So youre a cleaner, Mum said, a note of contempt slipping into her voice. I kept quietnot because I had nothing to say, but because this time I chose to accept it. If she calls me a cleaner, so be it.
If you think about it, I wash the dishes, clean the office coffee machine, make sure the staff kitchen always has sugar and tea, keep the tea bags from piling up and the rubbish from accumulating. I dont mop the floors or scrub the toilets. Does that really change the label?
To Mum, absolutely not. Shes convinced that anyone who does any tidying is a cleaner, period.
Honestly, if I hadnt moved to England, I might still feel that inner ick about the joban unconscious, stubborn belief that cleaning is unprestigious, that educated people dont do that. Its a notion Ive carried since childhood, and only living in a different system started to untangle it.
One day I realised: yes, I can be a cleaner and still hold two university degrees, run a private practice where an hours consultation earns £110. In this new reality I dont command the language perfectly, but I understand cleaning, and that becomes my bridge.
I remember my mentor, Rachel, telling me, Feel it its feminine, it grounds you. Its not something to be ashamed of. It clicked.
At home I never feel shame when I dust a shelf or load the dishwasher. Why should it suddenly become disgraceful outside the house?
What amazes me is how people here treat it. In England a manager greets the cleaner, asks how shes doing, sits down for lunch with her, inquires about her family back in Poland, and compliments the spotless kitchen. And you think, Thats respectno judgment.
I dont feel shortchanged. I feel like Im standing at the beginning of a new path, and that gives me strength. Theres also a quiet pride, because if it werent for me, where would you get that clean mug for your cappuccino?
The lesson is simple: worth isnt measured by titles or who does the work, but by the dignity we bring to any task.
