I am experiencing a degree of ambivalence about my new job, which is cleaning train stations in Japan.
At times I do everything manual-perfect, properly and correct, putting my cloth on every part of every place. Other days, I skip some bits and pretend I forgot certain others. Basically, sometimes I can’t be bothered with it. One thing I have noticed, though, is that I do a lot more when it’s sunny and mope about lethargically when it’s overcast. On rainy days, I drift serenely, slacking off somewhat but nailing the rough outline.
Here's some more ambivalence. In the morning, as we gather to listen to the managers at the dispatch office, I see my coworkers lined up and listening, uniformed and ready to go, and I imagine us fanning out to our assigned stations. We are about to serve the public, to remove grime and muck and hazards from their commute, and it fills me with a sense of pride and purpose. But then, this morning, I arrived where I was going, began to push my garbage cart up the platform, and met with a moody-faced, stuck-up young lady who scowled before shifting barely an inch when I politely let her know she was blocking my way. I remained thorough and diligent in my work, but sometimes the public are pieces of shit.
Anyway, to return to the topic of skipping stuff, this is because I am not being supervised. It’s a feeling I am still getting used to. In the office job I constantly gripe about, the one I mention time and again in this blog, they watched us like hawks that had just done an 8 ball. If I started eating, they saw. If I went to the toilet, they knew at once. If I scrolled on my phone, they knew about it. My boss was 1.4 metres away, skull floating in the corner of my view. A rainbow-coloured glow does NOT surround my memories of THAT place.
As a cleaner, though, I am not being watched. Senor S, one of the other guys, told me they don’t check the tapes, not unless an incident happens. Like, if you deck someone for messing with your trash cart they’ll rewind and take a gander, but, so long as the day passes normally, no one makes sure you’ve done every task of work.
It feels like I am reprogramming myself, from an uptight droid who drowned in watchful eyes to a free-strolling, unstressed light-duty drifter, pacing the day to complement my inner vibrations.
Even in the dispatch office, I feel left alone, for the most part, and I have some theories as to why. I think that, just maybe, the company needs us more than we need it. I noticed that when someone rocks up late, they don’t get harshly scolded. If anything, management is relieved they showed up at all, thankful even. I’m guessing that if enough of the basic cloth-wielders stay home, it’ll be management that has to cover. It seems we are the thing standing between them and a day personally prettifying the Tokyo metropolitan area’s pigeon-infested transport hubs.
Working for a company that is short-staffed and somewhat desperate is great. In my opinion, it almost makes up for the wretchedly low pay. The power balance, the whole dynamic, is different than what I am accustomed to and I almost can’t accept it. I still occasionally go back and scrupulously complete a job I had skimped on, wincing in imagination of what would be said if I was found out. But the fact is that no one is keeping tabs, and no one will say anything. They aren’t going to give me the old haughty office lecture for failing to wipe down a couple of steel stairway banks. They’re probably just happy I show up.
One final ambivalence relates to my phone. As much as I loathed the office gig, it at least stopped me pissing around with my iPhone constantly. I was doing other computer stuff, admittedly, but at least it wasn’t notification-checking and doom-scrolling. As a cleaner, however, I can take breaks whenever, and I’m alone all day so reach straight for the phone. I am getting lightly addicted, like the platform zombies I criticise so often, but with the saving grace that I don’t walk with my face buried in the screen, almost blundering into people.
This happens all day at the stations. People shuffle up the platform while operating their phones, oblivious to the fact that they’re on a collision course with you, until the very last instant when you swallow up their field of vision. Then they look sheepish, but only a bit, and shamble on, texting some other idiot, in some other city, who just walked into someone.
That girl who didn’t want to move for my trash cart, the one who looked at me stinky… I think she was angry I interrupted her precious phone fun. When she finally looked up, away from that thing in her hand, it was like she was half-asleep, roused reluctantly from a mind-numbing dream.
So, I’m ambivalent about completing the work, and about the public, about my wages and about certain highly distracting and ubiquitous pieces of technology, but, despite all these ambivalences, I reckon I’ll stay. For a while.
Because at least it’s a job where you can play with your phone.
Read Part 20 here.
And Part 18 is here.
Good exploration of the differences between blue collar and white collar work. I've never worked in an office but I've noticed different schools and teaching companies have a wild variety of work cultures. Nothing worse than being micromanaged in Japan. Most quasi independent contractors work harder and better I think according to their own private motivations. I can be a lazy sod and an eager beaver 🦫 both in the same shift. Weather matters too for some reason as you note.
I think I’m a relatively polite person but I’ve been taking extra efforts to be kind and thankful to the station cleaners, thanks to your blog.