To feel embarassed/ashamed of what I do for a living?

[Exvagabond]

I'm currently working as a cleaner at £10/hour with an agency in London. I've never cleaned professionally until a few months ago, but I was desperate to find work to support my family.

Whenever someone asks me what I'm doing, I tell them and you can just tell by the look on their face that they don't approve almost as if they feel sorry for me. Why does my job make people uncomfortable?

I dont have to work, my partner supports me but I see it like this;

-My DD (4) gets 30 hours at nursery, socialising with other children and learning what I don't have the time to teach her at home

• I'm bringing money in to the household so that we can put money away for emergencies, a holiday, days out etc.

• I'm putting money in to a private pension

• I'm paying tax

• On top of this I'm a part time student, so I won't do this forever

Why am I scum to some people?

If you think it’s embarrassing telling people you’re a cleaner, try telling them you’re an accountant 🤣

It’s not what I do now, but I had years of eye rolling & stupid comments about it.

So whilst it is an important job - I think we should be honest that it isn’t a job that anyone really would choose.

What rubbish, of course some people do choose to be cleaners. Why shouldn't they? I've worked in an office for years, and I've also done more manual type work - and I enjoyed it much more than the office.

I chose it.

A good cleaner is worth his/her weight in gold IMO, everywhere needs cleaners & could not function without them-be proud of what you do

I don’t think you have any reason to be ashamed at all. In fact, I think you should be proud of yourself. You are doing a hard and not especially rewarding job, and studying and mothering your wee daughter. I bet those that look down on you in the building you work in would soon complain if the place was dirty!

A friend of mine started off in similar agency cleaning positions like you and now owns a specialist cleaning firm, takes home a six figure salary, and still gets the same judgemental shit from others. Just cut off the repeat offenders

I was a cleaner for a short while. I was not embarrassed or ashamed.
My mother had an evening job ( a second job) as a cleaner when I was a child/ teen.
She loved it and continued to clean after retiring from her main job

I've done cleaning before, some people are just stuffy and judgemental.
If you enjoy it at you are bringing money into the house, good for you.
Look at the programmes on the television about cleaning, so people have become famous because they like to clean. X

I work in a hospital. Cleaners have one of the most important jobs in the building and they are very good. It’s by far the cleanest hospital I have ever worked in. Sometimes the admin staff complain they are getting paid less than the cleaners, I have to remind them just how crucial cleaners are to maintain the health of the patients and staff. Without them we’d all have MRSA and C-Diff by now!

I speak 6 languages and was a very successful and much-loved teacher for many years. But the job I love is cleaning - a retirement occupation - so satisfying to see things polished and shining at the end of my job.

I have a cleaner and she is young and very, very, very beautiful. So much that she can easily do modelling. Instead, like you she has chosen to clean other people's houses in order to have the flexibility to look after her daughter.
She has flexible days and flexible hours and I would not want to part from her.
I think she is a very wonderful person and that she is very brave. I am sure that she has been asked to model and she has decided that this job allows her to have the life she chooses and the freedom she needs.
I truly respect her for this.

* I speak 6 languages and was a very successful and much-loved teacher for many years*

This made me smile. Don’t often read people describing themselves as “much-loved”

I think she is a very wonderful person and that she is very brave. I am sure that she has been asked to model and she has decided that this job allows her to have the life she chooses and the freedom she needs

Have you asked her? How do you know she's been asked to model?

Very strange thing to say. And again, the comparison of cleaning vs. modelling with cleaning as a "lesser" occupation. She could have a "better" job but chose to clean...

Modelling btw is a fucking shit job, and not compatible with being a parent at all. Unless you're really at the top of the game. I'd much rather be a cleaner!! Plus being "very, very beautiful" is not always what model agencies want.

**
I think she is a very wonderful person and that she is very brave. I am sure that she has been asked to model and she has decided that this job allows her to have the life she chooses and the freedom she needs**

You “truly respect” her for choosing a job that gives her flexibility, freedom and time to spend with her daughter.

Possibly I could have been a model (if Churchill had sacked the bulldog mascot). Do you truly respect me for choosing my civil service job instead?

Recommended reading for the “yes I’m a cleaner but not really” appreciation club:Status Anxiety by Alan de Boston. Deserves its ow; thread really.

You have a roof over your head, food on the table and a wonderful child. You are winning at life! I wouldn't care what others think. You are contributing the system so who cares.

I don't have a particularly high stress or paid job. However I have crippling depression. Just having to think about the housework that needs doing is just too much for me some days. My wonderful partner has arranged to have a cleaner come in once a week and it is really a life saver for me. Just taking some of load away is fantastic.

Don't let anyone look down on you. It says a lot more about them then it does you.

I have no idea why some people would look down on your for doing a cleaning job. All I would suggest is that those aren’t you people so bugger them, their ignorance and what they seem to think.

I’ve been a cleaner in the past - not just for the convenience and because it fit with my family needs but because, at the time, it was the easiest job for me to find.

By the way, you earn more per hour than me and I am an administrator

I enjoy cleaning and would rather be a cleaner than a banker any day of the week

YABU to feel embarrassed or ashamed...you should feel proud that you are working.
Not sure why 83% feel otherwise or maybe they have misunderstood the question?

Unfortunately that’s the mind set of some people. I’ve only ever done one cleaning job and anyone who does it for a living has my utmost respect. I played the ‘sympathy or looks’ down by saying I was a clean freak so didn’t mind get paid to do something I enjoyed for a living!!!

I’m an order picker at my husband’s business, I feel so ashamed especially as my SIL works there in the office lording it over me doing the office work & I’m in the warehouse working with school leavers.

It is supply and demand. Some people like cleaning and some people really don’t. It is lucky there is a mix of both as you and others can enjoy your job and myself and others can pay you to get us out of doing something we don’t enjoy and are not good at! I am so grateful for my cleaner, she has improved my happiness no end as although I am bad at cleaning I obviously love having a clean house. I don’t know why people would look down on it as a job. Everyone is suited to different kinds of jobs and mostly one is no more important than another. I guess it could be a salary snobbishness and you would get the same reaction if you said you worked as a bar maid or shop assistant? But whatever the reason, it is rude and sorry you have come across rude people!

You're in an enviable position. You can gauge the character of the people you meet by the way they react to your job. I worked as a cleaner, in a school, whilst I was a student. We did the bulk of our work after the kids had left for the day. The Head, invariably the last to leave, always greeted us by name, chatted to us, and made us tea. People who treat you as inferior because of your job are not worthy of your interest.

Good on ya....Mum,Wife, Student, Cleaner, Wonder Women.......GO YOU!