“Get in there, and clean that pig sty!!”~ my Mother.
Throughout most of this past weekend, I have taken the time to go through my place and clean it. Mainly the important reasons are because I am about to go through our monthly inspections.
Now it is not something that they are going to come in here and do the white glove test by any means. The purpose for the inspections are to make sure that things are working properly. Making sure that light fixtures work, the water runs, toilet flushes, and so on. But they do want to make sure that the unit is kept in general housekeeping standards.
The problem is that the definition of what is good housekeeping standards varies from person to person, whomever is doing the inspection. So it is difficult to know whether or not its “clean enough”. I believe that their concern is that there’s not trash all over the floor and old food left out on the countertops and what not. Things that could eventually lead to bigger and deeper problems in the future.
Usually for me though, I’m always checked off that everything works that needs to work but when it comes to “general housekeeping”, the comment is left: Follow-up.
What the heck does that mean?? They’ve never said, “Okay, you’ve got two weeks to clean this place up.” In fact, my housecleaning status has never come under fire. I’ve always had things cleaned up to the best that I physically can, without any help or assistance.
So I had a pow-wow with my apartment manager one morning. I asked “what is general housekeeping standards”?
It was put across to me in this way:
If you met a girl on the street and you wanted to bring her back to your place for a little hanky-panky, once she walked through the front door–would you be humiliated??
Nice point. Motivation is always key.
I do however get very frustrated when I know that things need to be done around, and its something that I cannot do. I need to either ask for help or not be so hard on myself. Yet I strive to make sure that IF that scenario were to come true, that I would not fall into humiliation.
My mother always motivated myself and my brother to clean our room with the comment: Clean up your room, just in case the President of the United States comes for a visit.
It worked for a while.
Now this new motivation of whether or not a woman would dare to visit here is the new motivation in keeping things just a little bit better and better.
Motivation works in different ways for different people. It will cause a person to become more focused on something that they find is the desired effect in the end. A good example is people who want to stop smoking. They find their reasons why they should and then they search themselves to find the positive effects of them reaching the goal. Better health, more money in their pockets, and so on. But that’s only one example.
I think that humiliation in this form, is just life’s way of saying to you that your motivation is low and needs a lot of work. If a woman DID come in here and she found a pair of scorched underwear on the floor or something, then yes, I’d be totally lost within myself and I would make so very sure that NO underwear would be found on the floor ever again!!
So until I am able to find the help & assistance to help me, I continue to do what I can. And I have come to that point where I can do no more today. I’m sure I’ll find bits and pieces to tidy up from now until the day of inspection. But anything that could cause me to be humiliated is no longer there. So ladies, BRING IT ON!! Besides, I think that my mother would be proud. She would question a few things but then once she realizes it is something that is out of my reach or control, she’d smile and probably be more understanding and possibly get it done for me.
In all things, we all have our slumps. We have those things in which we really don’t wanna do but we know that we must. So finding that motivation is very important. If we cannot find it, or do not look for it, then we’ll end up not doing what we are supposed to and thus suffer the consequences for our own actions because we did not do what we should have in the first place.
What motivates you???
Dambreaker 