Confessional

What the office cleaner really thinks of you

THERE’S nobody more invisible than an office cleaner — I don’t know what half the people whose workspaces I clean look like, but I do know their most revolting habits.

One executive, who has his own glass-walled office, is a serial gumchewer. It would be fine if he put it in the bin, but he obviously takes it out of his mouth and sticks it wherever he can reach.

Workers’ food habits turn my stomach, too. They buy plastic trays of stuff, or cups of soup, and don’t finish them — they just leave them in the wastebin all day, smelling horrible.

The amount of oily couscous I’ve had to scrape up when someone’s chucked their leftovers towards the bin and missed . . .it’s a horrible thing to get out of the carpet.

I do spend a lot of time pouring half-finished cups of tea or coffee down the sink. People also leave stinky trainers under their desks. I have no idea how they get anything done breathing that in all day.

Mostly, though, it’s just laziness — such as dropping pens and not picking them up, so they jam my vacuum cleaner.

As for the desks, men tend to have lots of dusty bits of memorabilia, while women have mobile beauty salons — brushes, pots, mirrors. I don’t tidy those up; I just leave them. I’m a cleaner, not their mum.