Now that title probably seems that it came out of left field for a personal finance blog, wouldn’t you agree?

Our janitor went on vacation for 2.5 weeks to visit with her family.  She comes from Guatemala and is the dearest woman. She’s my senior by a mere four months. We have a very part-time maintenance man, who is supposed to do “Mandy’s” job while she’s on vacation, but we’ve been through this before.  Our restrooms get worse and worse as the days go by. Apparently Mr. Maintenance Man has a serious back problem and was supposed to have surgery but when he got there for the procedure they told him he had to pay $2500 up front, which he didn’t have.

So to make his life easier, and ours, my boss decided to divvy up Mandy’s workload over the past 2.5 weeks. She asked if I would mind helping her clean the restrooms, which was to be limited to shining mirrors, scrubbing the toilets/urinals, wiping the counters and shining the sinks.  She assigned emptying the trash cans, mopping, and making sure the soap dispensers and toilet paper holders were filled, to others.  My boss had a health crisis about a month ago, and was hospitalized with a large kidney stone and kidney infection.  She’s not been the same since, and well, I ended up getting to clean the restrooms every day on my own. We only have sixteen toilets and two urinals, eight sinks and eight mirrors.

I tried to look at it positively – as I noticed myself in the mirror glistening with beads of sweat near finishing having been moving constantly for forty minutes – at least I was getting some exercise.  It really isn’t all that hard.  Each restroom took a total of ten minutes, and some days I had to also fill the toilet paper holders and mop the floors.

I used to do janitorial work for my mother-in-law, about three years ago.  I did that for nearly two years, so I’m well versed in the daily cleansing of restrooms.  I would do the cleaning weekdays, and she or her husband would do the work on the weekends. I could ALWAYS tell if her husband did the cleaning on the weekends, because on Monday I’d have double duty.  They both trained me on separate occasions, so I knew why I had double duty – because he cut corners. I knew exactly why it only took him 20 minutes, when it took me or his wife 60-90 minutes. We did the job right!

My digression there was to share that part of the reason why I did the job without complaint is because I know how hard it is for Mandy when she comes back from her occasional vacations, and Mr. Maintenance Man hasn’t held up his end of the deal (for she does his work when he’s on vacation).  I know Mandy will appreciate that the restrooms are fairly clean and tidy when she gets back this morning.

And, I just wanted to reiterate.  I really hate cleaning urinals. Why do they have to have those disgusting things anyway? They stink, they get filthy, they are just yucky things.  Either we get rid of them, or I vote men start keeping them clean themselves.

Mrs. Accountability