Chatting To The Cleaner

The other day I found myself flopped over my desk at work feeling sorry for myself. My head was pounding, my back was arched in a funny way and I was whizzing the mouse around whilst frequently refreshing the BBC Sport page. It was around 5:50 and I had numerous tasks to complete but felt knackered, both physically for contorting my body in the office pose and mentally for thinking on my feet about things that I don’t have a passion for. It was at that point I heard the door open behind me. The cleaner walked in with a smile on her face. It lifted my spirits enough to bring me out of my moping. She started wiping the desks around me before dusting the computer screens and eventually reaching my desk. I said hello and asked her how her day was. She told me it was long. I asked how long, to which she replied she had just come back from her first job at Buckingham Foods. When I heard that name a cold cringing sensation ran through my body. I knew Buckingham Foods well, it was only for half a day but it definitely stuck in my mind.

It was pretty much my first job since leaving school. I got a job for the summer holidays through an agency who must have laughed when two young boys came begging at their door asking for anything they had. They gave me and Suggs (my pal) a position at Buckingham Foods. Our shifts were from 6am till 2pm. That morning I got up at 5:45 and was late so I booked a taxi costing £8 and jumped in. I had to clock in which when stamped imprinted 9:03 on the card. Not a good start I thought. The supervisor, a weather beaten man in his 40’s led me to Suggs in the reception area and then took us to conveyor belt city. Buckingham Foods makes sandwiches and packs them up for vending machines. Everything was a long production process. The bread would come from the machine, someone would butter it whilst it was moving on the conveyor belt, then the bread would move along and someone else would lay the lettuce, then another person the tomato before the bread reached the guy who laid the bacon. And then all of a sudden you have a BLT sandwich. The haggard supervisor told us that we were to work in the egg mayonnaise section. I was to spread the mayo whilst Suggs was to spread the egg. We were both given 2 x 15 minute breaks, one in the morning and one in the afternoon with a 30 minute lunch in between. We had to wear white coats, hairnets and gloves which would have made us look like mad scientists if it wasn’t for the hairnets which did nothing for our reputations.

So we set off. I started to spread the mayo on the bread whilst Suggs had to spread the egg. However, although the boiled eggs were peeled they still needed to be cut which was proving difficult for Suggs. The knife seemed a little blunt and the conveyor belt was moving along rather quickly and he struggled to lay the slices on some of them. In the end he started to miss a few and the person next in the line started to complain that he wasn’t doing his job. I decided to swap with Suggs to help him out. Straight away I could feel the pressure as the bread came sliding along. The knife wasn’t helping as I tried to cut the egg and eventually managing to cut it into three slices and placing it on the bread before it carried on past me. As soon as I did that though another two slices appeared, this time I managed only to chop the egg in half and lay it on there before I could see another two slices of bread heading my way. To combat the pace I got rid of the knife, discarding it on to the floor. Instead I used more basic means to spread the egg, the palm of my hand. I lay the egg on the table and splat I’d flatten it, pick it up and lay it gently on the slices with ample time to spare. Of course this wasn’t hygienic, sensible or good practice but I didn’t care I realised I hated this place. We were supposed to work 8 hours doing the same thing over and over again until it was 2 in the afternoon. No way. This was soul destroying, splatting eggs for a living while your chum spreads mayo. At lunch time me and Suggs both walked out. Although we weren’t paid for the day we were at least exposed to the harsh realities of shit jobs (it was a few more experiences before I learnt my lesson about rubbish occupations).

When the flashback finished playing in my mind I asked the lady what hours she worked there. She replied the 6-2 and from there she’d rest at home until 4 before starting her cleaning job here from 5-8:30. It was quite sobering listening to just how hard this lady must work not having hardly any free time to herself. It made me feel a bit of a fool for moping about doing a 9 hour day. We talked a little bit longer and now she’s my friend so I guess that day wasn’t bad after all.