People have odd ideas about why and how support staff should be viewed in a place of business.

And by “odd,” I mostly mean “abhorrent.” As if they’re robots, not people.

OP worked cleaning a factory, and the first issue was keeping track of how many toilet paper rolls were needed in a month’s time.

As a Contract Cleaner the food company I was working at decided to start shaving costs in the most pathetic ways by switching to cheaper plastic cups for the water coolers (that were too small for the dispensers and fell through them).

Also cheaper paper towels (you needed twice as much to dry your hands because it was so thin so they ended up costing more) and trying to figure out EXACTLY how many toilet rolls they needed to buy per month.

So for two months we had to fill out forms for all the toilets every time we put a fresh roll in a dispenser, and after a week they said we couldn’t leave the boxes on the form blank.

We had to put in a 0 so there was no ‘ambiguity’ about whether or not we were filling out the forms.

OP complied and they didn’t like that.

Now, in the offices and factory toilets that saw several dozen people using them, there were only a few days where we needed to put a 0 in the box.

But the lone toilet in the potato intake building, almost no one ever used it because you could be overheard in the control room next door.

But we still had to fill out the form for that lone toilet.

So I did, like this…

0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0100000
0000000
0000000

They complained I was ‘taking the ****’.

I said I was just doing exactly what I was told to do. And in ten weeks I had indeed only needed to replace one roll.

Then, they complained that she asked them (politely) to move when she was trying to clean – which they paid her to do.

There was also a supervisor there who kept ringing my manager to complain I was rude if I said ‘Excuse me.’ if someone was in my way while I was hoovering or mopping.

He also rang my manager to complain that I was being ‘patronising’ when I said ‘Excuse me, please.’

They didn’t like her response to that, either.

So my manager told me in very definite terms to never, ever, ask anyone to move.

If I was working and they didn’t have the common sense to get out of the way as I performed the job they were PAYING our company to do; that was their problem.

That supervisor was not impressed with this compromise, but the manager had the owner of our company was witness to his complaints so he was able to point out he was getting exactly what he wanted; me not interacting with anyone.

Ever.

Oh, well.

People understand all too well.

This person wonders what OP was supposed to do.

Mop right over the shoes.

The writing was also spot-on.

Either is acceptable.

Some people just aren’t happy no matter what you do.

So you might as well just not even try.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.