Mr. Clean

One of the new jobs that I received was at a hotel, doing housekeeping. It is a lot of hard work to clean a room. Even worse, I am cleaning up a mess that I never made. It is eyeopening to see how people live, and how filthy they can be. I clean rooms in an extended stay hotel... which I must say is rather interesting. There are some pretty normal people there, like construction workers, or people who need a place to stay while they are building their house, and then there are not so normal people.

For some reason I find cleaning therapeutic. I like it, but at the same time I don't. I came to the conclusion that I do today because out of all the jobs that I get, I am most qualified to be a janitor. I really am qualified and could do other things, but yet I sign up to clean up after people. Now I am in housekeeping, which is pretty much the same thing. And its not something that I do in passing, I am pretty good at it, which mostly comes from paying attention to detail. I am a little bit slower than others but that could be for several reasons.

Anyways, today I was cleaning a few rooms. I mostly got the bathroom portion of things because I don't know, I just picked them. I came up with a list of reasons why cleaning is good for you.

#1 - Health
Lets face it, living in filth is way unhealthy for you. Disease builds up, mold can grow, things start getting transmitted from bacteria, etc. A whole house of people can just pass around one illness because it isn't clean. Or several people can get infections or have problems due to mold growing some where. For a healthy life, clean regularly.

#2 - Appearance
Who likes walking into a dirty house? Or going over to their friends house who's is dirty? Ever been some where where you have to wonder if the cup they just gave you to drink out of really was clean? A clean pad can impress the ladies, and help your mom not worry so much about you as you are away.

#3 - Productivity
I have met very few people who never have the time to do some simple cleaning. It only takes a few extra seconds to hang up your clothes, wash your dish, and if properly cleaned and maintained, cleaning a bathroom or vacuuming could take just a few extra minutes. But it makes you feel good to have done the work. You feel like you have accomplished something, especially when you make something dirty to nice and clean.

#4 - Therapeutic
Cleaning gives time for your to think, clear your mind, or work through a problem in your mind. It doesn't take a lot of thought to figure out how to clean something, A little soap and a lot of scrubbing does a lot. It makes you feel good about yourself.

Anyways, here are a few reasons as to why I think you should clean.

Read

As I have stated before I recently got a new job cleaning at a extended stay hotel. I think they hired me for  the sole reason that I know how to use our carpet cleaning machine, called the CFR. So for the past week I have been cleaning rooms and a whole lot of carpet. I lack one floor of public carpet that I need to clean, which will get done tomorrow.

The fun thing about this whole situation is that all I have heard for the past week is how no one knew how to use the CFR. That it just sat there and no one figured it out. Well, on Monday I was walking around looking at some of the signs and things hung up in our break/laundry/supply room and in plain daylight the only thing that was really hung up, next to the standard government papers about our rights as employees, there was detailed step by step instructions on how to prepare, use, and clean out the CFR machine, with pictures. Hmmm... sounds like a class in reading could help everyone.

The Kings Speech

Last night I went and watched "The Kings Speech" with my wife and a few friends at the dollar theater. I really didn't know what to expect about the movie. I knew that it had once been rated R for it's language, but that they had edited it and made it more of a PG-13 movie. So I was a little worried about what was in it. I thought I might have to leave depending on how bad it got. But to my very surprise, it was probably one of the best movies that I had ever seen. I would not recommend it for anyone's kids because of the language, but that is actually part of the movie. It wasn't just thrown in there so it could be thrown in there. It had a crucial part of the movie, actually.

I was thinking about why I liked the movie so much this morning and I have came to a few conclusions. The biggest reason that I liked the movie was that it showed someone overcoming obstacles and challenges in his life and succeeding. If you are unaware of it, the movie is about King George the Sixth and how he overcame his speech impediments with help from a therapist, just in time to deliver some of the most crucial speeches to the people of England and around the world during World War II. It was refreshing to see someone persevere and so hard and struggle and finally succeed.

The other part of the movie that I really enjoyed was seeing how important it is to have a trusted friend. Someone who you could confide in and talk with about your problems. Seeing the King finally learn how to take down his barriers and trust in his speech therapist was amazing. I thought to myself, I hope that I am able to be that type of friend. The friend that people can trust and confide in. I also hoped that I was never that type of dad or brother that caused so much fear and so much distrust that my family and friends develop some very severe problems because I was so unwilling to accept them for who they truly are.

I think of a talk that I recently listened to that discussed the importance of focusing on the problem, rather than the person. Rather than labeling someone as a state of being - as a lazy person or stupid - we should make sure that what they did was the problem, not who they are. I think we all too many times forget that people are children of our Heavenly Father and that we should love them and care for them, no matter what.