Time to come clean

I haven't talked much about my work so as we are now exactly half way through the work it really is time to change that.

Well first it has to be said that I have found it very hard, not physically (it is physically very very hard work - I did nearly 22,000 steps on Saturday, but actually I have found that fine and really appreciate the good exercise that it gives me), it has been the mental challenge surrounding the work that has been difficult. As mentioned before it is quite repetitive and monotonous which is a challenge, there is also a sense of cleaning things that are already clean which is a frustrating box ticking exercise. However on top of that there are working practices that irritate, fastidious time keeping to breaks ("pretend to look busy we still have five minutes till break"!), cultural challenges between the local day crew and the onboard crew, disappointing leadership approaches and struggling team spirit. So it is not easy to put your finger on the nub of the challenge but I think my main problem is that I can't simply turn off my analytical mind; when I see something that I think could be improved I want to help do that, but....

So that is the mental challenge; what actually is the job:

Well, we are a team of about 20 in General Housekeeping (7 crew, the rest day crew) and we are responsible for cleaning all the public areas except the hospital (I thought we would be doing that too but discovered on arrival that there is a separate team that does that and crossover is not welcome).

So each week we are divided up into deck divisions: deck 2, decks 5&6, decks 7&8 and decks 9, 10 & 11. Each deck division has its own features - 2 is a technical area full of engineers and you do all the washing, 5&6 are corridors-corridors-corridors, 7&8 is mostly toilets with a few corridors and 9, 10 & 11 are again a mixture of toilets, crew galley, crew laundry and public cafe & lounge areas.

Three times a week we come together for a couple of hours to clean the International Lounge and twice to clean the Academy.

That all said it is not all bad news, there are positive aspects to the job:

• You get to go everywhere on the ship (everywhere inside that is except the hospital) - so that means all the cabin corridors, the technical deck, the offices, the public areas and even the bridge

• You get to meet a lot of different people - on the cabin corridors you meet crew going to and from their cabins, in the technical area you get to meet all the engineers, deck hands etc., in the public areas you see many different people (but in the toilets you see no one - as long as they obey the closed sign!)

• There is lots of exercise that goes with the job - I have just finished a straight eight day stint of work, 8-5 every day, and in that time I recorded nearly 105,000 steps - an average of 13,000 per day!

• You can, if you work at it, turn some of the work into a spiritual exercise - for example twice a day we have to disinfect every door handle and hand rail, I have started to turn those into prayer walks, praying for every crew member and family by reading their names as I wipe their door handle

• If you look really hard you can from time to time find things that are actually visibly dirty and have the satisfaction of making them clean :-)

• The ship needs to be clean and disinfected if it is to be a safe place to be treated and to live onboard, so we can be encouraged that we are helping to make that happen (although we have seen some outbreaks of infections being passed around the crew and requiring isolation)

So that is an introduction to my main job but I have also managed to get a bit of sideline work fixing things around the ship which helps keep me sane. At least if I find something that is broken I can fix it and other people can ask me to do the same. I will talk about that aspect in another post.