To think cleaning isn’t an unskilled job

[Thisisus909]

I am shit at cleaning. If I cleaned for 20 hours my house would look tidier but definitely not shiny clean.

I have had several cleaners ad hoc or for a season and they have always amazed me with how much cleaner they get the house.

Maybe I am just particularly bad, but I do think it’s a skill and we should give a bit more respect to those who do practical jobs. Calling it unskilled seems insulting. Just look at all the blogs and insta influencers who make a career out of training us mere mortals in how to do it better.

@GammyLeg

Cleaning is hard, physical work, and anyone who earns a living doing it has my respect. But it’s not a skilled job.

I disagree, I genuinely have no idea how to clean. I grew up in a chaotic house and feel like everyone else got the lesson about how to clean, and i missed that lesson at school. It is a skilled job, it is something you can learn. But it is a skilled job

It's not a "profession". Yes profession can be used to mean occupation or job but it generally means something which requires formal training and qualifications.

Cleaners work hard but let's not kid ourselves that they're trained, highly qualified and skilled professionals. Because they are not. You can't get a HND in cleaning.

Many years ago my parents had a cleaner who had been brought up in service.

She definitely had skill and was apparently amazing.
The trick was she took genuine pride in work and it was like a career than than just a job.

The furniture and silver was always polished beautifully and the house was spotless

@GammyLeg

Cleaning is hard, physical work, and anyone who earns a living doing it has my respect. But it’s not a skilled job.

This

Though I think the language “skilled abs unskilled” isn’t particularly good language anyway.

It’s unskilled in the same way that being a shelf stacker is unskilled. But you can still be good or indeed bad at an unskilled job.
Good cleaners are worth their weight in gold.

Mmh I voted YABU because following your logic any job requires skills, you wouldn’t be able to walk into a cashier/waiter/courier/... ‘s job and do it without any explanation or basic training.
«Unskilled job» to me means no formal training or diplomas or even experience are required.

I think “skilled” and “unskilled” labelling is a silly way of framing it generally, because all jobs require the ability to do that job well, which of course can be rephrased as “skills”. But that’s not the same as a skilled job.
I worked as a cleaner while at uni, but would not describe it as a skilled job in the way that that phrase is generally used. You have to be good at cleaning, but that’s not what is meant by skilled/unskilled jobs.

Its not that its unskilled, its that it's a common and easily acquired skill. Most people can achieve a decent level of proficiency for basic domestic cleaning quite easily and have done so by about age 18.

I think there are valuable skills needed for cleaning, for sure.
But it's hardly comparable to surgery, architecture or engineering, is it?

I think it's skilled.

I'm not great at it myself and have had a variety of cleaners. The best two could for example get a shower screen completely free of limescale when every product I could find had failed to touch it.

Some of the others weren't that great.

There is no such thing as an unskilled job.. Devaluing skills that are traditionally done by women , and other marginalised people is a capitalist lie designed to exploit people and give them low wages in exchange for their labour. Doesn't matter how skilled a surgeon is, if the hospital is not cleaned well the patients will die. People should know their worth.

What would be an "unskilled" job OP?

It's not helpful language but I was just wondering what you would class as "unskilled". Even the person who stands in the centre of town holding a sign pointing to a shop has to use some level of skill to make sure they hold it the right way around.

I once checked tickets at the entrance of a tourist attraction. That really wasn’t skilled.

TheKeatingFive You had to be able to remember which ticket was which/what day it was and be able to read and to not upset the guests by being aggressive.

My cleaners work in teams, they have a supervisor who keeps them to time and task. They've set up a thriving business, where a carload of them work together and blitz each house in a matter of half an hour. They put the tunes on the Alexa and get cracking. They chat to each other and seem to have a friendly, sociable work environment. Importantly, because it's a group of them it's safe.

I think they are incredibly skilled business people. But I would still say that cleaning is unskilled in itself, by the definition we commonly use in the UK. Doesn't mean there isn't skill involved. Doesn't mean they're not good at it. Doesn't mean it's not important. But it's unskilled.

You had to be able to remember which ticket was which/what day it was and be able to read and to not upset the guests by being aggressive.

There was only one type of ticket. I only had to check they had one and let them in the door. We didn’t even bother checking dates.

You could probably have trained a dog to do it.

"Skilled manual labour" refers to jobs that you need to have undertaken study or an apprenticeship and passed exams, eg hairdressing or plumbing, so technically cleaning isn't skilled labour. That doesn't mean you don't require skills to be a good cleaner! A bit like everyone should be professional at work but that doesn't make you a "professional" in the sense that you have a professional job, a role that requires a high level of education/specific qualifications to do that job eg teacher, doctor, lawyer.

You are using the word skills in the wrong context. When it is described a non skilled job it just means that you don't need specific qualifications to do it. Yes there are hacks that are great but cleaning itself doesn't require you to gain qualifications or study to be able to do so it is non skilled in that respect. All professions deserve respect regardless. yabu.

I think the problem is the term "unskilled" - there are very few jobs, possibly no jobs, that require no skill at all.

But cleaning is a job that doesn't need months or years of training and doesn't require passing exams. Most people could become cleaners. So yes it is unskilled in those terms.

No not a skilled job. No formal training/ qualifications required to do the job.
EVERYONE can do it. Granted some of us better than others, but in the end we all know how to do it.

You could probably have trained a dog to do it. A Skilled dog .

I think if someone can be fired from a job for doing it wrong must involve some level of skill.

It’s definitely a skill.

I’m so bad at it. We got these new shiny tiles in our bathroom and I can’t for the life of me clean them without leaving marks.

Also our laminate worktop which is white! Never looks perfectly clean. We have new bathrooms which I want to maintain so I’ll definitely be hiring a cleaner soon.

I think you're conflating two different issues.

Yes, cleaners should be respected - it's a tiring, physical job and doing it day in, day out is tough on the body.

However, it is unskilled - but that's not a bad thing. Unskilled (to me) just means "a job you don't need to go to school for". I also work a job that's classed as "unskilled" and you know what? I make great money from it working part-time and setting my own hours.

There's absolutely nothing insulting about saying a job is unskilled.

I think if someone can be fired from a job for doing it wrong must involve some level of skill.

Could I have been fired? I’m not sure management would have bothered. That was less to do with the job though and more about management,

I think if someone can be fired from a job for doing it wrong must involve some level of skill.

But doing it wrong doesn't necessarily mean a job requires skill. Some people do jobs wrong because they're lazy and can't be arsed