Whenever I meet someone new or have to introduce myself and mention that I am an office cleaner, most people imagine large corporate headquarters, bustling office floors with computers and phone chatter or the glitzy marble-lined interior of international conglomerates. My professional routine is much less glamorous. 95% of my company’s customers are small-scale or start-up businesses accommodated in shared workplaces, renovated apartments or small office buildings. Disappointing as it may sound to some of my friends and relatives, the office cleaning I do is much closer in scope and task range to home cleaning than what they imagine.
However, there are the other 5% of our cases, and one of them will be the topic of this post. It happened a few years ago, before the pandemic and the Brexit debacle, in the golden years of London as one of the financial capitals of the world. I was already an experienced office cleaner with regular customers. Still, the biggest job I had ever done was for a small printing company in Kensington – 12-15 employees, taking up a few rooms on the second floor of a renovated office building on Sloane Avenue. So, nothing had prepared me for the bolt out of nowhere I was about to receive.
I should have seen the signs earlier, but I am the kind of guy who doesn’t pay attention to what happens in the office. There was some hushed murmur in the call room, but I attributed it to the inevitable office gossip. A few days later, Jack, one of the other crew leaders, met me in the staff room. “Hey, did you hear the big news? We’ve gotten a quote request from a real City shark, a stock brokering firm! It could be the biggest job we’ve ever done!”
So that’s what all the noise was about! Still, since I had no part in the marketing or customer interactions, I pushed the news to the back of my head and continued with my ongoing tasks. However, by the end of the week, the tension in the office was palpable. It wasn’t a bad kind of tension – more like the expectation before a big match for your favourite team. Finally, my boss called me on Friday.
“Lee, I am sure you’ve already heard the rumours. We didn’t want to blow the whistle before finalising the deal, but it is now in the books! I need you to come to the office tomorrow so that we can plan the whole thing.”
How did we get the job? Our customer was a successful investment firm specialising in volatile stock-market assets – playing the high-risk, high-reward game to perfection. They had a long-term relationship with a well-established office cleaning contractor. However, several highly sensitive documents had disappeared from one of the offices a few weeks prior. It turned out there had been no foul play – just one of the cleaners threw the papers out without looking at them. While the damage was non-existent (the documents were easily recovered digitally), the incident fractured the relationship with the office cleaning contractor.
The firm was running a competition between several prospective replacements, and we had to serve as a stop-gap until they made their final decision. Again, it might not sound glamorous, but we were realistic back then – we had neither the equipment nor the experience or manpower to take on such an assignment. We planned to employ two full crews for the daily cleaning – Jack’s team was going to clean the offices, the main salon, the single working stations, the office equipment and the conference room. My crew had to take on the tougher assignment – the washrooms and the lobby, the floor cleaning and the interior window polishing, plus taking care of the janitorial supplies. We were scheduled to clean for three hours – between 8 and 11 PM – from Monday to Friday for one week.
“There is a bonus”, said my boss with a smile. “You are going to clean the 21st floor of the Gherkin, so if you ever wondered what the view from up there is, now you will find out!” A bonus indeed! The Gherkin was one of the most iconic, cucumber-shaped skyscrapers in the heart of the City. Cleaning one of its floors promised to be one of the highlights of my career.
I rarely get giddy about a job, but I couldn’t wait for Monday to come. I had delegated all ongoing tasks to other crews and drilled my team on the importance of efficiency and attention to detail. Finally, at about 6:30 PM, I took the Underground to Bank Station. The City was offloading its vast reservoir of bankers, lawyers, corporate sharks and hedge fund wizards. I could hardly feel more out of place as I was walking up Leadenhall Street. Little did I know that my evening was about to get even more surreal.
The Gherkin lobby was enormous and looked like the cavernous interior of a spaceship in its chrome and grey colours. I had to remind myself constantly not to be gawking like a schoolboy, but everything around reminded me of a movie set. When the doors of the slick elevator opened at the 21st-floor platform, I almost expected Jordan Belfort to invite us to a Wolf of Wall Street-style orgy.
Disappointingly, the offices were already half empty. I could switch back to my usual self and start giving instructions to my team. We had a lot of work to do, but I could not restrain my curiosity. Jack’s crew was already sweeping through the main salon, which looked like an exact replica of the Big Short or Margin Call sales salons – trade quotes flashing on the linear screen, piles of nervously crunched papers, the smell of testosterone, ego, and neurotic desire to win at all costs still filling the air. I wish I could see the salon in all its glory, with thirty or forty brokers shouting in their receivers – but I had a job to do.
“Weren’t you guys supposed to start cleaning at 8 PM?” The sharp question brought me out of my trance. I turned around immediately to face a clean-shaven gentleman in his mid-forties. The three-piece suit, the self-confident look and the steel look in his eyes reminded me of a more gentrified Gordon Gekko (I could not escape the movie comparisons).
“It is ten past eight, sir”, I responded as politely as I could without sounding too servile. He absent-mindedly looked at his watch (Rolex, Omega?) and dropped an F-bomb. “My wife is going to murder me for this!” He ran back to his office to grab his jacket.
I couldn’t help but smile. How often have I said the same thing, running late after work? This fleeting encounter helped me regain my composure. Yes, the office we had to clean looked as if Bobby Axelrod was going to turn around the corner. But the people working there were just like me and Jack and any of our cleaners. Well, maybe a little better paid.