Cleaners...

[beeswax]

Some of you are beginning to sound like bisley98. I suggest you follow the link to the TES forums and look through her posts before casting stones at others.

[Edu-IT]

@Sirbendy:

I don't think you follow my drift young man, I am not condoning what they do but it is the fact that we as professionals are actually stooping so low as to taking CCTV footage of cleaners supposedly not doing their work properly according to some of us.

Does this mean we are experts in the field of cleaners and their work if so then we are in the wrong job.

 

I feel that if it were me who had the grievance of their environment not being as clean as they wished it to be, then I would take it up with their line manager or supervisor.

I wouldn't say he's stooping low. If you don't do what you're paid to do then I'm sure somebody would check to see what it is that you actually do or don't do as the case may be. With the cleaner being in so early in the morning it may not be possible to see her working and therefore CCTV is the only way to see what it is that she does or doesn't do. Nothing wrong with that I don't think. If she is paid to do a job and isn't doing it then somebody needs to talk to her and explain the concerns. Obviously that isn't Sirbendy's job though but before going to complain about somebody I think you need to have some sort of proof. He's not in at 5am in the morning I guess so CCTV is his proof and with that he can go and explain his concerns to the person responsible for managing the cleaners. I think cleaners have their duties explained to them when they start the job so they should know what it is that they have to do.

 

With regards to being experts, I think most people know how to hoover and dust as a lot of us do it at home and it isn't much different in school. Obviously just on a larger scale.

 

Got to agree with Bossman, they've got a crappy job and generally don't get any thanks for it.

I always talk to the cleaners and have respect for them. Yes they may only be cleaners, as some people see it, but their job is not as easy as it looks and they have to do some horrible things.

[martynbez]

cleaner, what the hell is one of them! lol

 

we get one once a week to empty bins but we hoover ourselves!

[Oops_my_bad]

The cleaners here were OK before it got outsourced.. then all the foreigners came in who do the bare minimum (just enough to get away with)

[beeswax]

The cleaners here were OK before it got outsourced.. then all the foreigners came in who do the bare minimum (just enough to get away with)

 

British workers lack skills and drive of east Europe's migrants, says study | UK news | The Guardian

[Hightower]

Hello all what are we doing here????

character assassinating the cleaning staff, who I think you will find get paid very little for what they do and let's face it would you do it for the money???

 

don't think so

have we become so unprofessional that all we find to do each day is gripe about how the world is failing us come on people were better than this get a grip not a gripe!!!!

 

shame on you for picking on poor defenceless cleaners who clean up sh*te that other people leave all over the place. :mad:

 

I'm sorry but they are on about the same wage as some techy's! Hmm unskilled being paid the same as skilled.... doesn't make sense.

 

Stick up for them all you want, but when you are being paid to do a job you should do it - doesn't matter how much you are paid or what the job is.

 

I get some real shit jobs to do but I just get on with it!

[Joedetic]

Our cleaner is an absolute star.

 

The place is clean, the bins are empty, she washes our mugs in the office and is known to boil the kettle for us so it's warm when we get in from time to time

 

She even seems to get sachets of sugar from somewhere that appear near the tea and coffee stuff and kettle

[PEO]

Our cleaners are ace. they come in, have a good chat about whats happening on the council estate and of to work they go. The cleaner that does my department is lovely, she always says hi empties my bin and has a little banter with me. She docent hover my office unless I ask her to, which is about once every 2 weeks.

 

The only thing that gets on my nerves is they all count down the weeks to the next half term ha ha... they only do 3 hour shifts Mon too Fri.

 

going back to org post weather she is on decent wage or not... She clearly needs a good wake up call...

 

If it was me I would go and tell her that BB is watching her.. any way... let the disciplinary procedure take its cause of action

[john]

Our cleaners have been great, we had one blip and we said please can we swap her elsewhere as the place was looking really shabby and they shuffled her round and ever since then great staff. The current one is brilliant, she asked to be shown and if it was ok to move the pcs forwards on the desks, put keyboards and mice on top of the towers to clean behind and under then she does the lot, the place has never been so nice and clean (except when we clean it IE remove all kit, clean each bit and re-assemble ourselves!). Put it this way, comments get emailed to her bosses every few weeks by us and then in the gaps by the librarian to emphasise the point to the bosses that we do appreciate having a good cleaner and we are going to all chip in a few quid at the end of term and get her a little token of our appreciation for cleaning up the mess our lot make (including ours - she braves our office something that none have done in years!).

 

Stick close to cleaners and estates office staff you never know when you need a favour from them

[laserblazer]

We had a cleaner who used the mop for cleaning the kid's loos for cleaning their desks The one's we have now are terrific.

[PEO]

We had a cleaner who used the mop for cleaning the kid's loos for cleaning their desks The one's we have now are terrific.

 

says alot about what seh is like at home

[Andrew_C]

Tthen all the foreigners came in who do the bare minimum (just enough to get away with)

That's odd. We've got about a 50/50 split between knuckle-dragging English and foreign cleaners. I'd take ANY of the foreigners ANY day over the Neanderthal we have at the moment.

 

[ICT_GUY]

One of our cleaners (not going to be more specific as boards are public) is clearly insane. Very troll like and scary as hell. She mutters, moans, swears and does bugger all. She called the secretary a f****** B**** because she had filled her bin up. She moans when I use my bin in the office.

[Hightower]

One of our cleaners (not going to be more specific as boards are public) is clearly insane. Very troll like and scary as hell. She mutters, moans, swears and does bugger all. She called the secretary a f****** B**** because she had filled her bin up. She moans when I use my bin in the office.

 

Haha - That's awesome! At my past school I was actually scared to fill the bin up because Big Lynn would come and eat me!

 

Here though the cleaners are spot on - they are a younger generation to what I was used to so seem easier to be able to talk to.

[Sirbendy]

There's been an improvement today...she's actually dusted properly, and vacuumed a bit more thoroughly. She got told that we'd complained, and she kicked up a fuss at a dept member - who said "do your job, or we'll keep doing it.".

 

It seems she doesn't get some stuff off the floor because "she has to take the brush end off and bend down with the end to get at it". P***-poor IMHO. Welcome to cleaning. Do you not do it at home? Have you never had an awkward bit of muck on the carpet? She's fully able, and has no issues that would prevent it..

 

So, better...but not up to the standard we want yet. We didn't build these suites ourselves to a high standard just to have the cleaner make a mess of it...it's the damn showpiece of the school...next time the head shows someone round and says "why..?", we'll not hold back.

 

Our last cleaner was a star...it's a shame to see it like this.

Edited March 20, 2010 by witch

[bossman]

@SirBendy:

Don't take things so personally young man or you will have a stroke, by all means put in a complaint to her line managers and if it does get better then all well and good, if not then in with another complaint that is why there are complaints procedures put in to the workplace.

 

As with any system that is put in place it can also be used against you so don't be too hard on other people who do not come up to your high standards as they too could set very high standards against you (boomerang effect).

 

As I have stated in a previous post I am not sticking up for the cleaners or condemning what has taken place but merely pointing out that we as professionals should respect others and not call them, we hate the teachers condemning what we do, do we not, so it is only fair that we do not condemn others who may not have such high standards or as conscientious as we are.

[Friez]

I'm not condemning any cleaners, I was one myself once (kitchen porter, same principle). It's more of a tasking job than people realise (physically demanding generally, especially if you work in an airport and have to clean around 5000 items of cutlery in the space of 20 mins all day every day...) and you get paid jack all to do it too.

 

What DID bug me when cleaning was that I would spend bloody ages making sure something was spotless, but another cleaner would whip through it in seconds (not giving a damn if it was clean or not). Paid the same wages as me, e.t.c quite unfair.

 

It's not really fair to brandish all cleaners with the same brush, some really do their job properly but there's also some useless bums who really do jack all. This is true of virtually any industry.

[Sirbendy]

Oh, I agree! Even the cleaners would...you can tell the boundaries of certain ones..the floors will be buffed to a shine, and then there will be a dulled line and the rest looks awful.

 

95% of our cleaners are good..very good...but the remaining 5%, I'd shoot. We've gone from a good one to a bad one, and I really hope we can get shot of of them unless they actually start doing the job.

 

Nothing here stresses me these days...it's more suspension of disbelief.

[Pyroman]

The other problem cleaners face aswell is they are time limited, i.e. they have set amounts of time they are allowed per room, if you're managing to make the room such a mess that they can't clean it to the right standard in the time allowed it's time to start maybe thinking about picking up the hoover yourself, i know that when i've been soldering and cutting wires and geneally making a mess i always go and grab the hoover and give it a once over. especially that one time the polystyrine disintegrated and went EVERYWHERE!!!

[Sirbendy]

oh aye, we do if it's awful...like exploded crisp packets, polystyrene as you say, holepunch emptying or stapler abuse...

[Edu-IT]

oh aye, we do if it's awful...like exploded crisp packets, polystyrene as you say, holepunch emptying or stapler abuse...

What's stapler abuse?

[Joedetic]

I'm assuming it's just firing staples out onto the floor?

[Edu-IT]

I'm assuming it's just firing staples out onto the floor?

Or at somebody if it's a wall stapler?

[Sirbendy]

you're both right..heh..