Mindful Quest : 6 Lessons I Learnt After Being A Housekeeper
Let me leverage with you guys, I suck at this job.
However, I am not bitching about this on this post. The fact that after one month of being a housekeeper, I have learnt so much about dealing with stressful situations and how to keep myself fresh and be prepared by being aware of everything going on. Hence, even though I may be not the best to tell you how to be successful in your work like other blog tips, I would like to share my 6 personal valuable lessons I have conducted afterwards.
1. Appreciate The Work Of Hotel Housekeepers
We often don’t pay much attention to the housekeeping job and people who do it. I mean, why should we? We pay to stay, and whenever we go out and come back, the room is clean. Housekeeping as other silent jobs is often be disregarded because of its nature.
First of all, this is not an easy job like some of us may perceive. The outcome of housekeeping tasks is responsible to the great extent of the hotel’s quality and customer’s satisfaction. Thus, there are strict requirements for the cleanliness and tidiness and specific tasks that each housekeeper must implement thoroughly including wiping the bathtub and toilet; dusting all the glass doors, windows, mirror, and telly; emptying the trash can, fulfill the minibar and tea set; then hovering and moping the floor and all floorboards.
Secondly, it can be extremely pressure. For instance, the hotel I worked in specifies each room has a limited time which is about 17 minutes. Hence, a housekeeper usually has to rush through in average 25-30 rooms for a regulated time of 8 hours in order to assure that rooms are ready for customer’s check-in on time. In summer time, due to the fact that there are many new clients check in every day, the housekeepers not only must guarantee to follow the right procedure but also have to finish all tasks faster.
Sometimes, some rooms requires more time and effort to clean than others. In our hotel, we have a term called “Bloody Monday” which refers to horrific Monday scheduled lists. Not only the day with the most check out rooms, Monday’s rooms are also the aftermath of many wild parties on the weekend that way beyond imagination.
To be honest, I didn’t expect the job would be so detailed and delicate when I signed the contract. And while that it is not for me after all, I have grown an extreme admiration for people who work silently days and nights to guarantee the quality of our stay and meet up our satisfaction to have a truly incredible experiences staying in a hotel. Hands down to them!
2. The Heaviest Pressure Came From Inside
I spent a tremendous amount of time scared. Frightened of what will happen, what will not happen. Then I came to realize that fear is the worst enemy.
Every time I worked, I had a nervous feeling of being judged by the supervisors, the fear of being laid off when I didn’t keep up with the time, the fear of what if I forgot something and the customers complained. These thoughts dried me out and kept me away from focusing on just simply doing the work.
No one can be a bigger jerk to you more than yourselves. So, when I realized that there is no need to keep worrying, only then I could focus and do a much better job.On my last week, my working quality was visibly enhanced that my boss actually came and encouraged me. The pressure you carry on your shoulders weigh you down more than anything so only when you can put it down and accept the situation, you can only thrive to better.
3. Learn To Accept The Situation
It sucks to admit we are bad at something.
Everyday we hear term like “Test ourselves to the limit” that makes us wonder, “what is our limit?”
There were times when I asked myself what if I could actually do a better job. Then I slowly realized that this kind of thoughts just bugged me and cast a huge doubt about my ability and willingness.
In my journey of learning mindfulness, I realize that the biased prejudice of seeing one notion as good and the other as bad has caused my suffering. For example, I have wanted and tried to do a decent job in housekeeping, actually in the last week, I had improved dramatically compared to the previous weeks. However, I was still unhappy because I always thought I could do better.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s a good thing to get motivation to change and try. However, in order to have happiness, we need to accept the possibility that either notion could be good and bad, only by analyzing without bias we will be capable of seeing advantages and disadvantages. For example, by quitting the housekeeping job, I have more times to work for this blog and learn for my professional career.
As a Tibetan sage put it “If you are partisan, you will be obstructed by bias and will not recognize the actual advantages”. This is why it is crucial to be unbiased and willing to face whatever the reality of a situation may be.
4. Breathe!
Do you know how you breathe when you’re worried? I know: short and shallow breaths.
There are scientific proofs stated that the way we breathe affect directly to our brain and body function. When we forget how to breathe, our breaths become short and shallow, that will increase the heart rate and high blood pressure, then it triggers the vague nerve-the nerve running from the base of the brain to the abdomen-causing anxiety and stress.
During the time being a housekeeper, I had experienced the worst time of my life when I was disastrous and completely forgot how to breathe. After 4-5 hours, my whole body was exhausted, my brain clogged, and several time I was on the verge of passing out.
The advice to “just breathe” when you are stress sounds cliche but it’s the most fundamental act to to balance your mind and body, to help you analyze the situation and figure out what to do next. To learn how to breathe mindfully, check my other post about how to breathe.
5. Take care of your body
Have you ever been so mad and disappointed with yourself that you skip meals? And how do you feel afterward? Hungry and Tired?
In order to keep up with the limited time, I often worked through lunch and barely drank water. Inevitably, after 3 or 4 hours, my body started to protest. My stomach hurt, my brain clogged, my lips cracked because of dehydration. It was so bad that I thought I was literally in hell.
We often think that is a no big deal to sometimes just skip a meal. However, as one follows the mindful journey, we need to take care of our own body first. Learn to be aware of your body, when you are hungry or thirsty so that when we eat or drink, we feel joy to be freshened and nourished. Remember to sit down when you eat, sometimes we are rushing so much that we eat when we are running. Don’t. Sitting down reminds us to stop, you have nothing else to do and nowhere to go. You’re at peace.
6. Have a good attitude
Even though I was distressed and disappointing at times, I never complaint or had any issue with my supervisors. That the biggest achievement I can be proud of.
It is easy to blame someone or something when you are in a bad situation. Blaming is an automatic action to discharge your unpleasant feelings out of your body, we perceive. “My boss doesn’t help me”, “there are so many things to do”, “I don’t like doing it anyway”, “I suck”. However, we cannot make the problem disappears when we blame, on the other hand, we may cause more disastrous consequences for our feelings or for other people.
As I said earlier, learning to accept the situation helps us to have a better attitude. When you are angry at someone, you need to remember everything has a causes and consequences and go into the root of the matter to truly understand it. If you think the boss is unfair to you, don’t argue with him (her) or gossip behind his/her back, instead, you should talk directly to him/her about the problem, about what you think in a soft tone. Then you listen carefully what (s)he says, just listen, don’t put any emotions or judgments on it.
By deeply talking and listening, now you have a clear perception about both your point of view and him/hers. Now, you have three options:
- You accept the situation and never think about it
- You change yourself to adapt with the situation
- You leave the situation.
There is no point of being arguing in a complicated situation and you have no chance of changing someone perspective. Thus, if you want to be happy, contemplate to implement these 3 options into your daily and working life. You don’t deserve to carry the distress and sorrow all the way, just put it down.
That’s all folks
It had been a roller coaster ride with joy, sorrow, and relief until when I decided it was the right time to stop. In the end, I am glad that I stopped at time even though my financial situation was tough. However, the lessons I learnt from the time being a housekeeper was valuable and it surely help in my quest of living harmoniously with my body and mind. And I hope you get something for yourself too.
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