Annoyed with the office cleaner

[VerySweatyBetty1]

Here’s a thing:

I've suspected for some time that our office cleanerr sits and dozes / charges his phone / eats his breakfast in my chair. I’ve never quite caught him but I’ve often ‘surprised’ him ‘suddenly cleaning’ when I've walked in earlier than normal (I'm a late person). My office is an easy choice – comfy, fan, phone charger ready plugged in on my desk. He will have noticed I’m rarely in before 9.30 and he can listen out for people coming in and out. In fact, as I’m above the front door, you can hear people arriving as the door slams shut.

He's been caught out in the past by leaving his breakfast on my desk, and coming back for it. Apologetically.

My colleague once nearly caught him in another office, so it's a known thing amongst us that this happens.

Yesterday there were some ear buds in a case on my desk. Barely anyone else here this week and nobody would want to sit here anyway, as they all have their own comfy offices. So I was pretty sure they were the cleaners. Wondering what to do / and wondering what he would do, I put them in my desk drawer while I thought about it. That was yesterday. This morning they’ve gone. This means he’s come in looking for his earbuds and has opened my personal drawers in my desk. These contain my personal effects – medication, spare underwear, receipts, personal letters and cards. I can't lock the door of my office or of my drawers. We're a pretty low-security establishment and trust one another.

In addition: we have a very narrow entrance to our building (which is part of a group of buildings, which are all serviced by an external company). He has taken up residence at the foot of the stairs. Eats his lunch there. sits on the stairs having loud conversations on his phone. We have to literally climb over him to get in and out, including when we have visitors.

I've always found this highly annoying and inappropriate but my colleagues don't seem to mind and tolerate it and I don't want to be the office bitch. The bloke is bussed in with a load of others from goodness knows where, at the crack of dawn, probably on the minimum wage and probably not well treated. There must be a common room where his colleagues hang out, but he seems to prefer our stairwell. Maybe they bully him, and he just wants some peace and quiet. So, I don't want to ruin things for him but he's crossed a line.

He speaks barely a single word of English, so I can't even have a gentle chat with him (or I'd have done it by now). The only way to communicate is via his boss. I suppose I could use Google Translate and leave him a note:

"Please do not take rest breaks at my desk, and do not open my drawers"

I don't want to scare him, though, or I'll end up being the one in trouble.

WWYD?

@GodSavetheJean - thank you for the analogy with the home cleaning lady. That is indeed how it feels.

Cue MN now piling onto say 'if you haven't bought the desk, it isn't yours' etc. Jesus.

Why is expecting someone to do their work efficiently and without leaving stuff around treating them like crap?

@MildredSauce - calm down. I actually mentioned knickers in my original post to be light-hearted. But it passed most people by. I've just checked and disappointingly there are actually no knickers (they're actually in a plastic bag in my work bag). There are some tights, socks, other paraphernalia.

and, tbh, he'd get no excitement from my knickers anyway - they're hardly attractive specimens.

You don't think stealing from someone is an issue?

Ah, you've obviously never read any cleaner-critical posts on MN before - they never end well I'm afraid

Just because you’re not a minimum wage worker doesn’t mean you’re better than people who are. And your OP sounds very much like you think you are.

This is completely unacceptable and tantamount to your home cleaning lady taking a nap and eating her lunch ON YOUR BED!

no it isn’t! Chill out Goldilocks

Where is the stealing?

Putting the earbuds in a drawer is not theft. It doesn't come close.

Of course it is stealing. OP is quite clear her desk drawers are a private space. She put something that she knew belonged to someone else, in her private space.
If she was not stealing she could have just left them on her desk.

Yabu OP.

NO! It’s like your window cleaner opening the window and HAVING A CRAP through it! And then BURNING DOWN YOUR HOUSE!!!

I can't get over being this precious about workplace furniture.

That's not what stealing is.
OP is quite clear she considers her desk (and chair) a private space and the earbuds were left in a 'private' space already. Clearly the cleaner considers none of the locations to be private and had no issue retrieving them. No one has been permanently (or even temporarily) deprived of anything. The OP has, at worst, tidied away the cleaner's earbuds in a place they know is awkward.

It's not any different to taking next door's football inside so they have to knock and ask for it instead of jumping over the fence - do you also (inappropriately) consider that to be stealing?

Why did you hide his earbuds ?
that was sneaky, they were not yours to put in your drawer
of course he went looking for them, to him they are expensive - after all he has a shit job and earns peanuts !

'I think you and your co-worker need to take it up with the cleaning company - I would raise it as a fire hazard - normally, entrances and exits have to be kept clear'

Surely this relates to bulky items being stored in entrances and exits, they would be a fire hazard. A person having their break not so much surely they would stand up and walk out the door at the first sounding of a fire alarm,. Unlike say, a filing cabinet now that would be a fire hazard.

hanging around the stairs and making people climb over him to get in/out is clearly an issue. No member of staff would be allowed to do this so why should this person? report that back to the building management.

And yes, they should be having their breaks in the buildings communal space. not your desk. this isn't "grabbing a hot drink whilst working" - this is full on sitting down to eat already got food. So a longer break.
Are there any more suitable chairs in your charity office room? a chair in the communal area/meeting room? thats where i'd expect someone external to sit for a quick bite to eat, not shut themselves away in someone's office.

@ClaudiaWankleman Op did not tell the cleaner where his earbuds were. Of course it was stealing. The cleaner had no idea if she was going to return them.
Can you imagine if a colleague accidentally left their phone on your desk. Would you just put it in your desk drawers and tell no one?

It's like a thread of jobsworths v nice tolerant people.

Leave the cleaners alone if they dare to site on a chair or even worse the stairs. How very dare they be so brazen. They'll be asking to use the toilet next. Nope! Go in your own staff area you cheeky neanderthal!

She didn't steal from them. Someone left something on her desk and she put it in a drawer. He seems to be hanging round the building all day so why didn't he come back and ask her for them? You know why he didn't.

@Pluvia so you had better not leave your phone or purse or bag on a colleagues desk accidentally. If they do they can just hide it in their desk drawers.
The cleaner did not know OP had it because OP did not tell him. He will have done what we all do when retracing our steps. He checked the desk drawers and found OP had stolen from him.

It was more than play on words making me grin. I promise you, I'm calm.

No idea why your attempt to be light hearted passed everyone by. Perhaps it was because you appeared to skyrocket straight to johnny-foreigner-taking-the-piss.

But please @VerySweatyBetty1 do indulge me in my previous q - would you be like this with anyone using your desk/office/chair?

@VerySweatyBetty1 what are you going to steal from the cleaners next?

You keep knickers in your desk drawer?! Omg ive worked in an office for 27 years. Ive never known that before! Keep them in your bag 😂 The thought of him/another colleague routing through literally your drawers! 🙃

I think calling it stealing is overdramatic, but if I knew I'd left something on a colleague's desk and neither they nor it were there when I went back, I'd have a look in the drawer to see if they'd tidied it away.