An Airport Cleaning Job is Never Over
When you are next at an airport take a few moments to look around. Are the floors strewn with litter and detritus? No, its sparkling and clean.
Most busy airports employ an army of cleaners whose job it is to keep the airport terminals clean and safe for passengers. They perform their work while surrounded by busy people headed off on business trips and harassed families going away for their annual vacations. There are countless fast food outlets who appear to have conspired to serve up their food in enough packaging to fill and refill all of the airport bins several times over every single day.
Marie is just one of the many hundreds of cleaners employed to kee Glasgow’s busy international airport clean. She has previously gained experience at various other Scottish airports, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, but prefers Glasgow as it is much busier.
A typical day for her starts at 4 a.m. when she starts the early shift, cleaning the airport terminal ready for the next wave of travelers to pass through the airport doors. She says that the most common daily problem is unattended baggage. ‘Even though people know about terrorism they can still forget and leave their bags unattended. When I come across a bag that is not with anyone I am required to report it to airport security. Some poeple can get quite upset when their hand luggage is treated like a bomb.
Marie told us that she doesn’t meet many rude or obnoxious passengers but they do appear from time to time. She said: ‘Only last week I encountered a young woman who purposely dropped her rubbish on the floor in front of me’.
As well as the unattended bags that might be bombs and the occasional rude passenger Marie has to deal with all the odd things that people leave behind. She said: ‘I’ve lost count of the number of laptops, mobile phones and MP3 players that I have picked up over recent years. I even once found a carrier bag that was stuffed full of American dollars.’
A key skill of anyone working as an airport cleaner is the ability to deal with people. ‘The ability to remain calm when someone is in a panic because they are late for their flight is definitely a bonus’ said Marie.
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