middleagespread

I'm off in a few minutes to attend to my evening duty as an office cleaner.
Not the most glamourous job in the world, i know.
I took up cleaning to suppliment my life as an artist some months ago.
Formally i was a teacher, and have had businesses of different sorts over the years.
What a surprise i was in for when i took to cleaning!
Although i have a great amount of pride, and have put in the same amount of dedication to each of the jobs i have chosen to do over the years, i can't help thinking that socially cleaners rank the lowest of the low.
I have had companies delaying payments on the grounds that they forgot to request certain paperwork, which i was not too happy to give them. I have been told that wages would be late as the payroll office 'forgot to send the paperwork to head office' (a different company). I have encountered heirarchy and back stabbing from my present employer.
One thing is for sure in my life. Cleaning for me is not a career. It is a means to an end. I do my job well and i expect to be paid for it and be treatd respectfully.
If i wanted a full time career (outside art), i would retrain again, or re employ a former skill.
I have been asked by one cleaning company, to whom i enquired about local jobs, if i had an NVQ. In cleaning???Office cleaning????
I, like many other people who do this type of work, do it well, and expect little (financial) reward for it.
What i do expect is honesty, repect (as mentioned before), and regular money.
So, if any of you employ a cleaner, be good to them. They are already taking a battering and perhaps, like many of the people i am now working alongside, have a great deal of hidden talents and an array of skills that you may never have considered enquiring about.

I'm getting quite into my blogging these days, and enjoying spouting off here and there, even if no one's reading it.
My latest, middle aged moan is attactions.
I happened to be dropping a relative off at southampton airport the other day, and suggested to my hubby that we should go and visit Bucklers hard, the ship building village as i have never been there.
When we got there we entered quite a nice 'toll' room where was displayed a price list. The minimum price to walk down and through the village was a criminal £5.60 per person.
When i asked the polite lady behind the counter whether this was for the village she affirmed and added that for this we could go in the museum too.
I loudly turned down her kind offer to take a total of £11.20 off us and explained that if they reduced the prices i may be encouraged to visit- or words to that effect.
Fortunately another couple who were also waiting to go to the village agreed with me and headed back to their car too.
Surely, if these places stopped this ridiculous policeing of places and therefore having to pay staff to man their territories they could reduce their fees and this would encourage interested visitors.
Do these places also receive grant and or public funds to aid the maintenence for these places? If they do, are we not paying them many times over for the privilage of visiting our own heritage? As it turns out i'm sure i'm not alone in being ignorant to what a lot of these places look like, feel like and am losing the desire to know more about them as i simply cannot aford to spend what little i have left over each month on extortionate entrance fees. Maybe if i had a benefit book in hand, and didn't try to stand on my own two feet i would gain.
In dorset we already have the exceptionally greedy national trust with their inexplicably high parking charges on the beaches at studland. two years ago i was going home via the sandbanks ferry ( i do not live in sandbanks, but a much less exclusive area of poole), and wanted to stop for a coffee at the pub at studland and was told that the parking charge of £8.00 would be necessary. As almost all the roads are now double yellow lined around studland, which is understandable as they are very narrow, car parks are the only option- but £8 for a coffee break! I ask you.
I apologise now to the lady in the parking kiosk for my foul mouthed reply, but do these people have no shame? Are they, like the gestapo were, chosen for their absolute loyalty and unscrupulous behaviour?
I understand that preservation comes at a cost- but in a lot of cases, these groups or organisations set about preserving something by advertising it widely and encouraging multitudes of people to visit which seems to be the cause of a lot of damage, then proclaim that they must charge hellish amounts of money to visit these things etc etc.
Wouldn't it be great if we all said a loud and united 'NO' to this behaviour, to force down these prices and get some value for our hard earned money.
Surely local people should be entitled to visit local attractions. Strike that. Surely every person living in Britain should be entitled to visit these attractions gratis. We do pay enough taxes both nationally and locally- and i will argue the toss with anyone who declares otherwise.
Thank you for bothering to read this