Your Office is Filthy (with Jolie Kerr)

You might think that work advice doesn't have much crossover with cleaning advice, but actually I get a fair number of questions that relate to cleaning at work. Why is the microwave in the office kitchen so disgusting? And how can we keep it clean? The person who shares my workspace leaves it in a terrible mess? How do I lead a meeting when I just spilled soup all over my shirt? Today we're going to talk about the intersection of work and cleaning, And I'm so excited about the guests.

Who's here to do it? Jolly Care runs the cleaning advice column Ask a Clean Person, and she's the host of the Ask a Clean Person and podcast, as well as the author of the best selling book My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag and Other Things you Can't ask Martha,

and she has made cleaning advice fun and fascinating. She answers questions from Airbnb hosts about how to clean up the blood their guests left all around their home, what to do if your Halloween wig leaves hair everywhere, how to clean up the beer you spilled all over your bed,

and much more. She knows everything there is to know about cleaning, and on a personal note, her advice once helped me save my favorite pair of sweatpants from a terrible olive oil stain, so I will always be forever in her debt, she's here today to answer a whole slew of questions that listeners sent in that involve both work and cleanliness. Julie, Welcome to the show. Hi Allison, I'm so excited to have you here. I'm excited to do this. This is a fun red rover for us

since you did my show. That's right. I think people might think, like cleaning and work, where's the intersection there? But actually I put out a call on Twitter and on the Aska Manager web site for people to send in. There are questions about cleanliness at work, and people have a ton of them, so we have some really great ones to answer. Yeah, we do. I'm excited. Before we do that, though, I want to ask you about your work, because I am obsessed with what you do. How did

Ask a Clean Person get started? Ask a Clean Person got started? Really on a total lark. I was working as a marketing and business develop manager at a big law firm here in New York. That was my career. I had a very good career. As I like to tell people, I wore suits and pantyhose um. And but I had come out of a journalistic background and I missed the creative pursuits, and so I had been doing a little bit of writing on the side under a

pen name care is actually a pen name. Um Jolie is my real nickname for my full name, but um but Karra's end name. And at the time I was writing for a site called The All R I p The All and they were launching a sister's site that was a women's vertical called The Hairpin. And the editor of that site said, you know, I'd love for you to write for us, and yeah, I'd love to, and a friend of mine came up with the idea that I should write about cleaning, which I thought was a

terrible idea. Terrible idea. I didn't think anyone would read it. And the only way that I could, kind of in my mind make sense of what a readable cleaning column might look like was to do it as a Q and a as an advice column. Just let people tell me what they wanted to know, what what problems they had, what questions I had, And so we came up with the idea of Asked a Clean Person. I truly thought

it was gonna die on the vine. I solicited questions from about twenty friends, expecting that I would get, you know, maybe three pity replies, but no, actually I got a lot of replies just from my friends. And then once the column started, I would say, within the first three weeks of the column, I didn't need to rely on those replies from my friends at all. I had enough from our actual readers, and from there it was really

off to the races. I was also, at the time just um a person who knew a lot about cleaning, but by no means was I a cleaning expert. I learned on the job, and ultimately I ended up getting a book deal and writing my book. My boyfriend barbed in my handbag and other things you can't ask Martha. UM. And when I finished writing the book in hand and then the manuscript, I sort of had this like light bulb moment where I thought, well, girl, now you're an expert,

because you really know the answers to this stuff. Like I said, so much resource and I talked to so many people, and I learned so much from my readers. And it's a weird thing about cleaning when you meant when you talk, when you mentioned it to people, they actually want to talk about it, and they want to tell you not only the horrible messages they've made in the disaster they've they've had, like you know, getting cooking oil on their favorite sweatpaine u um, but they also

want to tell you the stuff they know. And a lot of times it's stuff that that is common knowledge, but a lot of times it's also very esoteric. Um. And what I found was that the more that I talked to people and told them what I did, the more that hobbyists kind of came out of the woodwork

with tips for me, Like um, this. This didn't actually happened, but like an example of a kind of thing that would happen is like I'd meet like a cellist who would be like, oh, yes, well this is how you clean a cello, and then I know how to clean a cello because it's an expert on that has just told me that. Um. So that's really how the how the job came about. And it's been wonderful. It's been a total trip in a wild ride. I think one reason people I love it is because it's like this

very modern twist. It's not what people think about I think when they think about a cleaning advice column sounds like something your grandmother might read that you deal with like a lot of body fluid related questions, and you're so not non judgmental about it. I think people love that. Yeah, I think that's um that's one of the benefits of doing it in the Q and A format is that people are coming to you with their real messes, and

so that becomes very relatable for a reader. I often tell people that people aren't really reading it from my advice. They're reading it for the questions and the messes and the stories. There's so much voyeurism that goes along with any kind of advice column really, um, and you know you certainly you know that from your work, and so really that's the human interest side to it, Like how did that tin of of mackerel packed in oil come

to be spilled on your favorite house pants? Uh? Which you know was a real question that I thought that as I know how you ended up getting the advice you needed for your own oil on your favorite house pants uh situation that you add, um, And so that really was I think, Um, I think there's a there's a human interest to it that sort of the older style cleaning advice columns that you find don't offer that.

And then yeah, there's there's my voice in it too, um, which is you know, as you said, you know, non judgmental.

And part of the reason I'm not judgmental, quite frankly, is because like I've been a disaster in my life, Like I've made all kinds of embarrassing messes over the years, and so it would be, first of all, I would be totally out of character for me as as me just as a human to judge someone who you know has thrown up in like inside their pillowcase which is the thing that happened one of my friends, because like, but for the grace of God, go I want, I

want to start up on my own feet. You know, do you think that there is something generational to the response that you've gotten that we haven't been taught how to clean things in the same way that our parents are grandparents might have been, and we're sort of stuck figuring it out for ourselves. And so there's this real hunger when there's this expert source to go to. Or is that just me who doesn't really know how to clean? No,

it's not just you don't worry. Actually, the great thing about asking same person also is that it's just a great equalizer that like, no one is in any kind of mess alone. Ever. Um, I love telling people I've got in three separate questions from three separate people who melted a pound of butter into their car seats, no messages unique. So but yeah, I do. I do absolutely think that there is a generational component. And I think, frankly, you know from the perspective of me, who you know,

I I am a feminist for sure. I went to a women's college. I've got that whole like thing about me. You know, UM, I actually think it's kind of a good thing in a lot of ways that women in particular haven't been like as as like trained in the domestic arts as maybe they were to one or two generations back. Um. But that also means that there is of groth of knowledge and that we all as people need to know how to clean, whether we do it or not, it's a skill or knowledge base that we

should have. Um. And one of the opportunities that I really had with doing this column once I sort of identified that this was this generational learning gap really was going on, was that it let me level the playing field for both men and women and say, hey, yeah, I'm going to teach you how to clean, but I'm not just teaching and women how to clean. I'm teaching

the men too, Like I'm here for everyone. This is not gender And that that was my I know that sounds like crazy, and I hope I don't get dragged for saying it, but that was like maybe one of my biggest like feminist moments and achievements when I had that that light bulb go on and realize that like I could do this thing, I could actually affect real change in terms of addressing the gender gap that still does exist with cleaning, because I could exploit this not

whole in knowledge that an entire generation, not just of women, but of men to have I love that. I wanted to ask about that. Actually, because he started your column at the Hairpin, which was aimed at women, but then you started writing for more male audience. Have you noticed differences in the type of questions that you get from men versus from women. No, great news, everyone is filthy. Equality rains when it comes to how messy we are

and the messes we make. I did notice an uptick in questions about cleaning couches when I started writing for men. That was curious for me. My takeaway from that is that men really love their couches, and and that's great, and I like that they love them so much they were righting to a cleaning expert to know how to clean them up. Um. But there was one big difference that I noticed, and this this is a little dispiriting, and and it is this, men and women ask questions

in very different ways. Women tend to open their questions by apologizing for not knowing something, apologizing for being gross. Um. Just generally there's a lot of self law reglation that happens when women begin to address me before they even get into asking their questions, whereas men tend to open their questions to me by stating their credentials, they're smarts, their base of knowledge, and then they get to the

question they have to ask. That is dispiriting. I noticed. Okay, we have a bunch of questions that people set in for you that I want us to tackle. Will take a very quick break and we'll come back with the questions. Okay, let's get into questions that people sent in for you about the intersection of work and cleaning. So this first one was sent in from someone on Twitter who asked, if I spill hypothetically and hypothetically, isn't all caps here

mustard or tomato soup on myself at lunch? What will take it out? Aside from those portable tiede pens or shout wipes which stink? What do I need to keep in my desk? I love this question, and I have to say I will out who it is, but it is actually someone I worked with at the hairpin Um, and I love it was. It's such a good question. I like also that she managed to pick like two of the stainiest foods that you could pick. Tomato soup and mustard are very very very stainy. But but that's

that's great that she picked them. So first of all, I actually say I really do like shout whites. I do not love tied pens um. If it's all you've got and then pinch, they work great. Um. I find that the delivery of application of scene removing solution is just much better in a wipe form that it is in the pen form. And one copyat I want to give about both of those products is that if you do you, I mean you know they're meant to be used on the go, which you should use them on

the go, and they're great to use. But when you get home, it is not a bad idea to flush the area that you stain tree did with cool running water just to push out the detergent, because what can happen is the detergent itself can leave a little ring

that will create a state of its own. Um. So, but with that set, I think that chot webs are great and I really do recommend that people stash a little box of them in a desk store or you know, stick a few in a handbag, or if you're a man, stick one in your wallet, like right next to your just in case condom. Um. I really think they're great.

In fact, I used one just this past weekend. Friend had an old coffee stain on her favorite shirt and I was like, oh girl, get over here, and like scrubbed her buzzom off and took the stain right out and she was happy and so was I. But I also want to help out this person who does not like chat wipes, because that's also a fair stance. You don't have to love the products that I love for sure. Um here is a weird one that is great, especially in the workplace or just generally on the fly. Hand

sanitizer is an incredible stain remover. The reason for that is is that it has a very high concentration of alcohol in it. Alcohol is a wonderful stain remover, which leads me to this next thing. I do not think it is a bad idea at all to keep either a bottle of rubbing alcohol or a packet of those um alcohol impregnated whites. They're they're usually called prep pads. You find them met the at the drug store. Those are excellent not only for staining ruver but also for

cleaning telephone headsets and keyboards. And I know we're going to talk about that stuff because we've got some more questions specifically about those. But rubbing alcohol is wonderful for all kinds of cleaning um, and so if you do have space for it, just a little bottle of rubbing alcohol or those prep paths would be great. I have rubbing alcohol that comes in a spray bottle, which has been a total game changer for stain ruble, and I

would say the spray bottle is particularly excellent. The last thing to mention in most workplaces you will have it is dish soap. Good old dish soap is great. Now it's not always the most practical thing. If you dribble on your shirt, you have to keep wearing it for the rest of the day. But if it's on something like a cardigan that you can take off and flush with a little water, massage a small amount of dish soap into the stain using your fingers, and then flush

again with cool water. Repeating is necessary if it's a particularly bad scene or big scene, but dish so it takes a lot out. Okay, well, you mentioned keyboards, and we had a few people ask about keyboards. One person asked, how gross are keyboards? And another person asked, please ask about the best way to keep your keyboard clean, especially if you eat at your desk and you're not willing to change that habit. And I'm going to sign on

to this question too, because my keyboard is disgusting. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, first of all, Yeah, the keyboards are super gross, completely disgusting. Like, here's a thing I think people generally know this, Like, your hands are the dirtiest part of your body, right, So anything that your hands are touching all the time, all the time, whether it's a light switch, a door knob, a faucet on a sink, or your keyboard. Oh also your cell phones, guys, your

cell phones are disgusting. I am weirdly not a German Phope, it's really surprised as people to learn. But like, one thing I absolutely will not do is I will not touch other people's faults because I know how gross they are and I can't do it. I can't bring myself to do it. Um. So, yeah, your keyboard is super gross, but you do not at all have to stop eating at your desk or any of that kind of stuff. Um, they're basically two different things. You want to bear in

mind when you're cleaning a keyboard. For deep cleaning a keyboard, you want to start with canned air compressed air candar is the same same term for the same thing, or sorry, different terms for the same thing. Um, that will help you remove any debris, whether it's crumbs or dust or hair or whatever. I don't even want to think what

else could be going on in a keyboard. Um, it will help us logic from within, uh, the in between the keys, if you want to start with that, though, because it is going to blow up all of that stuff all over onto the top of the keyboard, the bezel of the screen, all of that. So that's really what you want to start with if you're going to do a deep cleaning. And then really all you need to clean a keyboard is rubbing alcohol. You do not need anything fancy at all. I use rubbing alcoholic, I said.

I have this the little spray bottle, it actually sits at my desk and a microfiber cloth, and I just spray some of the rubbing alcohol on the microfiber cloth and just wipe the keyboard down and that's all. Um, if they're really really bad, like kind of stubborn stains or scuffs, um um. Magic a research is wonderful. Q tips are also great tools for detailing keyboards. But you're gonna totally hate me for this, and no one has to do this. I'm just telling you what I did

because I'm me. Every Monday morning, I qute hit my keyboard. I like go over it with the rubbing alcohol in the and the cute tip. It's just it's like my little Monday morning ritual, like as I'm kind of getting going for the week. Um, and it works great and it's like really also satisfying because then you can look at it and like see the dart that came out, and you're like, oh yeah, like clean, that's great. So that's really all nothing fancy. I think I've cleaned my

keyboard once a quarter. That's better than most outs. I mean, that's honestly, that's fine. Like I'm just me, I'm me, you know, I'm looking at it right now. It's so good. Honestly, I am a clean for like I live this way. That's true. That's something no one else needs to right, I'm gonna try to clean my keyboard mark like, I'm actually embarrassed when people see my laptop because it's so gross. Yeah, I think most people probably feel it. Like, Okay, this

next question I think is really interesting. It's how much personal stuff should live in your workspace. The person who sent this in says, I have the standard bits of paraphernalia, photos, calendars, etcetera. But I also have a coworker who has so much stuff in her cube that it's expanding into the empty cube behind her. Her cube is crammed. If her apartment looked like her cube, I would call her a hoarder. But I've never been to her apartment. None of it

is worth related. But even if it were in the digital age, is there really any acceptable reason behind someone's space being crammed full of stuff? Jelly? What do you think about that? Well, surprise, Alison, I've I flagged this one because I actually wanted to hear your answer. I think it's interesting. I think if you go to either

extreme on this, it'll look a little bit off. If you have absolutely nothing personal in your office, you kind of look like you haven't put down any roots, And like maybe one day you're just not going to come back from lunch. But then there are also people who go to the other extreme where they fillip their this or their cube like it's their house, Like they're bringing

in couches and rugs and lamps and many fridges. And when you do that, I think there is a point where it looks like your focus is on the wrong things. I mean, I am all for making your work space more comfortable and cozy. I'm a big fan of that, but I do think you can take it too far

where your priorities look off. Yeah, and that was pretty much what my initial response was, is that you do you do want to take into account the impression you're creating at work, and the the impression should be that you are there to do a job and that you are professional, regardless of what that job is. I think it's also tricky because so many jobs are so different, and you know, if you work in a creative field, having a very riotous looking cubicle might be a totally

different thing from if you work, say in banking. Um So, the thing I would say is, first of all, some people work better with stuff around them, and some people work better with nothing around them, and some people work, you know, in in all places in between in that spectrum. Um. But one thing I'll say about the abundance of stuff is that it does make it very difficult to keep your desk clean. If every surface is covered, then you can't really easily wipe off a desktop, you can't dust easily.

If you spill something like if you knock over a cup of coffee, then cleaning that up is going to become a much longer and more involved ordeal and take much more time out of your work day when you should be actually working and not cleaning up the coffee that you spilled on the plush garfield that you got at the state fair. And so you do want to take into account that it will be very difficult to

keep your space clean. I would say, if it's your coworker, it's really on your your boss or their manager or whoever that is to address that. If it's making you uncomfortable in some way, then perhaps you could speak to your manager about it. But if it just irritates you, then I think that's something you just got to get over, because if it's not affecting their performance or really affecting you, other than you're annoyed by it, then you gotta get

over it. Ye agree with it does. The one thing I would add is if it's an issue where like you have to go into that person's office to get something when they're out and there's no way that you're going to find it without digging through pounds and pounds of stuff, that's a reasonable work issue to bring up. I wouldn't take it straight to the manager. I mean I talked to the person and say, hey, when you're out last week and I had to find the X form,

I had a lot of trouble finding it. And even then I wouldn't say, like, can you clean your entire office for me? I would say, can you maybe like better mark the things that people might need access to? That? All right, let's take our last break here. When we come back, we have lots more really interesting questions, and we also have a very interesting all staff email that was sent around in someone's office that we're going to

talk about. I get a lot of questions that ask a manager from people who are having physical reactions to the air freshener that their coworkers are spraying around there getting migraines or respiratory issues, and sometimes people even have little mini wars in their office about scented products that some people want to use and some people don't. And indeed, we got a question about this on Twitter. Someone wrote, is there such a thing as an inoffensively scented air freshener?

I have less track of how many employee arguments start over the odor of one of these things. Yeah, I mean I can. I can totally feel that wine. So here's the thing. There. There are inoffensively scented or basically unscented um odor removals, but air fresheners are a different category.

Those are those sent of things. And the problem that happens with scented things is, first of all, you know, you do have people who are highly sensitive to them, um you know, whether they cause respiratory issues or allergies or migraines. But also then even if they're they're not causing you know, physical problems, they can be irritating to people to have to smell something that they don't like smelling. The issue is is that smells and what we do

and do not like are so personal. Like I love the smell of ammonia, but I recognize that most people do not like the smell of a bone. That's not thinking one. No, No, I know other people do too, I promise, just Alice, and just like the pound of butter in the car. I am not the only person

who loves to sell amonia. You know the thing. It's people who love the smell of ammonia or also, we're all the same cohort of people who love the smell of gasoline and like all yeah, so it was like all that same like older family that we love, Uh, don't come from my people. Um. So the problem is is that like if if you a pine scented you know, plug in air freshener smells wonderful to the person next

to you, it might smell horrible. And that person next to you might love the smell of a lavender scented plug in air freshener or spray air freshener or whatever it is, and you might hate that because laven or do you might smell like, you know, your your great aunt's house and you hate it going over there and she pinch your cheeks and make you eat foodie too and like and all that stuff. So the sense and

how we react to the are really so personal. So what I would advise for people, UM in office settings is first of all, just to stay away from anything sentence just you know, and if there's someone you know in HR or an office manager, someone who can just make a policy of that so that it's not you know, Bob hates lavender, Bob's weren in the fund for all of us, and you know, just making a policy that

nothing sented um And that makes sense. I think this isn't directly cleaning related, but it may also extend to things like wearing perfumes. There really foot flip sides of the same coin. But there are some uh odor neutralizers. So should you you know, sort of need a product in the office, maybe because it's a small office and and there's a you know, office kitchen where people cook and you want something. Here are a few um things that I can suggest. First of all, gel odor absorbers

are great. You can find those at any hardware home improvement store. So sometimes they're scented, but I find that it's such a light scent that you won't you don't really notice them unless you're really like right above them. There's also totally unscented odor absorber is active charcoal and you can buy active charcoal either in bricks that you can just set out in a you know, discrete spot and will absorb odors that are in the air, or

that sold loose. Um. The easiest place to find. You can find all these things on Amazon, but if you want to go to a brick and mortar, if you go to a pet supply store, active charcoal is sold loose in the in the aquarium section because they're often using fish tanks. And then the last product to mention is there is a spray odor eliminator called osi um. Osum does have a scent to it, but it dissipates

very very quickly. It is excellent um. If you have like the dreaded someone microwaved fish situation, oseum will kill that in like a minute. And the scent of the oseum itself when you spray it, you'll smell it, but that scent also dissipates very very quickly. Interesting. Okay. Our next question, also from someone on Twitter, I believe is the work microwave is a crime scene. Do we have to take it outside and burn it to ash or?

I love that question, you know, I love that so much because um, I think it speaks to that the relatability and the humor that I talked about when we were talking about the genesis of asking theme person and kind of why it works. Like we all have been there, we all have had that worked microwave where we're like, should we just you know, sacrifice it to the gods, like it's such a disaster. The goodness is, no, you

do not need to sacrifice it to the gods. Uh. Only once have I encounter to microwave that I truly said had to be sacrificed to the gods. And that was in mycrowave that was invested by roaches that somehow and for some reason, its owner like felt she needed to resolve and keep using the microwave. And I was like, no, no, no, we just get a new microwave. Like I was like, I could tell you what to do, but no, get a new microwin. Um So, anyway, here's the good thing

about microwaves. Uh, they actually are really really easy to clean. Here is there there are tons of ways to clean a microwave. So if you if you don't hear your favorite microwave cleaning trick in this police know that it's not because I don't know it it's just because I'm picking the easiest one. To take into account that this is an office microwave. So here's really what you want to do. You want to microwave a small bowl or

mug or whatever of just plain water. Be do be careful when you open the microwave and take it out, because obviously it will be very hot. You want to you want to be careful not to hurt yourself with that. But what that will do is it will create a tremendous amount of steam inside the microwave, which will loosen up all of that stuff that is sort of splattered all over the walls and so on and so forth, and it'll just make it a lot easier to clean out.

You do always want to take the turn turn tray out. You can wash that just like you would a dish in the sink with a sponge and soapy hot water, or even in the dishwasher if you have one of those. UM for the interior of the microwave. Once you've created that steam in there, you want to just go in basically UM with a sponge or even better UM. There's a type of sponge called the dobe pad d O

b I E it's a non scratch scouring sponge. It's particularly great for small princess because it will help you really scrub things away without scratching the interior exterior, and um, it'll just add a lot of extra scouring power to the job of getting kind of the splatters of tomato soup and so on and so forth out of there. I may take a little time in a little elbow grease, but really it's a pretty easy and straightforward job, and

you don't need anything particularly fancy for it. One of the things to mention is that there are really egregious stands of magic eraser is wonderful. I love magic erasers. I I do know what they're made of, but I don't even like telling people because I like to live in a world where they're just made of magic, and so that's what I choose to live in, and I want all of you to live in that world with me, So I'm not going to tell you what they're made out.

All right, let's do another one. Okay. This person says, we do not have a real sink or dish area in our office, so a lot of us rinse our coffee cups in the bathroom sink and sometimes even ease hand soap. Is that an adequate substitute for a dish soap? Yeah? And I'm so happy that you're even just rinsing them, because you know, so many people just leave their dirty coffee mugs out and never rinse them and then reuse

them and I gross like, so yes, that is totally acceptable. Um. Really the biggest difference, um between hand and just stuff, it's just that dish shop was probably a bit more effective when you're talking about grease cutting. But if you're just if you need to wash them mug, I mean, unless you're unless you're drinking chicken soup out of mug, which is you know, greasy, and we'll leave kind of that that oily residue behind. Um, hand soup is a

perfectly fine substitute for just soup. Absolutely in a lot of ways, soapa soapa soap and something is better than nothing, and so yeah, totally acceptable. I would say try to use the hottest water you can that that's always great to do, and to make sure that you rinse them out very well after you use the soap. This is kind of a funny little sidebar. Um ingesting soap can lead to g I distress it can it can like

upset your stomach. I won't I want to get super graphic when I go into it, but I'll just leave it at that. So you don't want to, um, you don't want to have so well when you don't have soapy coffee because that taste gross. Um, but also just because like it might have set your stomach to be drinking soap. Okay, sorry, I feel like you have a reaction to that, and I'm just stunned into silence. To put this nicely, the soap will have a similar effect

that the coffee will. And you're all between the lines and you know what I'm talking very subtly put thank you. So I'm trying to be I'm trying to be gracious, very well done. So before we wrap up, someone sent us an all staff email that was sent out in their office about a pretty gross cleaning issue. Do you want to do the honors and read it? I do.

I love these, um, so we should say that. When when you came and guested on Aspect Clean Person the podcast, we had one of these these great you know, inter office emails about you know, someone's just doing something super disgusting and I loved it, and I was really hope that we would get more of them, and indeed we did get one, so I was super excited that we could read this one. Um, it's on the short side. We're not going to say the name of the company

because we promised that we would keep it anonymous. But here here's what the note said, Hi all, can we please be more considerate of tidiness in the suite? I saw a lot, and a lot is in all caps. I saw a lot of nail clippings over the floor of one of the rooms this weekend. This isn't acceptable. Don't do it and be clean. Exclamation point. This is gross, right, Like people should not be leaving nail clippings on the floor at work. You shouldn't be leaving nail clippings on

the floor anywhere ever. That's disgusting, you know, in the most universally accepted thing in the world that like the sound of nail clipping is disgusting. Theil clippings themselves are disgusting. Also, I'm saying, I'm Italian and I'm superstitious, So like there's a whole thing about like not letting um anybody come into possession of your nail clippings because they could use it to like curse you and so on and so forth.

So like just just out of that self preservation. If someone left nail clippings around the office, I would, you bet your bottom dollar I would don a Rubbert glove pick them up and go lay some courses. Yes, In the very early years of Ask Manager, I had a letter from someone who kept finding this is so gross.

She kept finding nail clippings in her desk drawer and on her chair, and she said she had been keeping like a little mini nail kit in her desk, and clearly she was just keeping it there in case she had like a one broken nail that she needed to fix, but clearly someone was using it, borrowing it the way they would borrow a stapler, I guess. And she was of course grossed out and ended up throwing the nail kit away, after which the problem stopped. But I remember

there was an update to it. Um well, she had taken it to HR and they had had this very strange reaction. They thought someone was doing it to intentionally harass her, like it was like an active aggression, which I didn't necessarily buy into. It turned out that there were nighttime cleaning people who are coming through, and I guess at one point someone had discovered, like, oh, here's this nail care kit. I mean to take this opportunity to deal with my nails, and they were just doing

it into her drawer. Oh yes. And I've also had more than one letter complaining about being able to hear coworkers clipping their nails in the next cubicle. I mean, I really do think that quickly fixing a broken nail at work is totally fine. But I don't know what's going on with people who are regularly trimming their entire set of nails at work. Yeah, no, no, no, that's private behavior. You can't no no, no no no, like you can't you can't be clipping nails in public, Like

that's this private behavior. Even if you live with other people, you should be in the bathroom with the door close so they don't have to hear it, Like, no, no, no, it's horrible, horrible that. I love this memo that went out about it, and I have to say I love the whole genre of slightly outraged and disgusted memos that get sent to all staff about cleaning issues like every single one I think is a magnificent work of beauty.

I do too. I'm with you on that, and so we should say that if you guys have any that you want to share with us, you can and we will love it, and we will not make them public if you don't want us to toew and we will make them public anonymously if like, you're cool with sharing but obviously don't want your company name attached, like we just love getting me. Yes, send them on. I hope we get more. Yes, the world needs more of these. Well, Julie, it's been so wonderful to have you here today. This

has been so great. Thank you so much for having me. This is really really fun. I gotta get you back on Ask the Clean Person the podcast, though, I will come back any time. We still have. We saw so much to cover. Hostly is so much intersection of what we both do and it's so I I love the ask episode. Yes me too. Will you tell people where they can find you if they want to learn more about what you do? Sure thing, Um, you can find my podcast Ask Your Clean Personal podcasts in any place

that you listen to podcasts. iTunes, a cast stitch are all those good places. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Jolly Care j O l I E K E r R. I'm also on Facebook, Facebook, dot com slash ask a Clean Person. Most of my writing is at The New York Times, so you can find me there and you can email me if you have cleaning questions. Jolly Carret gmail dot com. Awesome, Thank you so much, Thank you, Alison, thanks for listening to the

Ask a Manager Podcast. If you'd like to come on the show to talk through your own question, email it to podcast at Asking Manager dot org, or you can leave a recording of your question by calling eight five five f T six work. That's eight five five f T six nine seven five. You can get more ask a Manager at ask a Manager dot org or in my book Ask a Manager, How did navigate clueless colleagues, lunch stealing bosses, and the rest of your life at work?

The Aska Manager Show is a partnership with How Stuff Works and is produced by Paul Deckett. If you liked what you heard, please take a minute to subscribe, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Google Play. I'm Alison Green and I'll be back next week. With another one of your questions. H