Cleaning Man

Thats what I became Saturday.

I was pretty bummed about it. My favorite spot to be in at work is working on boards, since I get to practice Spanish and not have to deal with stupid customers. Unfortunately, Saturday I was assigned to the exact opposite. Hearing conversations in English and having to mingle with the public while cleaning tables and asking people if they need refills. Bah.

I always found something weird about people who clean for a job. Especially the ones in China. All the cleaning people there had large, wide-brimmed, straw hats that covered their faces completely. Despite the fact that they cross the paths of tourists millions of times in a day, they never notice anybody, and nobody ever notices them. They are, in all practical meanings of the word, invisible. Its almost as if they don't even have souls or something. It really kind of creeps me out.

While not in the same magnitude, I experienced something very similar to that working in the dining room. Despite the fact that my presence is very real, people seem to just shut me out of their minds. I can swerve around them all the time to get a certain spot on the floor where a kid muddied his shoes, but they still might never even acknowledge my existence. I felt a lot like the cleaning people in China.

What is it about some people that we just shut them out of our minds? With cleaning people, most people would argue that it is kind of awkward to see someone cleaning (after all, what do you say to them? Enjoy minimum wage?). Sometimes we don't like to see other people doing work we could be doing ourselves, so we just pretend they don't exist. But do we only do it with cleaning people? Are there other people that we want to pretend arn't there?

Personally speaking (being the introvert that I am) I alot of times want to make myself dissapear. So, taking in the whole of humanity, it means that there is a whole sect of people in the world that are invisible, simply because people dont want to see them and they don't want to be seen.

I can see why alot of postal workers go insane. Being an ignored public servant and having everybody act like you do not exist can tax on your self-esteem and sanity. I can't imagine having to do it as my life career.

The moral of this story: People who clean have a hard job and get completely ignored, and they would all really appreciate it if you acknowledged their existence every once in a while. It might save you if they decide to come into work armed.

~Jared