“It is Saturday. It is eight o’clock. Everyone has had a difficult week. One room attendant has died. Another is on sick leave with an injured back. As the room attendants, cleaners, supervisor and head housekeeper sit together, they say little. Each is lost in her own thoughts. A record guest changeover lies ahead, and there have never been fewer of them. Everyone knows it will be hard.

Having swept, cleaned and tidied the communal areas — reception, shared toilets and the outdoor spaces around the hotel — they have prepared their cleaning supplies and equipment. They are just waiting for the remaining bed linen from the laundry.”

In theory, room attendants and cleaners are responsible for cleanliness and tidiness. Most often, room attendants look after the rooms and cleaners look after the communal areas.

“The laundry is already working at full steam. Literally. Washing, drying and ironing are under way. The machines are working perfectly. Once again, they do not let anyone down.”

In theory, laundry staff are responsible for the work within the laundry, from receiving linen through washing, drying, ironing and sorting to its delivery.

“As the final room-cleaning plan is completed, the director arrives in work clothes, ready to help. Although the women know that he cannot offer them any real help and will not be cleaning toilet bowls alongside them, they are glad he has come. Everyone’s spirits rise. Without a word, they stand up and collect the cleaning plan from the head housekeeper. It has begun. The countdown starts.

The first guests checking out signal the start. The room attendants enter the rooms and, for the umpteenth time, do everything they can to make them shine. They look for any unreported maintenance faults and contact the maintenance department. They do not enter rooms requiring more substantial work until maintenance has done its job. They enter rooms in good working order, collect the rubbish, vacuum and clean the glass, tables, chairs, wardrobes, beds, floor and television, with particular attention to the bathroom. In short, they clean everything that can get dirty. They check the minibar and put on clean bed linen. For some reason, the first rooms always seem to take the longest to clean.”

In theory, the supervisor’s task is to follow a checklist and check whether a room has been cleaned to the prescribed standards after the room attendant has finished. In reality, the supervisor and room attendant are very often natural enemies. The problem arises when a shortcoming identified by the supervisor is taken by the room attendant as a personal insult.

“While the first rooms are being cleaned, the missing bed linen arrives from the laundry as dirty linen travels in the opposite direction. The supervisor visits the completed rooms and checks that everything has been cleaned properly. In coordination with the head of reception, the head housekeeper identifies the rooms that need to be cleaned as a priority and informs reception when they are ready to be allocated.”

In theory, the head housekeeper is the central authority on the hotel’s cleanliness.

“It is time for the daily break. A great deal of work has been done, but the end is still a long way off. Some eat, others use their break to satisfy their need for nicotine, but generally everyone is waiting to get back to work.

Almost all the guests have checked out, and now everything depends on housekeeping. Will all the rooms be ready by the official check-in time?”

In theory, guests understand the check-in and check-out times, but there are always guests who arrive earlier and leave later. This further reduces the time housekeeping has to clean and prepare the rooms as well as the hotel’s communal areas.

“After the break, work resumes at full speed. Meanwhile, guests are arriving early and decide to spend the time before official check-in at one of the food and beverage outlets.

The car park is filling up and an ever-increasing number of guests stream towards reception. At the same time, the housekeeping department performs its work flawlessly, like an army on a mission. The head housekeeper tells reception which rooms are ready, and the receptionists then notify the guests whose rooms are available, reducing the crowds in the communal areas.

The final rooms are being cleaned and, once checked by the supervisor, are ready to be allocated. Trolleys and cleaning supplies are removed from the corridors, and the areas outside the rooms receive a final clean just before official check-in time.

It is done. Official check-in time has arrived. The countdown is over.

After a difficult week in which they lost one colleague for ever and another temporarily, and despite being short-staffed, these heroines and heroes have successfully done their job.

Physically broken but morally victorious, they leave work and go home to their families. Until the next day, until the next guest changeover.”

I wrote this article so that people could see what someone’s hardworking grandmothers, mothers, sisters, daughters and wives — the cleaners, room attendants, laundry workers, supervisors and heads of housekeeping, alongside their male colleagues — go through every day.

It goes far beyond physical effort, because employees who take their work seriously also experience emotional exhaustion every day. Everyone knows that each of their mistakes will be photographed and shown somewhere as a disgrace to the hotel.

I also wrote this article as a tribute and a thank-you to all those who are seriously undervalued and underpaid, yet whose work keeps a hotel impeccably fresh and clean.