The Cleaner
Wet cloth. Mop. Bucket. Vacuum cleaner. Black refuse bags. White refuse bags. The tools of my trade.
I am a cleaner.
For 4 weeks, I’ve been working as a cleaner in one of the University’s buildings. I work 3 hours a day, every week days. I start my work at 5am in the morning, right up to 8am. My pay? £5.05 per hour, which incidentally is the minimum wage for workers aged 22 years and older here in the UK.
It’s not that I desperately need the money. The monthly sum my parents send me every month is more than enough for me to live relatively comfortably here in the UK. I took up the job just to earn some extra pocket money, and to fill up the abundance of free time that I have right now.
And as far as jobs go, one could certainly do much worse. It’s a relatively easy job, changing bin bags, hoovering floors, mopping the cafeteria area. In fact, out of the 3 hours allocated, I could easily finish my tasks within just 2. The only ‘drawback’ is that I have to wake up very early in the morning, and I am not a morning person by any stretch of the imagination.
If I was back home in Malaysia, becoming a cleaner would be almost unimaginable. You would think that a law graduate, and someone who in a few months time would be a member of the Bar of England and Wales, would not ‘lower’ (no offence intended) himself to becoming a cleaner. Indeed, when I told one of my BVC coursemate that I’m presently working as a cleaner, she almost flipped out. "You’re a BVC student, you are studying to become a BARRISTER! How can you work as a cleaner?" she ‘reasoned’ with me. Well, I’m getting paid over £300 per month for changing bin bags, so I have no complaints. My ego isn’t big enough for me to refuse such an opportunity. It’s a halal source of income, and perfectly legitimate.
Over here, Malaysian students are indulging in employment that they would never dream of taking in Malaysia. And I’m not just talking about undergraduates, even those undergoing PhD take up such low income employment. Would they do the same if they were back home? Not a chance.
Perhaps because over here, being foreigners, we have no qualms about washing toilets and mopping floors. Back home, when we are in our own country, those kind of jobs are reserved to the foreigners of our country; the Indonesians and Bangladeshis and others. A reason that feels ‘right’, yet if you really think about it, does not really make any sense.
A more crucial factor would be the sosio-economic situation in the UK. Two elements come into play here; the national minimum wage and the purchasing power of the British pound.
Firstly, the minimum wage. I have been told that it is the benchmark of any first world country, the fact that its workers can expect a minimum wage of £5.05 regardless of any jobs they undertake. So even if, let’s say, you are permanently employed in an occupation that pays the minimum wage, and you work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, the calculations would be:
5.05 x 8 = £40.4 per day
40.4 x 5 = £202 per week
202 x 4 (assuming 4 weeks in a month) = £808 per month.
£808 per month is a lot of money. It’s not equivalent to RM808, which brings me to my next point. The purchasing power of the currency. I’m sure there’s a proper economic term for this, but I don’t do economics (well I did in A levels and obtained a nice, big ‘E’ for it), so I don’t know. According to the Play.com (online retailer here in the UK), the recommended retail price for an Apple Ipod 30GB is £220. According to Apple’s Malaysian website, the retail price for the very same Ipod is RM1,500.
As such, for a cleaner here in the UK that works 8 hours a day, an Ipod is well within their monthly capacity to purchase. A cleaner in Malaysia, who I imagine would earn somewhere between RM600-RM800? Not a chance.
Of course, there are other factors for the UK cleaner to take into account. House rent, tax (a very significant cut out of one’s wages here in the UK), dependents etc. But what I’m getting at is that with £800 per month, you can certainly live relatively comfortably. The price of goods here are relatively cheap.
That is why, amongst those who are due to leave the UK for good, there is a sense of insecurity. Even though we have obtained our degrees and qualifications, living in the UK has made us wonder. If a fresh graduate is expected to earn RM1,500 per month, how are we expected to survive back home? The price of petrol is always rising, and linked with that, so is the price of goods. And for those living in the Klang Valley, there is always the problem of transportation, a factor that will certainly eat a significant chunk of one’s salary. And if you are unfortunate enough not to be able to live with parents because you work far away from home, there’s also the worry of having to pay rent. Coupled with the fact that some of us wish to save some money for the future (impending marriage plans), it seems that there would be very little left for one’s personal use. That Ipod 30GB can only realistically be purchased after about a year of hard work.
But perhaps we’ve been spoiled by the bounties of a developed nation. A civilisation that has grown over a number of centuries. Compared to our fledgling nation, it would be inevitable that there would be huge gaps in the sosio-economic situation. In fact, the gaps transcends all aspects, from culture to politics. But people are still surviving back home. And some have done very well for themselves. Money can be made anywhere, and compared to other nations, ours is still a land of opportunities. I suppose one just have to keep one’s head down and work hard, and God-willing, one will be able to ‘make it’ back home.
And it is my sincerest belief that one day, when our nation has reached that much coveted ‘developed nation’ status, a ‘lowly’ cleaner will be able to realistically purchase that 30GB Ipod. Perhaps not in our generation, but definitely somewhere in the future.
As for now, I’ll take the opportunity presented to me to buy a £100 Nintendo DS Lite with my £300 per month cleaner salary.
