Though I relate to a homeless person’s attitude and also admire their freedom, I am not ready to be thrown on the streets. So I post an ad that I am a professional cleaner, citing as references two of my good friends who are married and own a cleaning company and also Nathanial, my boyfriend who is very dirty. The first job I get is cleaning a hallway in Carroll Gardens. Helena greets me with a round flat-faced, toothless, smiling baby on her hip. I think the baby's name should be Petey. Helena looks like someone who was a professional bully in middle school: broad shouldered, overweight, frizzy hair tied back in a beige scrunchie. She seems uncomfortable in her pink v-neck shirt, khaki capris and sandals, as though she’s trying to fit in with the mommies of Carroll Gardens, but is a Bronx-girl at heart. She compensates for her bullishness with overt kindness- she asks if I’m sure $50 will be enough for the job, insists that I let her know anytime I need anything, overuses “lols” in our email exchanges, and needlessly apologizes for all sorts of things, like her windows being hard to reach and therefore hard to wash. I know that’s what I’m there for, to do the cleaning the people who hired me don’t want to do, but I can’t get over this voice in my head that says, “They can’t actually expect you to get to that spot in there. Or that one- it’s so stubborn, nothing could get it out. They should really hire a professional for these things.” And that’s when it dawns on me that I am the professional they hired. I just didn’t think it would be so hard. I wanted to walk in, do a quick wipe down and make $50 in an hour. I am in over my head and out of shape. The cleaning I do for Helena is pathetic. Exhausted after 2 hours, I decide that there was no way she actually expects me to wipe down the bars on the railings, the bars which have those jagged rusty edges and deep crevices. It would take forever and I am hoping to make at least $20 an hour from this reformed bully, born-again pushover. I skip the jagged, rusty railing knobs, pass on the tall windows that I can’t reach (there is a ladder, but I’m too weak and dainty to carry that big piece of equipment all the way to the window), mop once with too much soap leaving a sticky film, and call it a day.
Cleaning Tip of zee Day:
Extra soap is a rookie mistake- It does not make things cleaner. Water down spray bottles and mop buckets to avoid soap scum, sticky residue, or having to go over floors twice.
A blog about transition and the weird way that having less responsibility after being laid off helped me grow up. Watch me sweep my way to the top.
