Once upon a time there was a woman who managed the cleaning in a big successful company. No one ever noticed neither her or her work, unless it was not properly done off course. Thus, her position was highly ungracious and it was hard to imagine that any one would ever want to be in her shoes. Every day was the same, to operate without appearing and never get the least credit for it. That was her fate.
She didn’t think about it much though, she just did it. Without any other options available there was nothing else to do but to keep up with the endless working. It could be worse off course and at least she had a job. Who was she to be longing for something better? In the end it was nothing but a wasteful escape from reality that didn’t serve any purpose at all. So she kept on with her everyday toil and disregarded the indisputable fact that her existence only came to live when her work was undone.
One day there was a poster on one of the company boards. “Company Awards” was written in big graceful letters accompanied by the company logo. Yeah right, the cleaning woman was thinking, credit for puppets. Real workers has to keep on working and that’s it. When she got home there was a letter from the company in her mailbox. It was an invitation to the Company Awards with a request for a proper dress.
The cleaning lady spent much thoughts on the event the following days. Never before had she been invited to such a gala. Imagine that cleaners were invited. What would she wear? She didn’t have any proper dress at all. Neither did she know the meaning of “proper”. If she had been one of the regular crew she could have talked to her workmates and asked them what they should wear, but now she was just a cleaner and they didn’t have any fellow workers.
And so the time has come for the event to take place. The cleaning woman had obtained a new dress and was hoping that no one would ever notice that it was on sale. As a coincidence the dress happened to match the company colours. In usual order, no one did take any notice of her as she entered the hall. Everybody were busy discussing the situations in the projects they were engaged in. Nobody but the cleaning woman was engaged in the cleaning project, so she had to discuss that with herself.
The awards regarded the best performance of the year. To be able to win that award the contestant had to have been working very hard with a very little gain for himself and with the best interest for the company in mind. Everybody thought that the award should go to the sales manager, as he had secured three very big clients to the company this year, which was a very great achievement as they all were very busy clients with great potential for huge investments.
But the award went to the cleaning lady. Her gain for herself was so small that it was regarded as priceless. Everybody in the company were influenced by her work (although they didn’t think of it until it was realized by the compere), but only a couple of people were gained by the efforts of the sales manager, so there was no doubt that the price should go to the cleaning woman. Everybody gave and shook her hand. Never before had the Company Awards been so exciting.
The cleaning lady was the woman of the moment and for the first time she was the centre of everybody’s attention. This was the best day in her entire life and she wished that it would never end. When she fell asleep that night it was with a smile on her cleaning lips. And she woke up the next morning and almost floated on her way to the big successful company. She entered the premises and started her important cleaning work. Now she had a reputation to fulfill. Though no one didn’t seem to notice either her or her work as before, she now knew that she actually made a difference. And that was what mattered.
Tags: cleaning, cleaning lady, cleaning woman, company awards, mop, performance, sales manager, staff, vacuum cleaner