Anyone else think this BBC article is in poor taste?

[cheeseismydownfall]

Or am I just being miserable?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-52412655

I don't know, I just really don't like the idea of publicly sharing someone's mistake just to deliver a "light relief". The poor cleaner might be absolutely mortified and it seems really intellectually snobbish to have a god laugh just because someone doesn't understand the bloody dewy decimal system. Really nasty I think.

Why is it classist??
If you'd read the original Twitter thead - which I referred to in my post - it was very condescending in relation to 'cleaners' and there were posts referencing literacy and knowledge of the Dewey decimal system. The sub-text heavily implied that the cleaner was not educated 'enough' to understand what she had done. And I say she because IIRC the original Tweeter mentioned the cleaner is female.

Are you assuming the cleaner is of some ‘inferior’ class?
I don't know what you mean by 'inferior class'? I haven't mentioned any such thing nor have I made any assumption of the cleaner's 'class'. As above, my post was commenting on the sub-text and undertones of the Twitter thread.

Because God forbid, MC people would simply (a) never make such an obvious mistake and (b) never be cleaners.
Again, I am not sure where you have taken this from my post. I said nothing about middle-class people not making mistakes or whether or not they would choose to work as cleaners. I spent over a decade working as a cleaner myself as it happens.

HTH.

Its sneary and unpleasant. Very unprofessional. What is wrong with people that they think it's ok to put stuff like this out there.

Eliza a charitable interpretation would be that the original Tweeter had intended it to be a lighthearted post. Perhaps she had not thought about the fact that publicly sharing someone's mistake at work would not be a nice thing to do - or that there was a risk that it would come across as condescending and attract a load of equally patronising responses.

I agree - is my local library and I felt like they were being very condescending to the cleaner, like 'ahh bless them, pat their head, poor ill-educated cleaner doesn't know the Dewey Decimal system,how quaint'.
I bet that cleaner went home that night chuffed to have done a good piece of work - and rightly so!

I agree - is my local library and I felt like they were being very condescending to the cleaner, like 'ahh bless them, pat their head, poor ill-educated cleaner doesn't know the Dewey Decimal system,how quaint'.

Yes, this was very much the sense I got when I read it.

I bet that cleaner went home that night chuffed to have done a good piece of work - and rightly so!

I hope she is OK. And hopefully in receipt of a grovelling apology from the Head of Service Delivery for being so bloody patronising.

I can’t believe a head of anything would tweet this unless it’s Donald Trump. The poor cleaner. Hope her efforts in that woman’s office are sub-par from now on

Why can't people see the "poor cleaner" comments are just as, if not even more, patronising as the library's response. Reflect on what you're saying!

I seriously hope the cleaner was aware this was being sent to the bbc! Also he/she clearly did a thorough job to clean around and reorganise all of the books. Must be quite embarassed. :(

The tweeter has privated her tweets, I see.

It's not necessarily about class but about someone trying really hard at something and failing miserably because they didnt understand something quite simple.

Cleaners are often poorly paid which could define a class, but for all we know it's a rich kid doing it for pocket money. Regardless of the reason though, I can imagine them being quite embarrassed.

Why can't people see the "poor cleaner" comments are just as, if not even more, patronising as the library's response. Reflect on what you're saying!

I know fuck all about the Dewey decimal system. I do know though, that tweeting about someone else's work mistake is a really unkind thing to do. I feel sorry for the cleaner for this reason - not because of the bloody library shelves. We all make mistakes but fortunately most people don't have bosses who feel it's appropriate to publicise them.

I felt uncomfortable when this blew up yesterday, I thought it was very unprofessional of that Head of Whatever to tweet this publicly in the first place. She sounds like a bitch and if I was that cleaner I'd want to take a shit in her bin and leave it there for the rest of lockdown.

“Poor cleaner” is just “no one wants their work criticised on social media” which I think is fair enough.

Would you go to an office and re-arrange the filing cabinet unless you'd been asked to?

Actually, if the cleaner had worked in residential buildings in the past then it's possible her agency had instructed her to do that. Or maybe it's what she does at home so she saw it as common sense.

I've never worked as a cleaner, but I have worked in several office jobs where I was expected to be a mind reader and follow secret instructions that had never been given to me, while at the same time being "proactive" and making yourself indespensible. You can't win either way. If you do as instructed then your boss blames you for not being a mind reader and not having done that "obvious" thing that you couldn't possibly have known about. Then, if you're proactive and rearrange a shelf to look better, you get told off for messing things up and get seen as interfering. Those sorts of employers agree an absolute nightmare.

I'm sick of employers who don't offer any training, communication or information, who then blame employees when things go wrong. The cleaner probably thought she was being helpful by tidying the place up, and now it's being thrown back in her face. I am very sure that when she read the tweet, her reaction was "how was I supposed to know?"

I used to know KVittles. The tone of her post is totally in keeping with her personality.

@AlexandraPeppernose I'm not at all surprised by your comment. Her tweets have been made private, but her Twitter bio is still there. Here's what it says:

"Head of Service Delivery at Suffolk Libraries. Ideologically opposed to running as a hobby. Trophy wife. Husband married a 'sayer', unfortunately."

So she's one of those people who "tells or like it is", i.e. enjoys insulting people just for the sake of it.

Does her employer have a social media policy by the way?

I've never worked as a cleaner, but I have worked in several office jobs where I was expected to be a mind reader and follow secret instructions that had never been given to me, while at the same time being "proactive" and making yourself indespensible.

When I was cleaning as a second job, I used to do a small office building. I was told on day one that on no account was I allowed to touch anything that had been left on people's desks. I did my first clean and left the desks alone as instructed. When I went in again the following week, I got a complete bollocking from the office manager for not cleaning all of people's desktops.

I pointed out that I had been told by them specifically not to touch anything left on desks, and was informed that I should have used my initiative and that they'd only meant things like paperwork. Fortunately I was cleaning PT for a few clients (commercial and private) at the time and could pick up evening and weekend hours elsewhere, so I gave notice and suggested that perhaps they needed a different cleaner who would better anticipate their needs.

Beside the point but when I worked as a library assistant in a public library in Scotland the cleaner got paid more than me.