Spare a Thought for the Cleaner This Christmas

Spare a Thought for the Cleaner This Christmas ©

By Michael Casey

 Well Christmas will soon be here, though to be honest I haven’t thought much about it. So this morning while shivering in front of the computer I was thinking what to talk about today, so cleaning came to mind. I did spend 3 years at the Crowne Plaza Birmingham NEC, or CPNEC, so while I was there I got to help out everywhere, I was a veritable Cinderella, though much better looking with a stronger shaving rash.

I’d be minding my own business in Reception and Anthony would ask me to go and help out with the cleaning crew, or Housekeeping, everything has a posher title in hotels. My title would be Executive Peripatetic Assistant, or dogsbody in plain English, but I didn’t mind everything was fun, and far far better than being unemployed with one then two toddlers to feed. So I’d go upstairs and help the cleaning crew, or Housekeepers. Normally when somebody asks you to go upstairs with them it is an invitation to have sex or some other kind of fun. But if you work in a hotel it means, go fetch or carry or clean.

Our hotel had 242 rooms if I haven’t forgotten, you can all double check on the website, you could even print off my photo and ask did this fat guy really work here 10 years ago. I believe Vicky still works there but in the Hacienda, which is the posh name for the staff canteen. When I was there Vicky was one of the Housekeeping staff, she is really nice and when I was teamed with her I’d try and stay out of her way.  So while she cleaned the bedroom, and placed notepads and pens and this and that in the appropriate places, and vacuumed and made the bed too, I’d clean the bathroom, sink, toilet and bath.

Then when one room was done we’d move to the next. They have 15 mins to do each room I believe and each Housekeeper has a printout of their list of rooms that they must do. There is a buzz about cleaning rooms, mainly the friction as they vacuum and fly about the room and onto the next room. I cannot praise the crew highly enough, because I was there too. I seem to remember that me and Michael Wilson once had the task of turning mattresses over after 6 months use. Michael went back to his carpentry once the Winter was over.

I would get a message on my phone saying come back down stairs after so long and then I might be meeting and greeting millionaires, once I had put my jacket and tie back on. Because I was 20 years older than the reception crew frequently I was mistaken for the General Manager himself, if only people knew I had my hand down a toilet minutes before.

Enough of the 4 star deluxe hotels, what about your office? I have an affinity with cleaners for many reasons, but another reason being that I used to always work till 8pm. So I was there when they were doing their job, so I know the disgust they had for the people who left half full cups of coffee in the bin. Come on tip the coffee in the sink if you don’t want to finish it, or pour it cold on mating pigeons on the roof outside, I think that happened once maybe 30 years ago.

A dustbin reveals a lot about a person or the group of people who share a dustbin. I remember once a syringe was found in a dustbin where I was working, and the cleaner pricked herself so had to have an AIDS test. I think in the end it was a careless diabetic who was to blame, but please think before you dump stuff in a dustbin. I’m not asking you to gift wrap your rubbish and to leave it all neatly for the cleaners, though a little thought does make a difference. A dustbin is not a basketball hoop, and the wall around the bin should not be splattered with food and all kinds of everything, even if the cleaner is called Dana.  

Naughty cleaners do exist, they will squirt scent in the air to give the illusion they have done your room when they have not. One trick or cleaners aid is to wrap sellotape or sticky tape around a few fingers just as boxers do then prance about your room like a ballet dancer picking up any specks of rubbish, this saves getting the vacuum cleaner out. Though I would say in 95% of the time all the cleaners I have met during my working life have been really hard working mums.

So what more can I say, just admire your cleaner and if you look after her then your room will be better than the company directors. I have to finish now as I have to spray perfume around the house and wrap sellotape around my fingers, I am a perfect hausfrau after all. Luckily my wife never reads my stories, so don’t you be telling her, or she’ll wrap the vacuum cleaner around my neck and throw me in the fish tank at the Fish Market, and wouldn’t that create a big stink?