Two cleaners are complaining about difficult days at work. One cleaner describes a long day cleaning five homes and receiving an unexpected last-minute job for the evening that turned out well with a big tip. The other cleaner talks about a day with no work at all, finding the boredom awful and feeling like going crazy without tasks to complete.

1. Cleaning Stories
When people of the same profession gather in one place, then conversations about work are
inevitable. This is such an occasion. Two cleaners are complaining about an especially unpleasant day
at work.
‘It was a long day, and an annoying one that at that. I had cleaned five homes and was just waiting
for the nightmare of a day to be over. Some force, I don’t know what, obviously had other plans for
me. There was about an hour and a half before the end of the shift, and that’s the time I hate the
most, because if you get called, that may mean you’d have to work overtime. You get paid more,
yeah, but still, I just wanted to go home. So, anyway, the phone rings and the dispatch says they
asked for me, specifically. Domestic cleaning. Jeez! Somebody had recommended me. Why on a
Friday (I was forgot to mention it was Friday, which made matters even worse)? Anyway, so I go to
the address and a man and a woman start explaining how some friend of theirs was very satisfied
with my services and that’s why they wanted me to clean their home. I was trustworthy and all that.
These people looked nice but when I entered their house, I understood why they needed my help. I
worked my arse off before I managed to clean everything. There was even a nasty stain on the carpet
I managed to remove. I was surprised at the end – they gave me a tip, and a big one at that. The
Friday didn’t seem so bad after that – it was a fun weekend after that.’
‘That’s nothing. I would take your day any day of the week. At least you had work. There was this one
time when I, you know, didn’t have any work the whole day. I like working as a cleaner, you know.
There is something about making order out of chaos that feels sort of like magic, you know what I
mean? So, anyway, like I said, I like work, but there was this one day we didn’t have any work at all.
You can’t imagine the boredom. I at one point I felt like I was going to fall asleep, you know. It was
awful. Bloody hell! Most people think it’s fun sitting around doing nothing but I’m tellin’ ya, a bloke
can go crazy like that. Thank God it was for the colleagues – we provided each other with
entertainment. It was one of the longest days of my life.’
If you could choose to put yourself in the shoes of one of them, which one would you pick? The one
that did nothing all day, or the one that worked his arse off?