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.