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Expectations are like dust…
14th of October 2026 Article by Lotte Printz
Lotte Printz in Denmark speaks to Martin Schuster as he publishes his book on the cleaning industry.
There could be entire anthropological studies written about cleaning… You could study culture, motivation, leadership, migration, class, gender, language, trust, invisible labour, service expectations and the strange social politics of office kitchens.
Office kitchen areas deserve a whole department of their own at a university somewhere in fact! According to Martin Schuster, sales manager at CleanManager in Denmark and now also an author. Not of an anthropological study - nor of a cleaning manual. But of a book: “It Was Clean When I Left”.
The book takes the reader on a behind-the-scenes tour around the cleaning sector landscape based on Schuster’s own experiences from 10 years at operational level and what he has heard through the grapevine.
“Cleaning is a kind of job that doesn’t really get noticed until things ‘go wrong’. But mind you, nobody goes to work to do a shitty job and it would be great if the book could be an eye-opener that there are people behind this job and industry,” Schuster says, speaking to ECJ.
People who have to pick up their children too, who may work when public transport is limited and might even feel uncomfortable in empty buildings at night where office kitchen areas can also turn into low-budget thrillers if the light flickers at the wrong moment as he puts it.
Real-life and vivid examples like these mingle with one-liners and flashes of wit. Not to throw anybody under the bus, but to paint a clearer picture of the ‘people behind the mop’ (as chapter 4 is called) and to deflate the perception that what they do is ‘just cleaning’.
The 12-chapter book kicks off with what happens when the phone rings before 6am on a Monday, deals with the peculiar things cleaners find, and the customers who are always ‘right-ish’!
Schuster argues cleaning companies should dare have proper conversations with customers, and states that expectations are like dust. If you do not deal with them regularly, they gather in corners and make everything look worse. “There are many misunderstandings between customers and cleaning companies.”
If expectations are managed and what the customer sees is aligned with what the contract says, there’ll be fewer misunderstandings, allowing more time for actual tasks. And if you dare ask: ‘does this price make sense for the result being promised?’, fewer contracts would be priced to the bone, Schuster argues. .
The book project started with a newsletter on LinkedIn in Danish. When he switched to English, he saw no change in dedication from the Danish readers and seized the opportunity to widen his audience.
“I can’t help but share and spread my stories far and wide. And then one day someone said: ‘Why don’t you write a book?’ A week later, I decided to go ahead with my passion project. I feel I have something to give,” Schuster explains.
A digital copy in English is now available via LinkedIn - free of charge - but there’ll also be a small print run to be handed out in and around the sector. “I hope it will spread, of course, and give the reader food for thought. That people within this industry will think: ‘this is darn right’, but also perhaps make it sink in and consider if they can do things differently. There’s a lot of ‘that’s how we’ve always done things’ in this industry,” Schuster says.
“And I hope those without much knowledge of cleaning, but with an attitude towards it, realise that cleaning doesn’t just happen or is not just about spotting a stain on the floor. It is carried out by human beings and to do their jobs they do in fact need skill and knowledge.”
Work in this industry doesn’t need applause every time someone empties a bin. But it deserves respect – to quote from the book!
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