The Big Scary You - Part 2

 

The Big Scary You, Part 2

 

So, one day, I got the dreaded phone call. Or should I say photos. Lots of them. One morning in October 2019, the wheels would finally start to fall off. I saw that Sandra had phoned me and I missed the call as I was out with my Mother at the time. I was hard pressed because I was in a medical centre and there was noise all around me as Mum had an important appointment, lots was going on and this was one of the final times we would be doing this as Mum was ready to go into residential care, just a busy time.

 

I didn’t want to take this phone call as I had seen all the photos and knew what was coming. That sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, that good old Negan feeling. Like I was gonna get in a whole lot of trouble. So, when she rang, and told me that she had a call from the boss at one of our sites, I knew I was in trouble. She had said that she had gone in and done a general clean. She had seen everything that I hadn’t done of course, and the photos told the story. I wasn’t happy. The previous evening, I had been in and done a thorough clean of one of the rooms, including washing all the walls. It had taken me an extra 45 minutes all for which I did not get paid. So, I knew that I had done a good job. Do you think I got any acknowledgement for that? No, of course not. I got frustrated. I knew what was coming. She was on the other end of the phone once again telling me all the things that I hadn’t done – things that would normally get done during a general/deep clean, which was an extra clean that got done a couple of times a year, yet I had been expected to keep up with it all during the 1 hour I was getting paid for, (which always turned into nearly 2). After hearing about how bad it all was, I simply said well it doesn’t look like it is working out. I think I might just call it quits.

 

Long story short here at this point, (as short as I can get), she didn’t want me to go. She said oh we can work something else out…so at that point, we came to an agreement that we would start working together again like we did at the beginning, and we would swap sites, I would go and do the other 2 for a few days a week.

Suffice to say, I was vey frustrated after this phone call. I knew then, and it was becoming clearer that I would not be working there much longer.

 

A week or two passed and we worked together on a Sunday, I also got shown another job at a new site that Sandra had just got the contract for.  The whole time I was working that day I knew that my time with her was quickly drawing to a close.

 

The last straw for me was the following Tuesday or Wednesday. It was the beginning of November. Sandra had come in to our first site, the one that I had been cleaning by myself for the majority of our time together. She had a discussion with the manager the week before about some issue with me, I am unable to remember that now, but she came back laughing about it. This struck a wrong chord within me. I felt like they had been laughing at me behind my back. For my first time since working there I had felt humiliated. So, I asked her what had happened, and she said “oh no don’t worry about it” as she laughed about it. That was one of my final red flags. The last straw came shortly afterward.

This particular day, she had started before me, and she was cleaning out the fridge when I got there.  When I found here there, she said, “oh I need to talk to the manager about something that he said about you”. I was taken aback. It was funny that I had worked there all that time and there had never been even one complaint about me or my work…. apparently, he had walked through saying “lazy cleaner” under his breath in front of her friend that worked in the office and she had relayed this to Sandra. When I heard this, for the first time since working there, I felt anger rise in me.

 

They say that anger isn’t always a bad thing. It lets you know when your boundaries are being crossed, and it lets you know when that part of you that loves yourself is being wronged. There are many reasons for anger, but it isn’t always something that is negative. It is like pain – it tells a story. In this instance, it was basically the first time I had felt anger when working with Sandra – we were fast approaching our 1^st year anniversary.

 

A few other strange things occurred during these last few weeks that bare mentioning. It was like what was once easy, became hard. Harder to go into work. Harder to work the long hours. Harder to cope with the criticism. Just harder. And I had an experience with the cupboard that was plain weird. I went to the cleaning cupboard at this main site, and it was empty. It wasn’t “empty” of everything, but it felt empty. It was strange.

 

I noticed that I had used up all the gloves. All the vac bags had been used. The cloths were in the other cupboard; however, it was hard to explain what I was sensing. There were things in there, but it felt strangely bare.  A silence settled over me. One of those silences that are heavy. Nothing around you changes. But you notice the difference in the atmosphere. This silence followed me as I emptied the bins and until I got to the kitchen, canteen area where the guys worked. I could feel it in the air. The empty cupboard was signifying that things were being cleaned up, time was running out. I suddenly knew that this would be one of the last times I worked here. I was right.

 

A day or so later, a couple of the guys were working late. One of them, who I hadn’t seen before said hello in a cheery voice and said, “hi I’m (so and so)”. Apparently, he was one of the supervisors there, and in all my time working for this company, it was the first time I had seen him. “Where’s Sandra”? He asked me. The question took me back a bit, since I had been there so long and like I said I didn’t know him. He didn’t seem to know anything about me, even though I had worked nights in the past where guys had done night shift temporarily for a few weeks, and I had seen them, they knew of me. He knew nothing of me. I said oh yeah, she is still here, she will be back soon. The whole thing just came across as odd.

 

End Part 2