Carla Bax has been cleaning the campus for forty years: ‘I’m proud of my work’

For nearly forty years, cleaner Carla Bax has worked at Tilburg University. Univers set the alarm clock and joined her on an early morning shift. ‘Some people look down on cleaners. That says more about them than it does about me.’

When Tilburg resident Carla Bax (65) parks her bicycle at the bike racks at a quarter to six in the morning, the campus is serene and deserted. Accompanied by the enthusiastic whistling of birds, she walks to the entrance of the Tias building. Sunrise is still some time away.

She is used to arriving in the dark, Carla says. ‘My alarm goes off at half past four. Then I take my time getting started, because I don’t like rushing in the morning.’ At half past five she cycles from the Reeshof district to the university. ‘Luckily, I’m a morning person.’

Working undisturbed

Carla Bax started working as a cleaner at the university in 1986. For the past seventeen years, she has been responsible for the Tias building, which she knows like the back of her hand. Starting early has its advantages, Carla explains. ‘It’s nice to be able to work undisturbed, without students and staff getting in the way.’

Throughout the day, Carla manoeuvres a large cart full of cleaning supplies through Tias. It is her cart: soaps, cloths, garbage bags, and a few personal belongings are arranged with precision and care. Some items even have her name on them. ‘Everything has to be tidy and complete. I don’t like mess.’

Look, think, do

Carla begins her workday on the first floor. ‘I always follow the same route, and I prefer working alone. That way, if something hasn’t been done properly, I know it was my mistake.’ Laughing, she adds: ‘And when you work in pairs, there’s a lot of chatting.’

‘When I enter a room, I quickly assess it first: is there rubbish on the floor, are the chairs straight, is the board clean? Blue marker, for example, is very hard to remove. Then I get to work.’ Her tactic: ‘Look, think, do.’ She also knows exactly how long each task takes, down to every floor. ‘I work by the clock.’

A toilet stall covered in blood

‘It’s really dirty in here. Total crap,’ Carla says after peeking into the men’s toilets. And while scrubbing a toilet bowl with a brush: ‘This one’s really stuck.’ In her opinion, the women’s toilets usually look better. ‘But when they’re dirty, they’re really dirty.’

‘Once, I found an entire toilet stall covered in blood: the door, the walls, literally everything. Smeared from top to bottom with fingers,’ she says, curling her hand into a claw to demonstrate what it must have looked like. ‘You wouldn’t do that at home, would you? Accidents happen, but at least clean it up afterwards.’

Annoying wet wipes

The microfibre cloths in Carla’s cart are sorted by colour. ‘Blue is for interiors, red for toilets, yellow for whiteboards, and then I have floor cloths as well. I fold the cloths so I can use multiple surfaces. Afterwards, I throw them into the laundry bag hanging at the back of the cart. At the end of my shift, I take that bag to the laundry room in Cube.’

‘I’m not allowed to use cleaning products, only water. That’s because of environmental regulations. My spray bottle does contain a mechanism that helps me clean without leaving streaks, because nobody wants streaks on their desk.’

While wiping down employees’ desks, she occasionally notices packets of wet wipes lying around. ‘People might think nothing has been cleaned, even though I wipe the desks every day. But those wet wipes leave streaks behind, and that’s very frustrating for cleaners. We get judged on that during quality inspections.’

Compliments

Carla has already put in several hours of work by the time sunlight hits the façade of Tias. The building slowly fills with the first staff members and students. Not everyone greets her, but sometimes she receives compliments. ‘Someone once said to me: ma’am, it always looks beautiful here.’

‘When I started at the university in 1986, everyone greeted each other. Nowadays, people mostly come to tell me something is dirty. Though I once received a box of chocolates after finding a ring in the women’s restroom. It was clearly an important ring, because that lady was extremely happy to get it back.’

Heavy lifting

At ten o’clock, it’s time for a cheese sandwich and a cup of tea. Sitting at a table near a coffee corner, Carla explains that she used to clean the ground floor of Tias as well. ‘I can’t manage that anymore; I’m getting older. Cleaning is physically demanding work, and this building has more toilets than I care for,’ she says with a laugh. ‘Luckily, I now have a cordless vacuum cleaner, which saves a lot of bending over.’

‘I now work four days instead of five. It used to be six, including shifts in the library. Sometimes I make things difficult for myself because I want everything to be too good and too neat. To get everything done on time, I have to do a lot of heavy lifting.’ Proudly, she adds: ‘But I want to deliver quality.’

‘Inferior work’

‘I started at the university after my son was born. It was a different era. People still smoked in their offices back then, and I had to clean the ashtrays. I found that smell so awful and penetrating. And when the very first computers arrived, they were these enormous bulky machines.’

‘Some people look down on cleaners. It doesn’t hurt me anymore; it says more about them than about me. But in the beginning, it sometimes felt like inferior work, and I wondered why I was even doing it. As a girl, I desperately wanted to become a nurse, but my father wouldn’t allow it.’

‘I may earn less than others at the university, but the older I get, the less that bothers me. I absolutely wouldn’t want to swap places and sit behind a desk all day.’ Laughing loudly: ‘And I’m a toilet-ologist.’

Always happy when Carla has been here

‘We’re always very happy when Carla has been here,’ says a maintenance employee. ‘The men here make quite a mess.’ Carla takes one quick look at the carpet in the workspace and reaches for her vacuum cleaner. Moments later, crumbs and little stones enthusiastically rattle through the vacuum hose.

As the morning progresses, Carla literally works her way upward through Tias and the laundry bag filled with microfibre cloths grows heavier. More staff members stop to talk to her.

‘Don’t go on holiday for too long, Carla,’ says a passing colleague. ‘Because we miss you when you’re gone.’

Here and there, she exchanges brief conversations with people. It visibly does her good. ‘Most people here are very kind. I think they like having a regular cleaner.’

Proud of my work

In October 2027, Carla will retire. Her husband Cees recently retired before her and now has a cup of tea ready when she gets home.

‘When he was still working, I would immediately vacuum the house after finishing my shift. Now there’s someone saying: “Is that really necessary again already, Carla?”’

‘But after tea, I still get started. My husband could clean too. ‘Ah, I never do it up to your standards anyway,’ is usually his defence. And to be fair, he’s right.’ With a wink: ‘He just can’t be bothered.’

After retirement, she wants to spend more time with her grandson and hobbies such as embroidery and making postcards. She also hopes to do volunteer work with elderly people suffering from dementia.

Still, Carla is not focusing on retirement too much yet. ‘I’m proud of my forty years at the university, and I get satisfaction from my work. If I feel that I’ve done my job well, I still cycle home feeling very content.’

Carla Bax is one of the 55 cleaners, women and men, who keep Tilburg University clean every day. They are not employed directly by the university, but work for cleaning company CSU.

_Advertentie.