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You know what I really love? I really love being the bad guy. I emjoy going around and telling people about their messes. Especially having to do it again and again, week after week. I get a hell of a charge out of it when nothing gets done and I end up cleaning things myself in the wee hours of the morning the day before the cleaning crew gets here. But what I really, really get off on is the way that any anger I may feel about the situation is totally unjustified. No one person created all the mess, so everyone feels smugly secure in the fact that they shouldn't have to clean it up, and that it will go away eventually. And it does, because someone, almost always me, makes it go away. So I'm practically doing a little jig of ecstasy every time someone makes a loud and bewildered comment about why I'm getting on their back to keep their things out of the suite.
I mean, it's not like we have Campus life breathing down our necks or anything like that. Surely if we were faced with the threat of real and serious consequences, we would get our act together! Perhaps if we were good friends we would cooperate to keep the area we live in from looking like a crack house. Maybe if we had convenient trash recepticles, we wouldn't leave things laying around. If only there were other people in the suite who wouldn't come down to visit because they were put off by our filthiness, then we would surely be shamed into tidiness...
Oh, wait...
As galling as it may be to admit, especially to a stubborn person like me, we are completely in the wrong on all sides of this issue. I worked for Servicemaster one summer, cleaning buildings, so I know a little bit about how things work in a professional cleaning service. And the idea of trying to clean our suite is like some sort of sick joke. When we leave our greasy appliances and our piles of "recyclables" and our giant baskets of lost shoes and piles of chainmail rings and dirty pots and pans out in the suite, that's unacceptable, even if we've managed to rise above the appalling filthiness that pervaded the suite earlier in the year. If our bathrooms are full of dirty dishes and towels that have been hanging in the same place since last term, it's unacceptable. And I'm guilty of it too, I certainly can't beg off. But at least I'm trying. And I'm ashamed and I hide in my room when Cleaning Services comes in. These are people who are just trying to do their jobs, and our thoughtlessness makes it harder. It makes things harder for a lot of people. Cleaning services, Andrea in Campus Life, Glen Normile who had to inspect our suite for fire hazards, Matt, who can't bring prospies into the suite he lives in, all the people upstairs who get dragged into this unpleasant process when they haven't done a thing wrong.
So yeah, tonight I am the bad guy. And I guess I'll keep being the bad guy, if I have to. God knows I've gotten enough training in that from the LARP. If you've seen my room, you know I'm not neat by nature. But this is something that cannot keep happening. It's wrong, and it's stupid, and it's just mean.
I mean, it's not like we have Campus life breathing down our necks or anything like that. Surely if we were faced with the threat of real and serious consequences, we would get our act together! Perhaps if we were good friends we would cooperate to keep the area we live in from looking like a crack house. Maybe if we had convenient trash recepticles, we wouldn't leave things laying around. If only there were other people in the suite who wouldn't come down to visit because they were put off by our filthiness, then we would surely be shamed into tidiness...
Oh, wait...
As galling as it may be to admit, especially to a stubborn person like me, we are completely in the wrong on all sides of this issue. I worked for Servicemaster one summer, cleaning buildings, so I know a little bit about how things work in a professional cleaning service. And the idea of trying to clean our suite is like some sort of sick joke. When we leave our greasy appliances and our piles of "recyclables" and our giant baskets of lost shoes and piles of chainmail rings and dirty pots and pans out in the suite, that's unacceptable, even if we've managed to rise above the appalling filthiness that pervaded the suite earlier in the year. If our bathrooms are full of dirty dishes and towels that have been hanging in the same place since last term, it's unacceptable. And I'm guilty of it too, I certainly can't beg off. But at least I'm trying. And I'm ashamed and I hide in my room when Cleaning Services comes in. These are people who are just trying to do their jobs, and our thoughtlessness makes it harder. It makes things harder for a lot of people. Cleaning services, Andrea in Campus Life, Glen Normile who had to inspect our suite for fire hazards, Matt, who can't bring prospies into the suite he lives in, all the people upstairs who get dragged into this unpleasant process when they haven't done a thing wrong.
So yeah, tonight I am the bad guy. And I guess I'll keep being the bad guy, if I have to. God knows I've gotten enough training in that from the LARP. If you've seen my room, you know I'm not neat by nature. But this is something that cannot keep happening. It's wrong, and it's stupid, and it's just mean.
