Story: Severe Housecleaning Vacation.

by Dolores Azul

Social downgrade has one great boon, and another huge downside. The great boon is: if you are the sort of person who needs it, who craves it, it keeps you vital, young, and alive! I almost pity my fellow executives who age so quickly because they are fighting so hard, every day, to stay On Top of Things. If those “things” they stay “on top of” are 5G cell phones, they're 5G cell phones; if “those things” are multi-level marketing of Non-Fungible-Objects—that’s what you have to focus on, Brother! Move it, move it!

No, I’m not saying I don’t pay attention—or can’t keep up! I’m saying I have (or, I HAD) a way to de-stress, that my colleagues....don’t. But it does have a downside: you need increasing doses of social downgrade to get you the same “high” you got when you first found out What You Are. Sometimes the dose you end up taking is so big that you can’t climb back out! I knew I was taking LOTS of risks, but I thought I covered everything. 

Well, no...I didn’t. 

Successful business executives spend a lot of money on their vacations. Big revelation, right? The hard-core businesspeople will “vacation” in places where every expense is a business expense! It doesn’t matter how much money you spend at gourmet restaurants—if they’re entertaining business guests—because every penny is a tax deduction! Less hard-core businesspeople will still spend lots of dollars on vacations because they have lots of dollars to spend! I am not quite in that boat, but the money I used to spend on MY vacations wasn’t chicken feed! And I made my dollars count... 

“Louise, where you going on vacation?” 

“No place special...except...that I’ll be enjoying myself so much I almost pity you...” 

“AH HA!!!! I knew it!” He yelled so loud I jumped! I didn’t expect him to be that...uncouth... 

“I didn’t take you to be a ‘Burning Man’ sort of girl! BURNING MAN. That’s where you’re going! Time frame’s right!” 

My little smile convinced him he guessed correctly. Not that it mattered then, but he didn’t. 

* * *

As it turns out, I travelled to a big city for my vacation, bigger than the one where I live and work. If you are a business executive who vacations as a Housekeeper For Hire, you DON’T want people who know you to run into you! 

* * *

Our office building in Chicago is not quite as large as our New York office, but it has ALL the latest tech. How ironic that I’m using fake I.D. (okay, semi-legal—I DO spend money on my vacation toys!) to hire on as a cleaning woman in that building—the lowest-tech function in the entire place. There is nothing high-tech about the practices for hiring cleaning women—especially if you’re impersonating an illegal alien to get the job! Doing the paperwork under the stern but kindly eye of the custodial manager for the office building, I sweat as if I really need the money. It’s true I don’t need the money, but I sure want the job! 

One thing most of the hirelings don’t know about the building they clean (except...me!): the surveillance and security would do justice to the CIA! That level of security was crucial to my plans! There are certain rooms (I would know about them, but most people working there wouldn’t) where you can’t get in unless you have the appropriate I.D. card. If you do, the doors slide open or will unlock; if you don’t, no way you can get in! Or out, as it turns out...that wasn’t a concern of mine: I was only a cleaning woman, working the shift where nobody was in the building, surrounded by tech that was “way above my head”! I only wish I could hire on at one of the jobs where I would have to defer and genuflect to the business people there—with none of them having any idea that I was one of them! As long as the security features were in force, I would be safe from detection as an executive: for the term of my ‘employment’ I’d be only seen as a cleaning woman! In fact human eyes would NOT be seeing me! Yes, there are numerous surveillance cameras, but they are connected, not to a man with multiple video monitors in front of him, but to Artificial Intelligence with the very latest pattern and facial recognition programming! It will be A.I. in a computer that will confirm to accounting that I’ve cleaned the floors, not Mac at the Security Desk! 

With things turning out as I planned, the custodial manager was going to be the last human being I get to see on the job, during my ‘vacation’! Too bad, but I added things to make my life as a cleaner more interesting...First, my clothes: I went to thrift shops to buy all of my vacation clothes. They were so second-hand, they were as worn out as if they were third-hand. How anyone might consider selling them, let alone buying them, I had no idea—but I was overjoyed I could get them. Next, I rented a room, not at one of Chicago’s finer hotels, but at a ‘no-tell motel’ on the bus line. Third, and this was where I KNEW I was pushing things, I went to the bus station and locked my real I.D. and my iPhone into a locker! The key in my purse kept it safe, but this was the riskiest I’ve EVER been! 

Just before going to work, I logged into my home PC one last time. “Last time”? In our Chicago office I knew something that a hire-on cleaning woman would not know: that every one of the computers was password-protected, with NO “guest sign-on” option. My conservator, Natalie, gave me the latest update on her investment acquisitions on my behalf in an Excel file. I printed those out on paper, to read at my “break”. Getting dressed in my tattiest work clothes, I found to my embarrassed delight that every other bus rider appeared ‘higher class’ than I did... 

I entered the big Chicago headquarters by a side door, the better to avoid being seen. Of course, cleaning women are supposed to be barely seen or heard; I’d planned to completely avoid all human contact (sigh, alas) so that nobody in the ranks of management would recognize me. As the upper floors house the upper executives, I rode the elevator to start my cleaning at the top floor. Separate offices with individual doors greet me; the lower floors will have fewer separate rooms and more cubicles. I am happy that businesspeople tend not to be slobs, because I had to start at the twelfth floor—and work my way down, every floor to be cleaned by ME ALONE, which meant not only more pay (the person I am being for this vacation would want that) but also more guaranteed privacy. Oh, I wish I could toil in the offices with fellow cleaners! Not this time... 

When you hire on as cleaning help, you actually have to DO the job. Something my hoitier and toitier fellow executives never think about. If I don’t do the job right, I’ve thrown away all my vacation spending, and planning time, for nothing. Other than the restrooms (well...yuck...), the dirtiest part of the job is throwing away the half-eaten lunches and the coffee grounds; the rest is just good, old-fashioned, hard work. Every little bead of sweat makes me feel so low and dirty...and I feel guilty, acting like honest cleaning work makes the women who really do it for a living—LOW. Hmmmmm...maybe it’s BETTER that I’m doing this myself, WITHOUT having to hide my attitude from colleagues... 

By the time I’d finished the 6th floor I figured I could take a lunch break. Sure, I was more than halfway done, but the lower floors tend to be dirtier than the upper ones. I knew, in the work areas, the elevators go down to floors not available to the general public—or to most of the employees OR executives! Why would they want to go there anyway? In THIS elevator was a button below the two levels devoted to Parking: a Basement. I pressed the “B” button because I wanted my “breakroom” to be literally LOWER than anyone else. When the doors slid open it lead to a long hallway, with doors on either side. I headed for the door at the end. 

Opening it, I was not disappointed! Looking like a storage room as big as any of the upper floors, unmarked and sealed cardboard boxes stacked in places to the ceiling. If these were supplies, then why weren’t they available for the cleaning help? The few boxes with any markings at all, showed survival supplies, the sort you’d expect to see in a up-to-date BOMB SHELTER. In the whole floor there was only one place to sit: a school-sized desk and a chair under a bank of fluorescent lights. 

Munching on my egg salad sandwich, drinking my “costly” bottle of kombucha, I thought that keeping my purse here was handier, and just as secure, as carrying it on my person while working. This desk had been used for a lunch table before me, who knows HOW long ago...An old bottle of Snapple showed the expiration date on the lid: EIGHT years ago! It’s possible that nobody has visited this level since that time, as it’s obvious nobody has cleaned up after themselves since they ate their lunch here! As I ate my little dessert of Hostess Fruit Pie I took out the Excel printouts of my latest investments. 

I have a conservator! It’s not as bad as that sounds—I have her for tax purposes—but I love that her title sounds like I need “adult assistance”. Natalie, who I trust completely, has been managing my investment affairs for a decade; and she’s made me, and herself, wealthier in the process! To most of the acquisitions I gave an approving nod, but the last one froze me: 

            Livestock: 100 head Australian Wagyu. Serial Numbers #86772143 to #86772242.

            Livestock: 100 head Holstein Friesian. Serial Numbers #86772243 to #86772342.

            Serial Number #86772342 missing, assumed stolen...

 

I whooped, I hollered, I had to laugh! I couldn’t help myself, and I COULD not stop!!! 

“Serial Number #86772344” APPEARS to have been stolen; only I knew that it was NOT. 

Some people like tattoos; a good friend of mine has twelve. I never considered piercings, or a boob job either, because they would have...interfered...with business dealings. Instead of either I got a CATTLE I.D. CHIP implanted on my body! Like a naughty tattoo where only a lover can see, I implanted a CATTLE CHIP on myself—in a VERY private place! Only I knew it was there, but I KNEW IT WAS THERE. A personal piece of downgrade, with me always, that keeps me serenely delighted no matter what happens! I had NO IDEA Natalie would consider purchasing livestock for me as an investment, and I had EVEN LESS IDEA that she would come across the cattle chips I’d already purchased, and PUT THEM TO USE! It appears the official record says that the chip in ME was implanted in a DAIRY COW, and the cow was stolen! 

PERFECT! Just perfect! In my fantasy life, I dreamed hopelessly of having big, bouncy, augmented breasts! Now in Real Life I not only don’t have breast implants—I OFFICIALLY have an UDDER!!! 

I SOOOOO wanted to be a cleaning woman for my vacation, shyly emptying wastebaskets while the smartly-dressed executives were Moving-and-Shaking at their desks! I did that, as closely as I could manage; and now, legally, I am LOWER than that! MUCH lower than any cleaning woman! Not even a human being, but Livestock On The Hoof! Was that my sick-and-twisted idea of “the next best thing”? 

For social downgrade that’s even better!! 

* * * * *

The next four floors were a breeze! Not easy, just...fun. How often do you plan for a social downgrade vacation and find out you’re officially—Not Human?! Except for the refrigerators, the hardest part of cleaning the cubicle floors is vacuuming. Because of the cubicles. I had to hurry, as the building opens to the workforce at 7 A.M. I should have not left the First Floor for last! With twenty minutes to spare, I duck past the security guard as if I were some industrial espionage spy and make my way to the Basement. 

I found the box-filled storage store just as comfortingly desolate as I did while eating lunch. Sitting at the school desk in utter quiet, I sat and let the tasks of my first “Vacation Day” wash over me—I would surely have to wash when I got to the motel! This was more than a “Blue-Collar Job” as my gauze-thin top was drenched in sweat from the collar to the armpits. I remembered Hugo who thought I was at Burning Man right now, and Barbara in Accounting, whose idea of a great vacation was slots in Reno, or open-pit barbeque in Honolulu. Instead, I was damp with perspiration and sitting in a glorified warehouse fifty feet under the city streets. 

More fun than I ever dreamed! Yes, twelve floors of an office building are awfully hard to do all by myself, but I actually DID IT. I KNOW I can do it again, and I get to do it twelve more times in two weeks! 

Oops! It’s five after seven, but using my ‘back’ elevator nobody is going to see me leave! Since I couldn’t work the job while managers and employees are here, I would MUCH rather act like I Should Not Be Seen. I ALMOST forget my purse as I reach for the door. 

It’s...locked. 

IT’S LOCKED. 

What in HELL.....?!!!! 

It was OPEN! It was open ALL THIS TIME! Why is it locked NOW?? 

Calm down, Louise...you may have to YELL in order to get let out of here. But...do I really WANT that? NO. It’s NO GOOD. I’m fifty feet under the heavy street traffic and locked in a room twenty feet away from the elevator. NOBODY is going to hear me... 

In—Rage? Angst?—I run to the nearest cardboard box and punch it with my fist. Again and Again. When punching hole after hole is not good enough, I grab the box by the punched holes and hurl it against the wall. I bash it against the floor until the cardboard shatters in chunks and tatters. 

Inside there were blankets. Soft blankets. They LOOK warm..... 

Unlike almost all of my work colleagues, I admit to being superstitious. The blankets calm me down: I take them as a ‘sign’ that everything will eventually turn out. Shoulders heaving, making the rage seep out of me, I lay four blankets on the floor as a mattress, roll one up as a pillow, and lay down with one over me. I do not remember going to sleep. 

* * * * * 

The alarm in my watch wakes me up. 

Omigosh, I have to get ready to get to work.... 

Oh. Right. 

Am I still locked in here? 

Yes. 

If nobody comes to clean the building tonight, SOMEONE is going to notice! I look at the shreds of cardboard on the floor. If they are going to punish me for opening property, might as well see what’s in some other boxes. I go to the “Bomb Shelter” supply boxes. Inside, there are—bomb shelter supplies! Meaning emergency rations! That Hostess Apple Pie from last night seems like gourmet food by comparison, but at least I won’t STARVE before I get out of this room! My watch’s alarm goes off again. Sure thing, Watch! If I can only get out of here, I’ll be just in time to start my shift... 

The door is open. *WHAT?!!* 

I rush to the elevator. Gratefully, it comes to this floor! Pushing the “Lobby” button, I find—IT WON’T GO THERE. In frustration I punch the button to the second floor. 

IT DOES GO THERE. 

What. Is. Going. ON??? 

Why am I TRAPPED in here? This was supposed to be My Vacation! 

My vacation... 

I grab my cart, still where I left it. I don’t care! I wanted to be a Housekeeper. I LOVED, yesterday, being a Housekeeper. If this damned building will let me, I have twelve floors to clean! 

In one of the executive offices I try to log on to their computer. No dice. Password protected, of course. Locking my iPhone in the bus station locker seemed like such a casual, FUN decision! While trying to get into one of the I.D. locked rooms, it occurs to me that two things are probably keeping me prisoner: 

1. This building has such damnable extensive electronic security, complete with A.I. 

2. This building has IDENTIFIED ME AS STOLEN PROPERTY—a Dairy Cow—and locked me in here until which time my “Owner” can “claim” me. 

Oh, that’s BAD. 

Thanks to Natalie, I AM MY OWN OWNER. But I have no means to contact her, I have no way to claim myself, because all the PCs in this building are locked, and everyone carries their own cell phone—leaving me none to use! The system apparently only knows I am missing, not WHERE I AM. YET. And the “System” says I am a Holstein Friesien milker, NOT a human being! 

As I clean the refrigerators of old lunches that’s been left for over seven days, I marvel at how much food gets thrown out! They think they can afford the sheer waste—and they CAN. If I’m not found in the next few days, I swear I’m going to start eating the leftovers! I remember a New Yorker Magazine article, referencing someone who eats food that’s thrown away; instead of a vegan, I’ll become a “freegan”! The more I vacuum the carpets, the more I clean the bathroom sinks and empty the wastebaskets, I more I realize that, while I’m TRAPPED, truly trapped, I have a roof over my head, a warm place to sleep, and I WON’T STARVE. 

Wrapped in my soft blankets, writing on yellow pads I’m using as a makeshift diary, I recall that I haven’t had a shower in three days! Closing my eyes, I’ll worry about that tomorrow... 

* * * * * 

It seems ages ago that COVID-19 isolated everyone, that society was split into two camps: people who trusted the doctors and obeyed the law, and those who thought quarantine was a violation of freedoms. 

Try being isolated for SEVEN MONTHS! 

I COULD write a note to someone, leave it on their desk; and if they took me seriously, I could tell them of my plight. 

I have not tried to ask for help. After my two weeks of vacation time was up, and two months after that, I have not tried to escape! My idea of what’s “fun” has warped and twisted in my self-perpetuated lockdown, and I decided to see how long it would take for the system—the Artificial Intelligence, the surveillance, the certainty that an executive in my company with my name must surely by now be reported as MISSING—to try to find me! 

I haven’t been FOUND yet! The executive in me is very afraid of losing her job, even her career. The housekeeper in me is...delighted. Perversely overjoyed! 

I’m sure the A.I. surveillance is more advanced than I think, and very sophisticated. I am also sure that it’s also incredibly stupid! Every day, for the past month, I’ve DARED the cameras to find something wrong with me! A real person behind a desk would spot me in an instant; but I’ve made faces, danced a jig, done everything short of mooning the camera—and the system STILL thinks that everything is fine, that I’m perfectly NORMAL. 

At this point, even if I got online, by now every password to every social site and email address probably needs to be changed. Without a phone I can’t do that, and my phone is in a locker downtown. 

I have gotten over blaming myself for my “foolish” mistakes. Being a lowly housekeeper is what I wanted, and I’ve gotten to be her for six and a half months longer than I planned! In some ways the experience has been worse that I expected, and some ways it’s been much better—although egotistically I still want to charge up the corporate ladder, I feel now how foolish that really is! But I wouldn’t feel that way if I weren’t so...LUCKY. For seven months I’ve lived FOR FREE. I eat more food, and more delicious food, than I ever did before. Of course most of it is scavenged from worker throwaways—which humiliates me, and which I have grown to LOVE. 

Only two things I wish I could change: I haven’t had a bath or shower in seven months. I wash myself using one of the sinks in the bathroom as a basin, but I can’t even do that very often, because cleaning up after myself slows me down so much. The other is that my “third-hand” work clothes, which I have had NO chance to launder, have developed tears and holes, in the shirt AND the pants! There are holes in my pants that would NOT meet any dress requirements—except for the A.I. surveillance ones! It seems to have “adapted” to the tears in the front of my pants, and the missing left sleeve of my shirt, as “normal” for the night-time cleaner. I am sure my body odor would offend the Old Me, but the current me has no problem sleeping in the same clothes, under the same blankets. Again. 

* * * 

[Six Years Later] 

Looking over a in-house newsletter on an executive’s desk, I see an old familiar face on the front page. 

Mine. 

Really, the company should evaluate its Artificial Intelligence better. The newsletter lists me as missing, and presumed dead. I am used to my solitude, and I have had what I call a Good Life, but what if the system makes ANOTHER mistake, and REALLY hurts someone?? Every one of my old colleagues—every one—would be DEVASTATED to have done to them, what has been done to me! I am so used to my blissful solitude that I sometimes forget that I took this job as a vacation for Social Downgrade! 

What would YOU call, gaining maybe twice your weight, but social downgrade? Thanks to a scale kept in one of the executive’s offices, I know I weigh 260 pounds now. What would YOU call, only washing yourself once every two months, but social downgrade? What would YOU think of having every one of your garments worn and torn away for the last year? What would you call having no clothes to hide the hair on your legs, or under your arms (yes, both of those are still “ICK” and “Double ICK” to me)? What do you call having to cut your own hair with office scissors? My hair looks like it’s been cut with a Weed Whacker, because I’m not very good at it, and because the low-grade hack job humiliates me—which is what I truly want! 

It’s taken six years of increased Social Downgrade to give me the “high” I used to get, just putting on an apron and dusting my own office! Over time, the surveillance A.I. has ‘adapted’ to my changing appearance such that it thinks that being naked, unwashed, and overweight is now appropriate dress for an office housekeeper! If they had “just” backed up their surveillance with occasional human corroboration, they could have “spared” me the inevitable humiliation of being discovered this way! 

They will discover me...someday...and I can hardly wait :) 

The End.

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