A maid visits our office every Tuesday
I purposely chose the word visit. It seems more like a stopover than an actual work related event. She does clean the toilets. Quite frankly this is the most important part of her visit for me. That’s the one thing none of us ever clean, but the one thing that always needs cleaning.
Sometimes she vacuums. Every other week she mops the floor in the two bathrooms and the kitchenette. We wouldn’t clean those areas either, so her visit is still good from that perspective. She collects garbage from the trashcans, too. This is not a figurative or literal heavy lift, but since she’s visiting, why not.
She never steps inside our offices. We place our trashcans outside the door if we want her to empty them and replace the trash bag. It’s an unspoken agreement. Mostly because she doesn’t really speak English, but I don’t necessarily want her loitering through my personal work area either.
This wasn’t always the case.
She used to enter for an alleged dusting and an abbreviated vacuuming, which were never overly productive visits. Once she knocked over a dead cactus plant from my office windowsill. I do not normally use my office to store dead things. The cactus needed little water, so I hoped it was just in a dormant period and still alive. I’m fairly certain it was not.
The maid put all doubt to rest after she applied the laws of gravity to it. Most certainly a mistake and entirely fixable. After all, she’s a maid. Cleaning is her gig. The pot was filled with dry dirt and a cactus skeleton, may he rest in peace. The plant and container were both quite small. Likewise the mess was of little significance.
She apologized in broken English. In broken Spanish, I assured her that it was no big deal. Things happen on visits. She briefly scurried about the spill site. This was normal since her visits are more based on speed than thoroughness. On non-floor mopping days, she visits for about 15 minutes. Mop days can reach upwards of 25-30 minutes. Toilet cleanliness is the sole measurement for performance review, though.
Not too long after her departure on cactus day, I glanced over to the area where Humpty Dumpty was pushed. Yes, the pot was back on the window sill. The majority of the dirt was back in the pot. By saying majority, yes, some dirt remained on the carpet. Some was also on the baseboard. Some was on the windowsill, too.
This was odd because, remember, she’s a maid. She vacuums. She dusts. She collects garbage. This is all encapsulated in the definition of cleaning. All I could think was “what an odd visit”. I vacuumed the dirt within a matter of a few seconds. It took longer to get the vacuum out and put it away. Like I said, small plant, small pot, no big deal.
Not too long afterwards, I realized visiting replaced working.
It’s not about doing a great job. It’s not even about doing a decent job. It’s really just about showing up. Do I prioritize visits? It’s not the quality of the visit or how long I stay. It’s being there, seen or unseen. Productivity and job satisfaction are not really part of the equation.
The Covid pandemic certainly drove this point home. There are some private and government offices that have still not required their employees to start revisiting the office. However, they have visited the notion of remote working for the remainder of their adult lives. With current gas prices, I can’t blame them.
Still an occasional visit would be nice. It’s not like you have to do anything special during your visit. Just show up and flit about the place for a brief time and then pack up your anxieties and head back home. You never know. Maybe during your absence, the powers that be slapped a fresh coat of paint on the walls to spruce things up and entice more visitations. Color can be so transformative.
My home office is burnt orange. Nobody in our family attended the University of Texas. It’s actually rather shocking that my Nebraskan wife choose this color. Husker red is more her hue. But not for remote working. I enjoy the burnt orange and she hasn’t repainted it, so all must be aesthetically pleasing. Hook ‘em horns.
Despite its connection to the Longhorns, our home office color works well for us. Years ago we painted it light blue. It wasn’t bad, but neither of us loved it. Color is funny. What feels appealing one moment can turn into a “what was I thinking” moment, in short order.
Empirically, all color is defined as the way objects reflect or emit light.
Black is the complete absorption or absence of light. White fully reflects and scatters all visible wavelengths of light. I read that, technically, neither black nor white are colors, but merely shades that augment colors. Huh? By that definition, a zebra is a colorless animal. What about Dalmatians? I’m sure both species protest such characterizations.
Have you ever noticed that most office space is painted white or some bland, marshmallow variant? If you work in the government, you may see battleship gray as an option, too. Neither are particularly inspirational. Conversely, don’t we want to feel inspired while we work? Could color make a significant impact?
I’m certain productivity levels would increase qualitatively if we broadened the spectrum. Perhaps employers should conduct pigment parties, where employees select their own colors, provided they’re also willing to roll it and brush it on themselves. Their office, their option, their labor. Invest in some paint and watch your profits soar.
We’re talking about ownership. We desire to have a say in how our worksite looks. If you’ve been working from home doing the pandemic shuffle, isn’t your wall color one you chose? Maybe not if your renting, but that’s really just defined as a longterm visit anyway.
But that’s not the point.
Would visits lessen and employment productivity improve if we personalize work a tad? This may not be an option in a hospital or a mechanic’s garage, which are ironically similar. Professionals tinkering with parts, trying to calculate why something doesn’t operate correctly. Regardless, let those peeps paint the break room. No harm, no foul. Of course prolonged breaks may become problematic, but at least you could easily find them.
Of course, this does not effect our maid, whose work is clearly defined as a visitation. Maybe I could get her opinion on swatches for the restrooms and kitchenette. Anything would be better than snow blind white. And maybe she’d visit for longer than 30 minutes. She can still go through the motions, but with a little more zest and enthusiasm. The dead plants would be so appreciative.