Remember ‘I’, who cleaned my office? Well, she’s long gone. I can’t remember if it was because she complained about the conditions and pay or because she got a better job (one that paid minimal wages, for instance?).

Since she left, not long after I wrote about her, we’ve had a long line of ladies, all immigrants from various countries, cleaning our offices. Some have been incredibly dimwitted. You wouldn’t think that mattered for cleaning offices. Believe me, it does. I was just as surprised.

The latest is not dimwitted, but she’s far too delicate for these exploiters. She’s a tall lovely Ethiopian woman, whose name we haven’t managed to catch, although we’ve asked her quite a few times. She says she has been in the country since she was thirteen, but she still has a very heavy accent and her Hebrew is very basic. She seems to like me, perhaps because I usually tell her not to bother with my office.

She’s only been working there for a fortnight or so, but yesterday, as she emptied my waste paper basket, she leaned towards me and whispered that she won’t be coming back next week.

She apologized shyly that she can’t do it any more. It’s too much work, two whole floors. And she’s not even allowed a coffee break, and there’s nothing to eat. And everyone finds fault with her work (although countless memos have been circulated asking us NOT to tell the cleaners what to do).

She has found a better job. She starts Sunday. She said she’s going to tell her current bosses that she has to look after her sick sister and that she can’t come any more. She doesn’t want any trouble. So gentle. She deserves better than these bastards. I hope the new job works out for her, and that the bosses are more humane.

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And with each cleaner, the state of the toilets gets steadily worse. We haven’t been in the building for a year yet, and the toilets are already revolting. I don’t blame the poor cleaners. I blame the government organization that employs me, for allowing this exploitation to happen.

I’m just as much to blame, for not complaining.