Yes I know this is perhaps not the most inspirational topic to write about, but bear with me. I am not (I think) a compulsive obsessive person regarding cleaning. But on quick reflection (as I write this) perhaps I am. But no matter, I am finding that I do spend quite a bit of time on cleaning these days – more than I might have expected.
When I was working for UNICEF, we had cleaners in all of the offices I worked in. Wonderful people, who were so kind and generous, often bringing you a cup of tea unasked for. At home we generally had some household help who cleaned the house for us. We urged our children to tidy up after themselves and we all pitched in with dishes and laundry, but generally we were paying someone to clean up after us at home and, thanks to UNICEF, at work as well.
I do have some special memories of cleaning while I was with UNICEF. There was that day, once or twice a year, when you reorganised your desk and cleared out accumulated papers that had somehow decided to make their home at my office or workstation.
And then there was Covid time in Sri Lanka. In April of 2020 we, like everyone else in Sri Lanka, were confined to our homes. This wasn’t too big a hardship for us, though hugely disruptive and difficult for so many. It was mango season and we had a very large mango tree at our house, so we ate lots of mangoes!
We also had a swimming pool. This was very well used by the family and our dog loved trying to bite your nose whenever you came to the surface at the edge of the pool. In the 8th week of the lockdown it was also the focus for a resort day I organised for our family where I was resort manager, cook, bar person, pool attendant … it was a lot of work.
But I digress. Maintaining the pool and cleaning it was my “domain”. There is something very satisfying about managing the chemical balance of the water along with maintaining the pump and filter to keep the pool sparkling clean (perhaps I am more OCD than I thought). But most enjoyable of all is vacuuming a swimming pool. If you have never tried it, find a friend with a swimming pool and offer to vacuum it for them. It is a really slow and methodical process and the vacuuming process itself is completely silent except for the gentle stirring of the pool water as the vacuum cleaner poll gently slices through the surface of the pool.
Vacuuming our swimming pool was (I found) a perfect thing to do while “attending” work Zoom or Teams meetings, particularly regional or global calls which, as a Rep during the Covid period, I seemed to have to do a lot of. When a meeting was due I would set up the pool vacuum, bring the meeting up on my phone, put my headphones on, microphone on mute (very good online meeting etiquette!), camera off and adjourn to the side of the swimming pool to vacuum the pool - starting at the deep end and moving slowly up to the shallow end – across the width of the pool. I would occasionally pause and if comments were being taken, switch my microphone and camera on (with camera angled to have some plants in the background), and say something wise or asinine – that was for others to judge.
I remember on one meeting listening to Reps from around the region speaking about their experiences managing their teams and programmes during the first six months or so of the pandemic. I remember one Rep telling us that they hadn’t had a day off or been outside for six months! I did feel a little guilty as I stood outside beside the pool slowly pushing the pool vacuum cleaner back and forth.
Good things do come out of meetings and during the covid response some of these meetings were incredibly helpful and all the more enjoyable and productive as I kept our swimming pool clean. In one meeting the idea of repurposing garment factories to produce PPE was raised and it was a really interesting process taking this forward with some of Sri Lanka’s big multinational garment producers with the support of Supply Division and the Regional Office.
And good things also obviously come out of “cleaning”. These days I don’t have a swimming pool to take care of. But the joy of vacuuming continues. We have floor carpet that is of sufficient length, and a vacuum cleaner sufficiently powerful enough to allow me to imagine that I am a groundskeeper at a famous cricket ground and mowing grass so that it shows a perfect interlacing grid for the TV cameras. Even after leaving UNICEF we are still allowed to dream!
More musings to come so please look out for - What to do la #5 -Tennis anyone?
When I was working for UNICEF, we had cleaners in all of the offices I worked in. Wonderful people, who were so kind and generous, often bringing you a cup of tea unasked for. At home we generally had some household help who cleaned the house for us. We urged our children to tidy up after themselves and we all pitched in with dishes and laundry, but generally we were paying someone to clean up after us at home and, thanks to UNICEF, at work as well.
I do have some special memories of cleaning while I was with UNICEF. There was that day, once or twice a year, when you reorganised your desk and cleared out accumulated papers that had somehow decided to make their home at my office or workstation.
And then there was Covid time in Sri Lanka. In April of 2020 we, like everyone else in Sri Lanka, were confined to our homes. This wasn’t too big a hardship for us, though hugely disruptive and difficult for so many. It was mango season and we had a very large mango tree at our house, so we ate lots of mangoes!
We also had a swimming pool. This was very well used by the family and our dog loved trying to bite your nose whenever you came to the surface at the edge of the pool. In the 8th week of the lockdown it was also the focus for a resort day I organised for our family where I was resort manager, cook, bar person, pool attendant … it was a lot of work.
But I digress. Maintaining the pool and cleaning it was my “domain”. There is something very satisfying about managing the chemical balance of the water along with maintaining the pump and filter to keep the pool sparkling clean (perhaps I am more OCD than I thought). But most enjoyable of all is vacuuming a swimming pool. If you have never tried it, find a friend with a swimming pool and offer to vacuum it for them. It is a really slow and methodical process and the vacuuming process itself is completely silent except for the gentle stirring of the pool water as the vacuum cleaner poll gently slices through the surface of the pool.
Vacuuming our swimming pool was (I found) a perfect thing to do while “attending” work Zoom or Teams meetings, particularly regional or global calls which, as a Rep during the Covid period, I seemed to have to do a lot of. When a meeting was due I would set up the pool vacuum, bring the meeting up on my phone, put my headphones on, microphone on mute (very good online meeting etiquette!), camera off and adjourn to the side of the swimming pool to vacuum the pool - starting at the deep end and moving slowly up to the shallow end – across the width of the pool. I would occasionally pause and if comments were being taken, switch my microphone and camera on (with camera angled to have some plants in the background), and say something wise or asinine – that was for others to judge.
I remember on one meeting listening to Reps from around the region speaking about their experiences managing their teams and programmes during the first six months or so of the pandemic. I remember one Rep telling us that they hadn’t had a day off or been outside for six months! I did feel a little guilty as I stood outside beside the pool slowly pushing the pool vacuum cleaner back and forth.
Good things do come out of meetings and during the covid response some of these meetings were incredibly helpful and all the more enjoyable and productive as I kept our swimming pool clean. In one meeting the idea of repurposing garment factories to produce PPE was raised and it was a really interesting process taking this forward with some of Sri Lanka’s big multinational garment producers with the support of Supply Division and the Regional Office.
And good things also obviously come out of “cleaning”. These days I don’t have a swimming pool to take care of. But the joy of vacuuming continues. We have floor carpet that is of sufficient length, and a vacuum cleaner sufficiently powerful enough to allow me to imagine that I am a groundskeeper at a famous cricket ground and mowing grass so that it shows a perfect interlacing grid for the TV cameras. Even after leaving UNICEF we are still allowed to dream!
More musings to come so please look out for - What to do la #5 -Tennis anyone?
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