Before starting the job as a cleaner, in the week off he had before the interview Jack did a little bit of research by reading some online forums that were dedicated spaces for the people who are current cleaners and previous cleaners too. Along with the FAQs tab on the forums, he found something that answered his query perfectly, it was a summary on "how to clean – by an experienced cleaner". The guide was made by an ex-cleaner who had worked in a hotel for 25 years and had recently retired, which listed a bunch of tips and tricks. One of which was the simple philosophy of top to bottom.
By implementing the top to bottom work pattern, you'd be able to get the work done by tiring your legs out less, as you wouldn't be walking up, but down. You'd also be a lot cooler too. One thing they mentioned was that scientific theory was proved time and time again, especially in wintertime whenever they worked at the hotel. Said scientific theory, was the proven theory that heat rises. In the winter, the hotel would be stacked with tons of people on the regular, which means lots of body heat, plus the heat from all the radiators throughout the hotel.
Once put together it would rise to the higher levels and by the time you're reaching the last of your rounds on the top floor, not only would you be drained into nothing but a skin sleeve that cleans, but also on top of that, you'd be suffocating from the workout you've done by cleaning, and from the heat that had built up in the hotel on the lower levels. However, if you do it in reverse and go down, you'll be cooler and the cold air on the ground floor would cool down your high body heat from work. An extra plus on top of that would be the elevator rides between water changes for mopping and glass cleaning would be shorter the further you got into completing the day's work.
Following these instructions, Jack decided to start off on the window cleaning. Tucking the drying rag into the back of his trousers, a yellow 'slip' warning sign under his arm, and the bucket of soapy water with the window wiper inside in his hand, he headed towards the elevator and went to the top floor. Upon reaching the top floor, he got everything ready as planned and before he began, he took out his headphones, put on the music that was on his phone and started to work.
Feeling at ease thanks to the music that was distracting him from his new surroundings, Jack began to work efficiently at a decent pace, even feeling comfortable enough to hum away loudly to the music playing in his ears. Little did Jack know that the hip-shaking moves and loud musical humming he made whilst wiping down the windows and drying off the windowsills were in fact being recorded by the girls in the building who had heard him, through the cracks of the door. Little did Jack know; he was about to become famous in the group chat of all the girls in the building.
As jack went to turn around to move to the other side of the floor to do the other window, the loud bangs of multiple doors slamming shut echoed through the hall before he fully pivots round. He took his earphones out to see if anyone was there.
"H… Hello? Is anybody there? Are you okay?"
There was no response as the girls who were scared to be caught filming him, hid behind their front doors. With no reaction to his words, Jack went about his day as normal and continued where he left off, doing the windows on each floor and every time he would move to a new floor, the girls on the lower floors would take a glance through the cracks of their doors at the new dancing cleaner they had seen on the group chat.
Finally reaching the bottom floor and returning to the caretaker's cupboard, Jack took a much-needed break in the hallway, taking in a sip of water, and scrolling through his playlist to see what other old songs he used to have on his phone, a group of girls walked into the building, past the hall beside the reception where Jack was standing towards the elevator. The was the first time Jack had saw any of the tenants of the building, so in order to try and be polite, he forced out a smile and raised his hand to wave hello at them. In response, the girls looked at their phone briefly, looked at Jack, waved and giggled together as they got into the elevator.
Jack was confused and thought to himself, what was so funny? He checked over his clothes, check his face on the mirror which was placed on the back of the cupboard door and then began to plough through his thoughts as to why he was being giggled at. Then whilst lost deep in thought, he received a text from his mum, 'How's work going, everything okay?'. Returning back to reality, he responded that all was okay and put away his stuff to get back to the job.
This time, all he took to the top floor was a hoover, mop bucket and mop, along with the same warning 'slip' sign from earlier. Once again, putting his headphones in, Jack got to work. Placing the t-shaped nozzle on the end of the hoover he began to clean up the top floor. Unsurprisingly the girls watched to see whether or not Jack would do something comical once more, and much to their satisfaction he did. Halfway through cleaning the hall, he decided to use the hoover nose as an air guitar for a momentary rock out. This was a moment that could only be described as 'nerd-in-motion', the dancing cleaner had struck again in the group chat.
Reaching the end of the hallway, a high-pitched beep echoed through Jack's head and a red circle on top of a neon blue envelope could be seen in the top right corner of his vision. It looked like a minimized emblem that represented a tab in an RPG game. Noticing it must be the system, Jack doubled tapped the back of his lightly with his index finger and opened the HUD. The HUD opened up before him and displayed all of his current stats, his occupation which was listed as 'cleaner', and lastly his skills list. The skills list tab had a red circle on it, showing that a notification needed to be checked.
Checking his notification on the skills tab, he was alerted that he had reached 50% of the required experience for the progress to level 2 of the 'Maid Manor' Skill. Now that level 2 of the skill had been revealed, after reaching the 50% progress mark, he began to slowly run his finger up the screen, like a smartphone, to read the description of level 2. All the while he was doing this, the girls were still peaking at him through the cracks of their doors and could see him shaking his hips side to side whilst flicking his wrist up and down whenever his finger would move.
Thinking it was a new dance move, they would film themselves by the door, jokingly imitating what could only be described as a super weird dance move from their perspective, then uploading it to the group chat once more. On the first day of the job, Jack had managed to build quite the reputation for himself.