My thankless day as a cleaner made me re-evaluate how we treat certain workers

“Are they reliable?” is the first question. This means: Are they going to cancel on a rainy Monday when my house is upside down?

“Do they do a decent job?” is the next question, meaning: Do they vacuum under, as well as around, the sofa and clean walls and basically do more than the superficial clean we would do?

Then comes “How much?”. Which boils down to: What can I get away with?

You can’t blame people for wanting a job done well, is what I would have thought, before I had a taste of cleaning outside my own home.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m not adept with a duster, so let me explain such a bad job fit.

A friend’s company in the UK has an apartment in Dublin that they let clients and employees use.

They needed an overseer to make sure the cleaner came, to arrange an electrician and so on.

Easy money, I thought, and agreed to do it. I jumped on the WhatsApps to ask about a cleaner, and one person said hers was fantastic.

Let’s call her Suzie. And she was fantastic. Everything went well until she texted to say she couldn’t come that morning, or ever again.

She had three houses a day to clean and it was a hassle coming into town.

I knew she supported her two children and mother abroad. We had compared pictures of our children and discussed what TV shows they liked. I offered to increase her pay, but she said no.

The apartment wasn’t steady work. She never knew how many days a month it would involve.

I felt awful. Her pay didn’t reflect this unpredictability. I got paid more than she did, even though I did nothing.

There were people coming that day, it was booked solid that month – and so I thought, while I look for another cleaner I’ll do the scrubbing.

How hard could it be? The extra money would be handy.

I didn’t last long. Within weeks I had a farcical phone call from an IT director demanding the cleaner re-clean the apartment.

He didn’t know he was talking to the cleaner – and that she was very indignant her efforts weren’t appreciated after having watched a five-minute YouTube video on how to make a bed hotel-style.

He sent me pictures of the loo – with an “outrageous” tiny speck – and a picture of a single hair in the shower.

Cleaning to a professional standard is exhausting. It’s what I would term “flat-out” work. Jobs with no downtime.

The flat-out jobs tend to be crucial to society, but kept at a distance. You seldom hear from the people who do them. Ironically, the people who shout about work-life balance often have cushy jobs.

When was the last time you saw a #selfcare post on LinkedIn from a carer or from a binman saying they are #grateful or #blessed. And why would they?

Most of us are nicer than Mr IT Director, but, really, do we act like we appreciate those who do our dirty work?

I was reminded of this recently when I did a shift on a bin truck in Dublin as research for a newspaper article.

The lads had to pick up hundreds of bins, no downtime. They were all from abroad. They said their employer treated them well and seemed happy, even though people constantly beeped at them when they were stuck in traffic. They didn’t mind, but I was outraged.

I did just the one shift with them and only walked in Suzie’s shoes for a few weeks, but it made me think about those who migrate to Ireland who often do jobs we don’t want. Often they’re undocumented.

Suzie had been living here only two years, so didn’t qualify to apply to the regularisation scheme for undocumented people launched last year – 11,537 people applied, and as of last month, 7,809 had received a stable and secure status.

This is positive, but it took 11 years to campaign for, and the scheme is now closed.

Neil Bruton, campaigns co-ordinator at the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI), told me the organisation would love to see an ongoing process introduced.

Traditionally, the MRCI has used St Patrick’s Day to highlight the plight of the undocumented – when those Irish in the US are often discussed in the White House.

Tomorrow it will release a video highlighting the undocumented migrants living here. And we need them.

Job shortages remain in many sectors, which is why last year we issued 40,000 employment permits, nearly three times as many as 2021 – with more categories eligible, including homecare workers and bus drivers.

“Migrant workers are keeping sectors of our society and economy going. For example, by allowing older people to stay at home, keeping agriculture, mushroom farms and meat factories going, though unfortunately we operate a two-tier system,” Bruton said.

“So, with the critical skills permit, IT workers, for example, get full access to the labour market after two years [which means they can switch companies] and their family can come immediately and work. But for employment permits – such as healthcare assistants – they only get full access after five years, which ties them to employers and can create a power imbalance, and even if they manage to bring family here, they can’t work.”

The Employment Permits Bill going through the Dáil proposes to change the rule so general permit holders can switch jobs more easily.

But the fact that accompanying families are not allowed to work needs to change.

It just feels like we are saying some jobs we rate are important and others are not important – and we are getting it wrong.