I work as a housekeeper for Capital Health. I am sick and tired of nurses looking down on us because we are “housekeepers,” worthless, invisible, except when we’re needed to assist one of you evil trolls. Some of us are in SCHOOL, working at this crap-ass job to pay tuition. Perhaps you should sit down and realize a hospital is a team environment, and without housekeeping you would be wading in piles of your own fucking filth. Someday, I hope I am in a position to make you feel as worthless as you make us feel.
This article appears in Mar 6-12, 2008.
Very saddening to hear this email. I’m a nurse who works nights. I recognise that housekeepers make a crucial contribution to the running of a hospital. The classism you describe is horrible and not very deifferent really from racism or sexism. I’m sorry to hear it and will only say that most of the nurses on my floor treat all the workers with respect. Hope you’ll find a better place to work soon.
Sounds like a chain reaction. The doctors act like condescending assholes to the nurses who, in turn… oh, well you get the picture. My sympathies are with you.
I just want to say thank you to “clean and not worthless”. I am also a housekeeper for capital health and I put up with the same bullshit on a daily basis but never had the guts to have it published. I would like to add a comment to “Edson”, perhaps you could tell us the hospital and floor you work on and we can tell you that you’re full of shit. I have worked as a housekeeper for many years and if I got a dime for all the nice nurses I have come across I might have fifty cents. Most of them are bitchy filthy pigs that believe housekeepers are below them…hearing the truth out loud upsets some people. But it needs to be said. I don’t know about your hospital “clean and not worthless” but your article caused quite a stir in mine today. It’s about time classim is looked at within capital health. I commend you for having your say and having it published. Well done my friend. WELL DONE. Good luck with school and remember to study or you might be stuck putting up with this bullshit like me, until you retire.
I Love when I have to wear OR greens. capital health employees actually smile or say hello when you walk by.I just wish you nurses wouldnt be so damn messy. If I had a dime for every peice of trash that ends up on the floor BESIDE the garbage can I’d own capital health and fire you all.
I don’t think this is isolated. I work in health care and I think nurses are taught right from school how to be total bitches. The look down on everyone, not just the “hired help”. I take nursing classes and I can’t believe the bullshit propaganda they make me learn. No wonder they end up thinking they are the center of the earth.
How come people who provide clean environments earn very little money? Is there anything they could do in order to get their earnings doubled?