Friday, February 20, 2004
Ms. Amanda Cheezleton: Jill of All Trades and Master of Cleaning Up After Your Sorry Ass
I'm not a slob by nature, which might strike you as counterintuitive if you've been to my house and seen the Leaning Tower o' Laundry. (I can hear my Mom thinking, "Gee, the one in the laundry room or the one in the bedroom?" Yeah, alright, guilty as charged.) Truth be told, I prefer an organized home, but the current situation has gotten away from me and I'm content to just let it ride for a while longer until the next manic organizing frenzy. I'll let you know when that happens; until then, um, don't open any closets when you're visiting my home.
By contrast, I absolutely require neatness and general cleanliness in my workplace. It drives me insane when, for example, coworkers spill sugar on the office kitchen countertops and don't bother to clean it up. That's just rude. Presumably a large company has or could create HR policies to deal with such a lapse of consideration, although frankly I've never seen the situation get so out of hand that it becomes necessary to formally address it. Usually a snarky comment from other coworkers seems to do the trick.
So, consider the case of working in a small office and sharing an office kitchen with coworkers who are shall we say "free spirited" when it comes to organization. We used to have an office manager who would wash the dishes just as a kind gesture, but since she left in October we've all had to fend for ourselves. Some of us are more conscientious about this than others.
One of my little OCD traits is that I simply cannot reuse a cup without first thoroughly washing it. I also hate to wash dishes, and tend to put it off as long as possible. By the end of the workday, I sometimes have as many as four mugs (and an equal number of spoons) waiting to be washed. Since sometime before Christmas, I have been washing my dishes around someone else's dishes. Specifically, someone else's same five unwashed items that had been in the sink for at least two months. Nasty. Yesterday, I got fed up with this and decided to pull the unclaimed dishes out of the sink.
They had algae growing in them. And on them.
*squick*
Ain't no way I wanted that mess staying anywhere NEAR the kitchen, so I decided to just wash them myself. I boiled water and soaked the dishes. I scrubbed them once, twice, three times. I rinsed them for about 3 minutes each. Then I bleached the hell outta the sink.
Said dishes are clean and fresh and sitting out on the kitchen table now. I notice that they have been repositioned, but not removed. S'okay, they can just sit there and collect dust, because I have completed my last voluntary domestic task at this job.
Everyone now, sing the chorus with me: "I got a Master's degree for this?!"
# posted by Amanda at 12:39 PM |
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