Pubic hair, skidmarks and dirty toilet seats (EN)

At 5 a.m. I jumped out of bed. I got in the bus at half past 6 heading towards Amersfoort.  At 6:45 I entered a big building of a company where I had never worked before. I had mentally prepared myself for today, knowing that I had to clean instead of washing dishes or preparing sandwiches. Indeed, I was bombarded to cleaning lady and got assigned to clean 95 toilets. What a great way to kick start my new career!

It was a bit of a shocker when I walked into the first toilets. I expected that men who walk around in nice suits and work in a large company would have learned how to pee and crap in the toilet instead of on it, but I was wrong.  The toilets I had to clean reminded me of a discussion I once had with a friend. ‘Am I right if I say that the gentlemen toilet is dirtier than that of the ladies’, I asked my colleague . ‘Yes,’  she said. She’s been working as a cleaning lady for 23 years now and has also cleaned in hospitals so if she says so, it is so.

I didn't necessarily have to ask, after 4  hours of cleaning toilets I can draw my own conclusion. It was only in the men’s toilet that I was confronted with pubic hair and piss on and underneath the toilet seat and persistent skid marks. A few times I even walked in on a turd that was still floating around. Great!

After a while my colleague came to me and said that we had to turn up the pace a little bit because we were running behind on schedule. I was happy that she didn't get mad at me for being slow and kept in mind that it was my first time. ‘You actually have 5 minute per group of toilets’, she said. ‘With 5 minutes per group of toilets’, she meant that I had 5 minutes per four toilets which…is just CRAZY!

‘You can put gloves on if you want to’, she said,at the beginning of the day, pointing at a box of gloves. I immediately put the gloves on. She told me she doesn't like gloves. ‘I wash my hands afterwards anyway’, was her excuse to clean toilets using her bare hands. 
I  soon found out that clean is a relative term. I had to use one cloth to clean 4 toilets and the sinks. She showed me how I could turn it around so I could use a 'clean side' which didn't make sense because I'm pretty sure all sides were getting dirty at the same time. I did what I was told though and tried to clean up all the pubic hair, the piss and the skid marks as fast as possible.

‘This is pretty exhausting’. I was sweaty, my back ached and my arms were going numb. ' Yes, cleaning is pretty exhausting’, she said. Now that I've experienced it myself I would expect all cleaning ladies to  be in top shape because of all that vacuuming, polishing and scrubbing toilets (98 toilets for example and that has to be done two times a day)  and cleaning all the rooms in the building and all the offices (So what do they do wrong? ). 
I was glad that I had to mainly deal with the toilets. That kept me pretty occupied for a while.

It was half past 12 when my shift was done.  I stepped outside on the street again and it was raining just like when I walked in. Lovely...
Everything was hurting.  ‘Are you working somewhere next Tuesday and if not can you come work here again’, my colleague asked just before I left. ‘I know I don’t have to work but I have to check if I don’t have classes (and sorry but I don’t do this crappy job every day!).'

I checked and it turns out my classes start at 15:00 o’clock next Tuesday. That gives me enough time to work in the morning. I’m satisfied about today. My colleague was nice and she asked me if  I want to come back to work there again next week (and unsupervised) so that means I did a pretty good job at being a cleaning lady.

Next week Tuesday I’ll return to more pubic hair, skid marks and dirty toilet seat!!