constructive manner.

“I’d seen too many kids in Tim’s class, after graduating high school, do nothing,” Frank Zielinski recalled. “My wife and I didn’t know what the heck we were going to do. We decided to try drycleaning. I really didn’t know what drycleaning was. I didn’t know anything about it.”

Since then, the Zielinskis have learned quite a bit about the cleaning trade and the decision has indeed proved to be a wise one. Certainly, Tim couldn’t be happier.

“He is always up and ready to go in the mornings,” his father said. “He has his own press and he presses all day long. Actually, if anybody needs help when he’s done, he goes back and helps them with pants and shirts, all the fines, the delicates and the silks. When there is nothing else to do — after my spotter takes the clothes out of the machines — he will hang them and sort them and put them where they’re supposed to go for the next day of work. I really haven’t told Tim what to do here. He just automatically does it himself. That’s pretty much how he has always been.”

Such a relentless work ethic has made Tim the plant’s unofficial standard of efficiency.

“When I get mad at employees, I say, ‘If you guys could come in like this, with all the problems that this kid has, and be like him... we wouldn’t have any problems at all,” added Zielinski.

Fortunately, the problems seem to be far and few between as Tim remains popular and admired in the eyes of everybody who knows him.

Mostly, it’s hard to resist that constant sincere smile. Perhaps it shines the most every Thursday when he happily hands out the paychecks to all the plant’s employees.

“Everybody kind of gets tickled when Tim does that. Tim thinks he’s writing them out and giving it to them,” Zielinski noted with a smile. “Oh yeah, he like owns the place.”