White House staff understand that they work in a pretty exceptional environment. Even if their job is to clean toilets or maintain the landscaping around the historic residence, the stakes are a little higher than average. The White House is the site for myriad photo opportunities, press conferences, and state visits. According to Reader’s Digest, keeping everything in tip-top shape for these occasions and more often requires rising at dawn, working long hours, and sometimes staying up late to get things ready for big events.

Sometimes, at least, the weird hours can be kind of fun, as when President Richard Nixon invited kitchen staff member Frankie Blair to bowl with him. Nixon, who was an avid player, had a small bowling lane installed in the White House basement. The two played until the wee hours of the morning, with Nixon even writing a note to Blair’s wife to apologize for keeping her husband up so late.

At least long-working staff members can expect to get paid. The White House Staff reports that the 2001 annual residence budget included an estimated 19 work-years’ worth of overtime pay. One supervisor even told staff to expect unpredictability and odd hours, to the point where they shouldn’t plan to celebrate every anniversary and birthday with their families.

Being a president of the United States must be, at many times, a particularly chaotic and isolating experience. Some presidents have a “body man,” or personal aide, that acts as a combination valet and friend. Presumably, that eases some of the pressure that comes with the job of being one of the most prominent Americans in the world.

For President Barack Obama, that part-valet, part-professional friend was Reggie Love, Politico reports. He first made an impression while working for then-Senator Obama in 2006. When Obama won election as the 44th president of the United States in 2008, Love was there as his “body man.” He’d already earned Obama’s trust, partially through numerous sessions on the basketball court (Love had played basketball at Duke University).

For much of his time in Washington, wherever Obama was, there was Love. He carried some of the president’s most frequently needed items, from hand sanitizer, to energy bars, to the Nicorette gum Obama used to help quit smoking. If Obama was at the gym early in the morning, Love was there, too. If the president had to work late, yep, so did Love. Even today, long after he left for business school in 2011, Love says that he still carries a backpack of essentials because “you just never know.”

Though this hopefully doesn’t happen all the time, residence staff during the Reagan administration learned that they really, really needed to knock before entering the president’s private quarters. Otherwise, they might see, well, the president’s private quarters, if you get the gist.

Reader’s Digest reports that one maid, Ivaniz Silva, was employed as a member of the White House residence staff from 1985 to 2008. While turning down the bed in Reagan’s room for the evening, she stepped into the adjacent sitting room. Silva was surprised to find Reagan there, reviewing some papers without a stitch on him. She rushed out, but Reagan, to his credit, later joked with her about the incident, presumably to show he had no hard feelings about the slip-up.

Silva wasn’t the only staff member to get a more complete view of Reagan than they might have wanted. According to ABC News, usher Skip Allen was delivering some papers to the president in 1981. He found Reagan as he was getting out the shower without bothering to wrap a towel around himself. Later in the evening, Allen knocked on the Reagans’ bedroom door to deliver yet another document. First lady Nancy Reagan let him in then fussed at her husband for walking around in his underwear in front of the staff. According to Allen, Reagan replied, “Oh, it’s alright. He’s already seen me naked once today. We’re old friends.”

Working at the White House can bring all sorts of surprises, from hair-raising security concerns to scantily-clad presidents wandering about. It’s also tough work, with plenty of overtime hours and high stakes as dignitaries visit and the president helps to lead the country.

Perhaps no task is quite as tough as the one that descends upon the residence staff every four to eight years — Inauguration Day. Whenever a new president, their family, and administration staff are set to move in, the residence team needs to start preparing. However, as much as they might develop a plan, staff can’t actually do anything to move in a president until Inauguration Day itself. They cannot start until 10:31 a.m., Architectural Digest reports, after the outgoing and incoming presidents and their spouses have left for the inauguration ceremony. 

While they’re off conducting a peaceful transfer of power, the staff must move out the old president, clean an entire historic mansion, and move in the new president and their entourage, all by 3:30 p.m. New shampoo gets placed into the bathrooms, clothes are hung in the closets, fresh floral arrangements are set out, and even the correct size shoes are installed in the basement bowling alley. Oh, and because of security concerns, no professional movers are allowed inside the White House. According to The Residence, all of that work must be done solely by residence staff.

Historically speaking, most residence staff try to remain apolitical. They expect to work for multiple administrations over the course of many years, so it’s pretty infrequent that you’ll hear them speaking their political views out loud.

Try as they might, though, it appears that even the famously neutral White House residence staff have to deal with modern politics. New administration staff in the West Wing may cast a suspicious eye over long-serving staff, Vanity Fair says, as when chief usher Angella Reid was ousted soon after Donald Trump took office as the 45th president. To be fair, residence staff do serve at the pleasure of the president and can be let go without incurring any ethics violations. 

While it’s not clear if Reid’s departure had anything to do with politics, other ushers’ stories are a little more clear. The Washington Post reports that usher Chris Emery was fired in 1994 by then-first lady Hillary Clinton for taking multiple calls from former first lady Barbara Bush while he was in the White House. Emery said they were only speaking about Bush’s memoirs and issues with her laptop, but a spokesman for Clinton said that it showed “an amazing lack of discretion” and had violated the first family’s privacy.