"Cleaners" who wont clean!!!!

drew2k9

just wondering if it was just me and the building i work in, but have any of you had bad experiences with outside contract cleaners?

if you have experienced what i experience then i am sure you will be just as frustrated as me!!

what i am talking about is that time when you see the cleaners and ask... "why have you not cleaned my desk in the past 2-3 months???!!!" and their answer is something along the lines of... "well, your desk wasnt clean enough for us to clean" ...

the rest of the conversation usually follows as such
me-"im sorry what????" cl-"it wasnt clean enough"... me-"forgive my naivety, but are you not a cleaner? is your job not to clean? do you get paid to decide what you do and dont want to clean? is it in your contract that you only clean what you feel like?"

i understand that some people in the world will not take the time or put in the effort to remove their own rubbish from their desk and leave a collection of various kitchenware sprewn around, but when the only things on my desk are a few work related files, some stationary and a monitor and keyboard, what more could they really ask for!!!??!?!?!?!

i know this rant may seem out of nowhere, but i had to vent my anger somewhere, so as soon as i had taken the layers of dust off my keyboard and sterilised my hands, i thought id like to see if it was just me or are there numerous lazy cleaners in the world getting paid to not clean as things arent clean enough already?

imagine the chaos if other professions worked on this principal!

... im sorry, your house is too "on fire" for us to put out...

...your car is too broken down for us to fix...

oh wait, ive thought of a similar one! ...your bin is too full for us to empty... theres an annoying one too!!!


discuss!

BigAl94

I suspect your attitude may be a factor! They would not be allowed to clean keyboards or any equipment btw.

marcowil

It's exactly the same here. Our desks have to bed tidied up every night (clean desk policy). Plus, the cleaners are not allowed to touch the computers at all! From what I can see, the area of the desk that has absolutely nothing sitting on it is given a quick wipe and nothing is moved to clean around/under/behind (telephone etc).

I dont think it is the person who actually does the cleanings fault. They are working to a rigid timescale and can only do what they are told to by their company (outsourcing is just wonderful)

mrcow

Cleaners in offices are generally there to clean floors, empty bins and clean communal areas.

Take a duster and clean your own desk. It will take you all of 30 seconds. Letting it build up in layers of dust and gunk for months on end is minging. Is your home like that too?

caz2703

I must have been lucky. In my first job were 2 fantastic sisters who worked for the company. The came in early in the morning and finished mid afternoon. In a working week the entire building (4 floors, 3 adjoining buildings) was cleaned from top to bottom. That included desks, floors hoovered, brass plaques polished, outside sweeped, dishes washed, kitchens cleaned etc etc.

They would only clean the bits of your desk that were clear but if you were at your desk at lunchtime then you simply lifted keyboards and files out of the way and the whole desk got washed including the phone.

In other companies I swear a duster never saw my desk let alone anything anti-bacterial. In every job since the first one myself and colleagues have to resort to anti-bac wipes for our desks and phones. I can understand not allowing cleaners to touch any equipment but it seems that contracted cleaners have much more rigid timescales thus they don't have time to clean all the desks as well as hoover and whatever else they do.

drew2k9

all your points are valid ones, and i shall explain how they dont apply in my situation, leading to my rant.

firstly to get the attitude bit out of the way, the convo never really goes like that, merely the first bit happens, the why has my desk not been cleaned bit, the rest is what i would actually like to say if i had the guts and tell them how i really feel about their effort.

secondly, the time factor, they have plenty of time to sit in out kitchen drinking tea/coffee in the mornings whilst watching tv after they have finished "cleaning" so i doubt they are on a strict time scale.

thirdly, they are allowed to clean our keyboards, screens, phones, mice and everything in our office, we even supplied them with those special keyboard cleaning spongy things, and have a supply of screen wipes in their cleaning store downstaris.

fourthly, i dont let my desk get that messy or vile, it was merely me stressing how little they do clean. also of course my house isnt like that, we do a far better job than the cleaners in our work because i have to live there!

fithly, one lovely girl in our office, she does all the vaccuuming here, as the cleaners dont do it right, they go about a foot away from every edge and leave karge waste on the floor, eg pieces of paper and pens etc, which i know shouldnt be there, but they dont even make a small effort!

sixthly, clear desk policy is followed in our office too, as i said the only things on my desk are things which have nowhere else to go! my drawers are full of other work stuff and these are left out on everyones desk and they are well out of the way.

we had different contract cleaners last year, who were brilliant, they did everything and did it very well. when i compare the two sets of cleaners, they new set we have now dont even deserve to be called cleaners! they merely use our teabags, coffee, milk, and watch our tv, after doing a quick whip round the office to make it look like they are doing something!

SnowyOwl_2

Calm down dear child, it's only a bit of dust.

BTW I think you have a case of "do as I say, not what I do". You posted your first rant at 9.36 am, and your second rant at 10.21 am. Are you paid to work or to type rants on the internet - or indeed paid to watch the tv in the office??? And please don't say you work in the Civil Service as that really would be pushing the boundaries of stereotyping...

drew2k9

no no im not in the civil service dont worry.

some of my work is internet based, so i have a second or two to flick on here for a bit of a look at the goings on etc. and i never watch tv in work, its always set by the women to something interesting like jeremy kyle, or loose women, stuff that has and will never interest me.

i know it was a bit of an angry rant, but it has been going on for months, and i am just getting sick of having to do the job of someone who is already paid to do it anyway!

maybe i was just spoilt by the last set of cleaners who took pride in their work and went out of their way to actually ask if anyone in the office wanted anything else cleaned or if anyone didnt want to be disturbed etc.

BigAl94

Life is too short!

bribrian

Ever thought of tidying & cleaning your own desk, i'm sure it would take about the same time as it does to compose a rant about it.........

Witless

Many years ago, in our first house, our next door but one neighbour had a son in law who was a window cleaner.

As we had just moved in with a new baby we had other priorities so I asked him to call and do the windows, front & back.

He declined as they 'were too dirty'.

We moved house about 10 years later and about 5 or 6 years after that he came round 'on the knock' touting for business.

I declined politely telling him I had never acquired the knack of window cleaning & they were probably 'too dirty' for him to clean.

I accidently let the tale slip to the neighbours (10 houses in total) all of whom who had agreed for him to 'call' on a regular basis then rang him and declined his kind offer.

For some strange reason he doesn't speak to me when he meets me up the town.