Are you being told to clean toilets at work?

[noblegiraffe]

If cleaning toilets wasn’t previously anywhere near your job description?

It’s being claimed on another thread that this is just part of the new normal, everyone is pitching in. I’m not convinced.

YABU - I’m being asked to clean toilets

YANBU - I’m not being asked to clean toilets

If you are, are you ok with it?

Teachers should not do the extra job of cleaning loos.

There’s a big difference between cleaning up after personal use and dealing with school loos after many children / teens have used them.

What I’m finding amusing is all through lockdown we’ve been told about homeschooling ‘I’m not a teacher, they need a proper teacher’, ‘kids need to be in school getting an education’ and ‘kids will need extra support, intervention, catch-up’.

Oh, but now forget the kids, there are skid marks to be scrubbed! Can’t do that after school revision session with Y11, I’m on the bog rota!

@CuckooCuckooClock

mrsnoah do you clean toilets now too?

Yes, we all take turns during Covid, as well as cleaning everything else. Oddly enough, the NHS wasn't issued with tens of thousands of extra cleaners at the start of the epidemic. We have to clean after every patient.

@noblegiraffe

With the amount of work us teachers are being asked to do every waking moment Cleaning the toilets will probably the closest we get to actually visiting one during the working day.

Cleaning up after a patient is one thing.

Cleaning up after hundreds of teenagers who are perfectly capable of cleaning up after themselves but choose not to - or even make the mess deliberately - is surely another.

While I have no problem mucking in and getting on with cleaning, I can see the posts in three months time
“ my child’s reading book hasn’t been changed/ spellings marked/ progress made”
I know many schools including primary, with one adult to thirty children expected to do all the extra cleaning, manage the class as usual and often have very few breaks. Before we add in the expectation to catch up the children’s missed schooling.
I don’t think it cleaning as such, it’s just the constant adding of things to their already huge workload , the system was broken before this and it’s getting worse!
Yes we all need to muck in but I worry it’s people will soon break with the expectations put on them .

I’m surprised doctors are cleaning toilets after patients. The doctors I know aren’t cleaning toilets (but do have other shit working conditions to deal with)

@Italiandreams spot on

In a job with no free time this constant well teachers now need to also do x y begs the question WHEN. Has the day gotten longer?

I’m a TA and no staff other than the cleaners and caretakers are doing it. There is a small team of cleaners in from lunchtime doing first the desks while the children are out at play, then communal areas.

Being asked to clean toilets would be my line in the sand I am afraid.

Teachers/TAs are cleaning the toilets when the children are out in the playground or when there is a suitable point in the lesson eg the children are writing/drawing/watching something. In our school we are lucky as each class currently is staffed by 2 (adults either a teacher and a TA or 2 teachers).

Out of interest to other TAs, what happens during normal (non-COVID) times when someone has an accident in the toilets/can't make it and wees on the floor or smears poo?

I often had to clean the toilets during non-COVID times for these things.

Do people have an on-site cleaner or do you just block off the toilet and leave it for the cleaner to sort in the evening?

We don't have enough toilets to be able to loose the use of one during the day so I have often had to clean toilets.

We have on-site cleaners (massive school) who clean up usually.
I just evacuate the classroom or put a sign on the toilet door and forget about it.

do you just block off the toilet and leave it for the cleaner to sort in the evening?
Yes, that's exactly what happens.

In our school we are lucky as each class currently is staffed by 2 (adults either a teacher and a TA or 2 teachers).
Not sure I'd call that "lucky," if it means you now have toilet cleaning added to your duties.

And I don't think I'm being overly cynical to wonder whether toilet cleaning would ever be removed from teachers' duties post-Covid.

I just asked dh (a University professor) if he or his colleagues would be asked/expected to clean loos in communal student areas. The answer: not in a million years. Cleaners are employed for that.

NHS, professional role that doesn't involve cleaning normally.

Yes we've all been asked to clean- not just after ourselves but areas that others have used. Surfaces, handles though, not toilets.

[quote FishyDuck]@pippitysqueakity

Of course teachers can't clean toilets while teaching. They can do it at the end of the school day and throughout breaks and lunchtimes.[/quote]
But in the bubble arrangements, the teachers are still supervising children during the children's playtimes and lunchtimes- they don't have time away from the children during the day, unless they are in a situation where a TA is available to share cover.

@YewHedge

Teachers/TAs are cleaning the toilets when the children are out in the playground or when there is a suitable point in the lesson eg the children are writing/drawing/watching something. In our school we are lucky as each class currently is staffed by 2 (adults either a teacher and a TA or 2 teachers).

My sons teacher is supervising the classes breaks and lunchtimes. She also doesn’t leave a class of reception child alone to walk down the corridor, through the hall and to the toilets to clean them.

To all teachers- it is not a reasonable request to expect you to clean toilets after others. I wouldn’t entertain it for a second. No way. The Unions need to support you on this if it’s foisted on you

Farmer with 9 staff.

It used to be me cleaning the loos. Now, staff are asked to wipe down after every use and clean thoroughly once a day.

All staff are doing it without complaint. I still do a deep clean once a week as to be honest o don't trust the men's standards!

I wouldn't clean school loos. The govt seems to find the money for things it values - if it wants schools open in September, they can bloody well fund extra cleaning staff.
Fine to clean the loo after yourself - not fine for employers to expect staff to clean up after other people unless it's your actual job!

@CuckooCuckooClock

I’m surprised doctors are cleaning toilets after patients. The doctors I know aren’t cleaning toilets (but do have other shit working conditions to deal with)

Probably not in hospitals where they have on-site cleaners, but in our practice (and others locally) we're all taking turns. Who else is going to do it? It's not anyone's official job (apart from the cleaners', obviously, but they're only here at night). We're not mopping floors and doing deep cleans but everyone is cleaning- yes, including the bogs.

I work in retail and toilets vet sanitised every 3 hours although they are closed to customers (staff toilets) Monday-Friday we have a housekeeper who does it throughout the day and on an evening we do the last clean and all day Sat/Sun on a rota. But by cleaning its antibacterial spray and wipe the handles, taps, sink surface and mirrors, not the physical toilet bowl.

Did someone suggest teachers did the toilet cleaning in their breaks and lunch?

Just. Wow.

Who else is going to do it?

Someone from a GP surgery upthread said they’d hired an extra cleaner and upped the hours of their current one.

And MrsNoah, how many patients are actually visiting the practice each day, at the moment? If it's anything like mine, they're mostly operating telephone consultations, and you can't actually visit the surgery unless an extreme circumstance. So would I be right in thinking that you are cleaning up after fewer people than your average school?

Ahhh- but what if the person before you didn’t clean/ sanitise after they finished? So you really need to clean before just incase??