Daft Old Duffer returns. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
If you were to be asked to list the principal industries on the Island – the ones employing the most people – you would I suggest, list the leisure industry, boat-building and engineering.
I doubt you would even think of the largest employer of all – the cleaning industry.
Yet the entire Island economy relies on cleaners. Cleaners of toilets and roads, beaches and pubs, restaurants and hotels.
Invisible industry
We don’t think of them because we rarely see them. Their work is done before our day begins.
In fact the only time we are likely to encounter them is when we call in at the public loo and find ourselves barred by the dreaded ‘closed for cleaning’ sign. Or are disgusted by a litter-bin upturned by some yob and with its contents scattering ever wider.
And on each occasion perhaps we cuss the cleaner for inconveniencing us. Should have been done hours ago, we grumble. Which of course it was. Only for the site to need re-cleaning after being re-fouled by one of us. The public.
Shadowing surprise
For just one summer, following my sixty-fifth birthday retirement, I worked alongside a group of such cleaners. Cleaners under contract to clean public toilets, roads and footpaths.
And had some of my pre-conceived notions dispelled.
To begin with, I found that most of them were not retired men, or widows eking out their low pension by performing a thankless task without enthusiasm or interest. They were in fact youngish men ranging in age from the mid-twenties to mid-thirties, some married, some not.
And though, obviously, they would have preferred it if they had some posh, highly paid job, they were in the main content with their lot.
It’s off to work we go
Each set off every morning in his own van with a round of toilets or footpaths to clean, a task being mainly a matter of routine. Except for the occasions when some drunken yob lost entire control of all his bodily functions and left a mess vile enough to shame any animal.
And each performed his set of tasks conscientiously. Working largely independent of any supervision save that of a random inspection by their supervisor.
Holding on
I realise the last statement will raise a few eyebrows, many of you claiming that the toilet you use is always less than clean, no matter how early you use it.
What you almost certainly do not realise that on many occasions the attendant will barely have finished his clean, and certainly will not have had time to return to his van, before his refreshed and sweet smelling loo will be invaded by a horde of market traders, circus operatives, holidaymakers, roundsmen, or building site men, all of whom have been ‘holding on’ til they could use a nice clean toilet.
Spare a thought
Perhaps the next time you encounter the anonymous figure in his or her yellow jacket, getting underfoot with that wet floor sign, or making you walk round that street cleaners barrow, you might reflect you are in the presence of a man or woman performing a task we’d all rather not know about. Yet a task essential to our civilised lives.
Men and women who prefers working for a pittance to lounging around on the dole.
Image: Krikketgirl under CC BY 2.0
