Those Vacation Jobs, 4: The All-Night Cleaning Team

One vacation, serious studying needed to be done: final exams loomed. But cash-flow was bad and needed to be fixed. As a solution I took a job working as one of the all-night cleaners at a hotel/holiday complex on the coast. A sprawling affair with endless bars, ballrooms and restaurants. I took the job because as compensation for the unsocial hours the shift was shorter and the rate of pay higher. I studied during the day.

And so at 2am in the morning when revellers had been sent to their beds and the majority of the bars closed for the night, we moved in. Of course I'd never cleaned vast expanses of wood nor tiles nor carpet before. Nor acres of bar tops. I thought I could do it. Machines helped but only on the easy expanses: much surface needed care and attention best done by hand. It took me a week before my supervisor was confident I could do it brilliantly. I learnt a lot about the intrinsic worth of any job.

Some people clean shoes, some people polish them. And some turn the shoe into a work of art.

Those Vacation Jobs, 1: Picking Grapes in France

Those Vacation Jobs, 2: The Bakery and The Fish & Chip Shop

Those Vacation Jobs, 3: Head of Sales, Zenith Science Magazine