Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Is cleaning the office kitchen a woman's job?

Ever since I joined the workforce I’ve been cleaning kitchens.

No, I’m not a cleaning lady or a nanny. I work in a professional job, and I just happen to be one of the only people at every office I've worked at who cleans out the fridge. In fact, I have never seen a male co-worker clean out a communal fridge since I joined the workforce in 2007.

Where I currently work there are approximately equal numbers of men and women who share the kitchen and fridge. In the past year, only myself and one other woman (let’s call her Nancy) have cleaned the fridge out. I know because there’s a signup sheet on the fridge that says, “Cleaning the fridge is a team effort! Please do your part and sign up.” The “team effort” for the past year has looked like this: Jennie. Nancy. Jennie. Nancy. Jennie. Nancy.

The dishwasher is another point of contention. A few more people contribute to turning the dishwasher on and unloading clean dishes, but by and large it’s done by women. That too has been a trend in every office I've worked at.

This got me wondering, just how widespread is it for women to do all or most of the kitchen cleaning in the office? I’m willing to bet that it’s pretty damn common, and I’m getting a little pissed off about it. Women already do the double shift (work 8 hours in the office then come home to chores, cooking and childcare) – we don't need to make it a triple shift.

Well, it only took us women decades of feminism to get men helping out in the home kitchen... do we have to wait another few decades before they’ll do their part in the work kitchen?

7 comments:

  1. I work in an building where various companies rent office space. We have a shared kitchen space that has coffee (take the last cup, make the next pot rules).

    I was in the kitchen getting my own coffee once when some dude wandered in and said "two sugars in mine" and waited for me to pour him a cup of coffee.

    I guess I was in a kitchen whilst having a vagina...so I can see his mistake.

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  2. Just because women get paid less, doesn't mean they have to bitch about everything. Plus the men are probably busy doing REAL work.

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    Replies
    1. Men doing "real" work? Really? Lmao. They pass it on to their assistants so they can attend those so difficult lunch meetings! Why would men bitch when it's still 1950's roles in the office? You obviously are one of those pompous, narcissistic, chauvinist men to have the brains of an ant to write such arrogant statement!

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  3. I agree it's not necessarily a woman's job. Everyone should clean after themselves and we all know there are a lot of janitors. So I like this article :)

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    ReplyDelete