I took an early lunch break

and I'm not going back at 1pm.

I don't know yet if I'm going back tomorrow or if this is the end.

The toilets are inching closer towards my door . . .

. . . but atleast the one on the end has stopped drooling . . .

I had a premanition yesterday when I was scrubbing furniture in the suit that my male coworker was cleaning the bathroom in (the first and only guy Claudette has had clean a bathroom)very half-heartedly and unthourghly that I was going to get stuck fixing it. I was right. I pretty ticked off. Whenever, I've run out of time and haven't been able to finish something it has been there waiting for me the next day, and I have never made it out of a sloppily done assignment.

I didn't finish the bathroom. I didn't have time. We'll see if it's still there waiting for me tomorrow afternoon.

It probably will be. I'm not expecting to get out of it. It's a morbid experiment.

Lesson learned: Always bring TWO H2O bottles.

I apologize, I have realized that the post before this one was excessively long, but hey all of this is for the record right?

On the walk from Calkins to Angwin after lunch which I was forced to walk with Claudette, she didn't want to walk alone [the woman is in such bad shape she barely made, it felt like about ten miles]I found myself unable to help speculating as to what it must be like to live Claudette's life. I mean, from 8am to 5pm (plus a little bit a each end) she's dictator of housekeeping, yet at the sametime she's under the thumb ot the Deans and the rest of her superiors. She only has us to socialize with. We barely tolerate her or worse. And she mostly like suffering from the effects of prolonged, excessive [well it would be excessive if she ever actually worked] exposure to cleaning solutions.

Frankie, I wish you were here, for so many reasons, but right now I want a full body massage, which I realize I couldn't get from you, but atleast I could get my neck and shoulders worked out. I know, you're having a lot more fun where you are now. :)

A Final Thought: As one of my dearest coworkers put it, "until you have been down on all fours cleaning tile for for hours don't even".

Yet another cold, untoasted bagel with stolen cream cheese and fruit

This gig was so much better at the beginning when my mom made me/brought me lunch, or even when there will still left-overs in the frig, or food in the frig. sigh.

My apologies to the few who care for negelecting this blog recently (I was somewhat startled to learn of your existance). I just wasn't inspired Monday, not that there weren't horrors to be inspired by, I was just to disconnected from my body during the experience to write about it later. I think I was in shock and wouldn't believe that I was actually there.

My mind is still completely numb but sometime filled with a coffee shop dream. There maybe a light at the end of a short dank tunel and that life just might be SIFE. There starting their own coffee shop and I sort of know the person heading it up so I might be able to get a job there. Unlikely, but it gets me through today.

Whether this is my last week or not, it's best to think of it like it is. Makes it survivable, though it does make Mondays a shock. It would be great to quit Thursday though, supposedly we're not scrubbing any more bathrooms in the morning until Friday. Of course, there is still the afternoon. . .

It's interesting how the job looks from the third week and little sleep.

Thank goodness for last night though. Thank goodness for friends that take me out and let me forget that I am a poor, lowly, unskilled, serf under Claudette's rule. Even if it does involve absurd amounts of Say What?! coffee (which is highly potent by the by) for absolutely no reason, and unsanitary spas late at night when I have to get up so early. It was great.

This morning I was trying so hard to be happy. I stayed in bed for a long time after my alarm went off listening to "Hillary's Random Mix" [I love Live :)]And I was actually being fairly successful [partial credit is due to the wonderfully snuggly feeling I had just before I drifted off to sleep last night] but as soon as I walked into the office to drop my stuff off I realized that I had left my cell phone under my pillow. Four hours this morning having no idea what time it was! It was horrible. Walking down that hallway the first time this morning I felt like I had been checked into a mental institute and been bereft of all of my personal belongings. It felt like I was never going to make it back out.

Tonight I'm going home and sleeping. Than Wednesday night, Gothika! yeah! :)

A couple minor positive notes: There were some wonderful chances for scrimshanking this morning. I managed to sneak a short nap in one of the closets I was scrubbing. hehehehehe. . .

I was supposed to be washing windows this morning

instead I got stuck in the worset shower I have ever seen. Claudette had bleached it yesterday. I went in there to clean it and she told me to open all of the windows and to get a face mask. Claudette has never told anyone to wear a face mask for anything and she is constantly telling us to close windows. I was scared.

The bleach fumes when I was rinsing the bleach off of the shower walls were terrible. They cut right through my face mask. Also there was this horrible black fungus I had to scrub off.

I think I might be developing an alergic reaction to the Ajax. I have had a really gunky nose and throat the last two days. Last night I took a decongestant before I went to bed. When I woke up this morning I was mostly cleared up. This lasted until a little before nine 'o clock, about the time the cleaning solutions were getting out and used, then my nose started running, I was sneazing inside my face mask. It was nasty. Now I'm starting to lose my voice again. :(

One of the girls I work with who doesn't use a face mask said that now everytime she brushes her teeth her gums start bleeding.

I feel like there is stuff in my lungs but this could simply be a psychological reaction. Last night at the diner table my father was asking me about my working conditions and sounding genuinely concerned for my health. He's never worried about that stuff. That is to say, he's unlikely to think a situation is actually unhealthy. Hee was acting like he was thinking about making me quit which I protested, but this morning I would have been so excited if someone had come in a told me I didn't have to work anymore after today.

sigh

just two more hours . . .

Statistics and other oddities

Well, I'm working on finding the life expectancy stats to back up my claim that the poor die early.

This is what I have so far: according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, published 2003: In 2001 21% of the poor and 15.5% of the near poor reported that their health was fair or poor as opposed to only 6.2% of the nonpoor.

A few notes on today's housekeeping "experience".

Yesterday when I went home I could barely speak and my throat and nose were incredibly gunky from breathing in powdered cholerine bleach "Ajax". So this morning I spent quite a bit of time hunting up a face mask to cover my nose and mouth when I work. That was horrible, the sweat, the pinching, but atlest i don't have to worry about kiling myself. Though, when I was walking down the hall for my 10min. break the haze of chlorox was so strong I could smell it through my mask. The fumes and bleach dust make my eyes itch. I'm going to have to start working in a hazmat suit.

Did I mention that Claudette doesn't have the guys clean bathrooms, because they are guys?! ugh

She did say that she brought us special drinks but left them in her car, but she'll bring them tomorrow. We'll see . . .

I must have done something to please her this morning, though, because this afternoon all I had to do was sweep. That was nice. A lot of walking, but nice. :)

All today, especially this morning, provided no opportunities for scrimshanking. Such a shame.

One note from this morning:

10:11 am I can already feel a thin layer of Ajax forming on my face.

With that pleasant thought I leave you until tomorrow.

The South Hall Toilets are now sitting outside my office . . .

I'm feeling oddly happy right in this moment so I think I won't spoil it by writing about new housekeeping horrors. I'll save those until I get of work.

The moment's question is, why am I happy after spending four straight hours scrubbing a bathroom trapped in a face mask?

Possible answers:

1)It's lunch break

2)I only have to do a half shift (2hrs) after lunch

3)My scrubbing week is more than half over

4)The pizza I had for diner last night, which was very good, as was the company :)

I would say it was the dream I had last night, but it was really more of an odd dream than a good dream persay and besides it didn't keep me happy this morning.

By the by the toilets are truly like 3 feet from my office door, still in a row, probably talking to eachother, gossiping over the new paint color for the bathroom. . .

Claudette has a problem with open windows . . .

which is bad because most of the stuff we are cleaning with is only supposed to be used in well ventilated areas. . .

At least I'm not assigned to Angwin and having to deal with Claudette's daughter in the mornings. This morning she decided to show an associate of mine which "style" she wanted her to clean the toliets in. It's absurd.

Still, things aren't fun in Calkins. Yesterday, I spent the entire morning shift cleaning one bathroom, that's how dirty things are and how clean Claudette wants them, anyway, this morning Clauette informed us that each of us needs to be cleaning atleast two to three bathrooms a morning. Nobody managed to. Though lines from "Nickled and Dimed" keep running through my mind I frequently am thankful that I'm working for an university and that there really isn't much they can do to us if we don't meet their deadlines.

I just wish they would pick one thing and stick with it. This goes for deadlines, quality v. quantitiy, and cleaning supplies.

Speaking of cleaning supplies, we never have enough, today we were all given one pair of yellow gloves that we are expected to keep throughout the entire summer. Mine are too big and keep falling down.

The powers that be really are anit-fun on any level. Walking down to Angwin after lunch, Claudette said to me, I see you don't have much of a smiley face today, yet a little bit later when the whole gang (and there is a whole gang in Angwin in the afternoons) was walking down to the supply cabinet one of the guys cracked a joke and a few of us laughed and Claudette shooeds us and said that this was "an adult job and that we were going to have to stop acting like children if we wanted to keep it" then a little bit later a few of us were smiling about some whispered joke and reprimanded us again and kept staring at us suspiciously. So I guess the only smiles are supposed to be in response to her "niceties".

At least I got to go out to "los" with a friend.

And during my morning break I got to listen to a wonderful voice message I recieved when I woke up over again :)


and it's another 17 hrs. or so until I have to see that woman again or smell Ajax or latex again.

a few final notes

To my South Hall buddies, they have now installed new carpeting in the downstairs lobby and have torn out the stalls in the women's restroom downstairs. However, progress is being made in cover the huge gapping wound that used to be the kitchen the men's restroom.


Oh, and I had a WONDERFUL weekend, so not all is lost. :)

until 8am

Well I'm free for the next 17 hours

I'm going to tell myself that's a long time

a health note: this morning I was scrubbing showers with a thick mixture of "Ajax" and some sort of pink cleaner in an inclosed area. The "Ajax" is clearly labeled do not mix with other cleaners and use only in a well venitlated area. It's no wonder the poor die early.

This afternoon all of us were forced to sign the "Residential Life Student Employment Guidelines" The very first thing covered is behavior under which it is clearly listed, "No headphones, radios, or cd players". Curse them.

Maybe if I got a boombox with a cassette player . . .

Only three more days to go in this scrubbing work week.

lunch

Well, today has produced a few interesting observations so far.

It was my first day working in Calkins, where I was supposed to be working all along.

This morning Cluadette was asking me about my weekend. I thought to myself, wow, maybe it really was just the stress of preparing for that wedding. Maybe she is actually going to be nice. Then she divided us up so we couldn't work together and gave each of us a bathroom and the two rooms connecting to it to clean, individually. Which is horrible, now we can't even talk to eachother. Yet, later, after our break she came in to check up on me and instead of the usually mindless criticism she told me I was doing a good job, that it looked nice. The jury is still about whether she is a power tripping dictator or an overly hasseled woman trapped in a lifetime of cleaning, which I wouldn't wish on many people. Of course, she never does any actual cleaning . . .

To think I could be at the coast right now. sigh. Oh well, I made the right decision. I shall take satisfaction in that.

oh, Katie thinks Dr. Dupee will be pleased to have me start working for him as soon as she leaves (Aug. 25). YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, lunch and then two more hours.

TTFN

PS if this were a reality tv show people would feel sorry for me (except my father, lol)

a faint light

My only prayer is that Dupee will let me start when Katie leaves for France Aug. 25.

Don't worry Katie, I do love you and I will miss you greatly, but atleast some good can come of our parting. Maybe . . . please?

Second Day in the Salt Mines

This morning I decided to blog my experience as a $7.15 an hour, student-slave-worker for house keeping. It might be what kept my sanity today. The material recorded in this blog may be used in the not very far future for an expose on working conditions on campus.

Today was much better than yesterday.

Already I have learned much. Yesterday, my first day, was very draining, in part due to the high level of psychological and emotional stress. No matter what activity one of us might be engaged in our supervisors would critisize our work whether the complaint was something we had actually failed to do or not was irrelevant.

Today I learned not to care. After all, what is the worse they can do, fire me? They're not even going to do that. No one wants this job.

After choosing to block out whatever words were coming from Claudette's mouth other than room numbers I found my mind once again free to think whatever it could in a thick fog of "Ajax"

Must go, the ride is here, atleast I don't have to go back to that place until Monday, more later, much more later.