“God loves a clean street”
-- Mother Theresa to an Indian street sweeper
Cleanliness has value. It’s worth repeating. Cleanliness has value.
Almost everything being manufactured and almost every service that makes the great engine of our economy run has value. I have the priviledge of walking into scores of businesses a day. A recent tour through Commerce City included seeing pipe manufacturers, plastic packaging makers and beverage suppliers. Other days involved stops at makers of trucks, cranes, gravel, paper products, stage sets, water filters, tires, bamboo flooring, roofing, granite slabs, and all of it good and useful in forming a civilized society. These things all have value.
These are examples of tangible products, so let’s broaden the focus to service providers. A day spent on Colorado Boulevard involved visits to law offices who help (or have the potential anyway) to ensure our justice system and dental offices who fix our teeth. Medical clinics, accounting firms, mechanics, landscapers, plumbing repair and website consultants all add value to the economy. They make life better for everyone.
But there are a few exceptions. Some people do work in jobs with negative value -- like the pornography industry to give an easy example. The result of this work might provide a momentary thrill to the consumers, but ultimately leaves them more empty, breaks actual, real relationships, and dehumanizes women. A huge industry, but it doesn’t add value to the city.
There are also many products with questionable or at best neutral value. I run the risk of getting off topic to argue for any one product, but plastic vomit or violent video games might be up for debate.
Getting back to cleaning offices. This is a service that has unquestioned value. It makes the city better.
This point might seem obvious, but I want to break it down further. Some aspects of cleaning affect our ability to function on a practical level. Some aspects of cleaning directly affect our health and some affect our psychological well-being.
On a practical level, the trash must be taken out, or it will eventually overflow to where it gets in the way, not to mention cause distracting odors. On a health level, door handles and light switches must be cleaned to contain the spread of flu germs, and bathroom cleaning, if neglected, will eventually reach a level that affects health. Finally, on a psychological level, people feel better when they are in a clean space. There is something humanizing about a clean environment. This is an easy point to underestimate.
It has been found that people behave differently when they are dressed differently. If wearing casual clothing, people behave in a more relaxed way. If in professional clothing, people tend to sit up straighter, and work in a more focused manner.
A study was done in New York City where people who lived in a chaotic environment behaved in a chaotic way. When windows were broken, and graffiti was on the outside of public buildings and property, there was a feeling of no order or discipline, and there were higher instances of violence and crime. When the windows were kept fixed, and graffiti removed, people weren’t violent or breaking laws. Pause and consider how incredible that is. The crime rate is affected among other things, by the cleanliness of the environment!
How does this relate to the work enviroment? When an office space is kept clean, people feel, whether they realize it or not, more valued, more accountable, and will work more productively and with more integrity. When an office space is dirty, attitudes will follow and will work less, cut more corners and feel less valued and more agitated.
Cleaning offices has enormous value and janitors provide a noble service to the health and life and economy of the city. My next entry will tell the story of a few of the noble night cleaners with Alliance Maintenance in Denver.
