I’m a janitor. I have been doing this for over ten years and currently do it as a part-time gig, cleaning two offices twice and once a week, respectively.

The way janitorial contracts work in Finland is that the customer and the company offering cleaning make a contract, which includes a list of tasks and their frequency. It also includes things like whether toilet paper, trash bags, etc., are included in the contract or provided separately. This list is the framework of what I do during the hours allotted to my work.

I got the smaller of the two offices almost three years ago, with no list and a promise to get it to me “as soon as possible, as it’s not ready yet.” Fair. Understandable. Happens! I was given a vague description of what the client wanted and agreed to it at first. It had some quirks, like fluffing pillows, arranging chairs, and dusting decorative items in the bathrooms. I was under the assumption that this was all in the contract, and time had been allotted for it.

In the first half year, it became painfully obvious that all the things I was verbally told the client’s contract included were not possible in the hour and thirty minutes I was given to work. It was to a point where I quite sternly told my manager I would only do about half of the things. Fluffing pillows and dusting decorative items could not be more important than hoovering the full floor carpets or taking out trash. More than once in the two-plus years before “The Incident”, I would stay extra time to get at least the most vital things done.

I hated the office job, as it meant hard work for an hour and a half, not finishing in a manner I was happy with, and usually came with post-it notes left by the client lambasting me for not doing some small task, like dusting windowsills. I would literally hoover desks and windowsills to make sure I could save as much time as possible. It was madness.

There was so much more I could complain about, but I won’t, as there is way, way, way too much. I will concentrate on the poignant bits.

That being… “The Incident”, AKA what happened when my managers’ superior retired.

Let’s call her Lisa. My manager shall be Katrina. I had been discussing most of my issues with Lisa, as Katrina was never very active in solving problems, including, still, two-plus years in, not having that ever-so-important list. Lisa was painfully aware of my issues with this client and would call me about the newest complaint with an attitude of “I know this isn’t your fault, but I have to inform you. Rules, you know?” Which left me thinking she was an ally.

Lisa was not an ally.

When Lisa’s replacement took over, I found out that there was a list. Always had been. It was dated almost exactly on the day the contract started. The list was short. Much shorter than what Lisa had told me the tasks were. Almost comically short, in fact. Nothing about fluffing pillows. Nothing about bathroom decorative items or the bathroom carpets.

It was an amusingly simple, short, and to-the-point list, with no frills.

The new person also somehow suddenly found me more time to do my tasks. This whole time, I had been told by Lisa that the client refused to buy more time. Turns out our scheduling department could easily just appoint thirty more minutes of work time to the job.

This meant Lisa had been lying to me for almost three years. For three years, I had been treated like a servant by the office staff, going far beyond what the client had bought, while Lisa was just too lazy to do anything about it.

I taped the “new” list my new superior gave me to the janitorial closet door, so it could be seen by the customer and me anytime someone opened the door. I made sure to do nothing at all, not on the list, and have enjoyed my two-hour work time immensely. I get to leave on time, I don’t have to run to take out the trash, and I haven’t emptied a dishwasher in months, as it turns out that wasn’t my job either. Just like those pillows weren’t.

Don’t be like Lisa and always demand your work tasks on paper.

I’m a customer at a store. I turn a corner and find another customer just pacing back and forth. She turns and sees me and just starts loudly ranting.

Customer: “Can you believe this? Do you see this? This is crazy, completely crazy. There’s no meat anywhere. Look at this. Vegan meatballs, vegan nuggets, vegan mincemeat, vegan, vegan, vegan. Can you believe this? It’s because of [Former Prime Minister]! She made meat illegal. Can you believe this?”

She finally stops talking to take a breather and allows me to interrupt.

Me: “Everything on this aisle is vegan because it’s the vegan aisle. If you go around, you’ll find like three more aisles filled with meat.”

She just stared at me, turned around, and walked away without a word. And at the end of the aisle turned the wrong way, away from the meats.

After a long commute, I decide to get some coffee on my way to work. Normally, I don’t do this, but I haven’t been sleeping well, so I figure I need it (and we all know that the coffee at the office can be terrible). 

I walk up to the counter.

Me: “A regular coffee.”

Barista: “Do you want room for milk?”

I say yes, and then she pours the coffee for me. She hands it over, and I proceed to start putting milk and sugar into it.

This is when a new customer arrives and, of course, I move to give her some space at the counter. I wonder for a second why she doesn’t move on to give her order.

I glance quickly at the barista. She proceeds to ask me in the sweetest voice, with maybe some fear in her eyes:

Barista: “Can you please pay for the coffee you ordered?”

Mortified, I realize that I did, in fact, take out my wallet, but didn’t proceed to pay for the drink. I apologize profusely, quickly pay, and rush out of there, face as red as a tomato.

Yeah, I really needed that coffee.

Some years ago, I was working in a small clothes shop. We sold expensive brands, and one popular item was down jackets.

We had a customer come in almost daily during the winter, repeatedly trying on a down jacket in a particular color (golden yellow, if memory serves). But she could not decide and kept coming back. Reason? She wanted to know what the color looks like in daylight.

Now it’s important to understand that where we live, it’s DARK in the winter. All houses, shops, and public transportation have electric lighting even during the day, and streetlights are on almost 24/7. The days when it would be cold enough to wear a down jacket AND bright enough to see it in daylight are not common.

We even took the jacket outside the shop for her to look at, but somehow the light was never bright enough…

We started calling her Ms. Daylight. She was a pleasant lady and didn’t cause any trouble, so we were happy to take a moment and talk to her.

She never bought the jacket.

This is an email conversation with a client about logging in to the service my employer offers. This happened long ago, when automatic password changes were not yet so common.

Client: “I cannot log in.”

Me: *The same day.* “What happens when you try to log in? If you get an error message saying ‘Incorrect username or password’, please contact your administrator for password reset.”

Two days later:

Client: “I still cannot log in. The password is correct.”

Me: *The same day.* “Can you please describe in detail what happens when you try to log in? Does the page freeze, or do you get some error message? If you get an error message saying ‘Incorrect user name or password’, please contact your administrator for password reset. A reset is the only way to get around this error message.”

Three days later:

Client: “I’m still unable to log in. My work is piling. The error message says ‘Incorrect user name or password’, but the password is correct.”

Me: *The same day.* “The only way to get around the error message saying ‘Incorrect user name or password’ is to contact your administrator for a password reset. Even if you are writing the password correctly.”

Two days later:

Client: “Okay, I’ll try that. But the password is correct!”