An Accidental Job

 

I have a new job. Well, I say a job, if you can call popping into the village hall for a couple of hours a week to give it the once over, a job. It’s paid, though. £15 an hour, which is pretty good for the effort required. 

I am a skilled and efficient cleaner. I’ve had decades of practise, having been set to ‘helping around the house’ by my mother when I was a pre-teen. Thinking back, I don’t remember either of my siblings joining in the ‘helping around the house’ malarkey, but perhaps that’s why I grew up better at keeping a clean and tidy house. Moving on…

Yes, at the village hall committee meeting, of which I am now a key-carrying, fully insured trustee member, it was mentioned that the previous cleaning lady was leaving for pastures new (I don’t know if it involved cleaning, but she has small children, so probably) and a new cleaner for the hall would be needed. I ended up saying I would do it because I often jump into these things without giving them diligent thought, but that’s because I’m a people pleaser, although I am in therapy for that, so the committee were lucky to catch me at a weak moment.

Anyway, there was a brief discussion vis a vis could a charity trustee be in a paid role for the same charity - conflict of interest shizzle (I was doing an internal eye rolling at this point) - but it was decided that it was all within the rules as long as I didn’t start stealing toilet roll, bin bags and washing up liquid. No one else on the committee objected, the decision was made and I rather got the feeling I’d saved everyone a lot of faff. 

Basically, I look at the calendar of bookings and decide when is best to pop in and do the clean depending on bookings. The hall does not get that mucky. People who hire it are generally very good about cleaning up after themselves, so it’s just a case of making sure all is spick and span in the loos and kitchen, emptying the bins, refilling the paper towel holders and loo rolls, bit of sweeping, mopping, dusting and vacuuming, and that’s it. If I have time within the allotted two hours I can do a spot of window cleaning or empty the kitchen cupboards for a wipe out, stuff like that. There is also a bar and a snooker room which looked like organised chaos but which are the domain of the bar chap so I shan’t be treading on his toes just yet. Well, not too hard anyway. 

I spent part of my first session getting to grips with the various cleaning products, buckets and mops - red for the loos, blue for the kitchen. I immediately thought of blue for the loo so I’ll have to nip that aide memoire in the bud or I’ll be in Health and Safety trouble. But it was all fine, really. As I say, I do have many decades of cleaning experience under my belt. 

It seems a bit sad, though, that I suddenly feel ‘useful’ again because I am earning £30 a week. Sigh…