A Cleaner’s Diary

November 25

TODAY I started to work as a cleaner at a bed & breakfast. I’m not officially registered to work yet because of my complicated visa status. Not really, not fully. I’m not registered yet because I still haven’t sent them my documents, since I was scared they would think it looked too complicated.

But this has nothing to do with cleaning toilets, or it has everything to do with it.

I was right on time. I asked for Ali, my trainer for the day. I found him in the closet/storage room. Ali is a Turkish academic who works three jobs so he can afford to be a lecturer at a university here. We kind of look alike, except we don’t. Well, we’re both Turkish and we both have dark hair.

First, we checked how many checkouts there were today, using the company app on the smartphone assigned to us. Then we went to the Putzkammer to fill our cleaning baskets.

I turned on Turkish TV on my laptop as soon as I got home. Then, I cleaned the fallen leaves of the only plant in our flat, and decorated it with stripes of paper I ripped from an old art magazine.

Things we must put in the cleaning basket: Some yellow cleaning cloths for the shelves in rooms. Some yellow sponges. Or were they pink? Some blue cloths and blue sponges for sure, for the toilets, and some tea towels, also for the toilets. An empty Ikea bag for the dirty mops. Two spray bottles, one blue, one pink. Pink spray first, blue spray last, like ladies first.

Ali said the ladies’ showers and toilets are always dirtier. He also said, Welcome to the bottom of