A corridor runs from my office – an open plan that holds up to 18 people – in the north east corner of the building all the way to the south east corner, ending at the door to the larger open plan office there.  And in that corridor I encountered a man with a mop and his supervisor who was teaching him.  She was telling him how to clean the tiled corridor floor most effectively and efficiently, “sweep the mop around in a figure of eight…” and encouraging him, “… that’s right…”  And his mop looped back and forth, overlapping, looping and repeating.

If I was making a spy movie… If I wanted to place a team in a corridor for a week, this kind of team would be the ideal cover because everyone just walks past the cleaner.  Even those of us who would usually stop to say hi, will not interrupt a “training session”.

But back to the mop that was looping on the floor in front of the man, the infinity sign which was not a figure of eight.

We can all mop.  My boys mop the floor of the church hall where they attend karate, before the lesson starts.  My husband and a friend mop the floor of the community centre before dancing starts every Wednesday.  They do it without training and I do wonder whether an efficient mopping pattern spontaneously arises or whether it is best taught?

My youngest son has been mopping floors on and off for some years.  There is something about the splashing that he likes.  For a long time I had to repeat the job after he had finished – I called it drying but really it was re-doing.  He resisted any training.  He probably felt that he was doing what he had seen done, that he was doing it correctly and therefore he had no further interest in doing the job any better or best.  He wanted to play with water and mop and bucket and floor.

Back to the trainee in the corridor. He was watched and given the direct line into how to do the job best.  A few days later I saw him receive training on the correct use of a vacuum cleaner for cleaning this long shiny dark grey corridor, which is also used by people attending talks and courses in the large meeting room.

Is training needed?  Does training remove creativity and novelty?  Is there any space left for doing a job that is nourishing to our humanity if all the variability has been trained out like a large hot steam iron?

I am not sure what the answer is because I like a clean floor, and I dislike stickiness underfoot. But surely there is not only one way to achieve a clean floor.  And in the infinite number or correct answer there will be more than one best way.