What kind of need does cleaning meet?

Last night I thought it would be a good idea to get my washing done the next day as it was going to be one of the last days that it was guaranteed to be a nice day before the wet weather sets in again and the last thing I wanted was my wet washing sitting around all weekend. 
 

So I got home from the gym and grabbed the parts of my washing I don’t like to put through the machine because I’m scared that our washing machine will chew them to pieces and ruin my clothes. I washed these ones in the shower with me (a little trick I learned in Chile) and then rung them out and dabbed them dry with my towel. 

I put all my other clothes into my washing bag and lugged it down the stairs to the laundry. When I got there I found that my flatmate had beaten me to it but her load didn’t have long to go so I just left my stuff in the laundry and went upstairs.

Next time I went down to the laundry the washing machine was still going, turned out she had put a second load on and bet me to it again! But since it was a towel load I added my towels in with it so at least something was washing. It was only an hour till class and I was starting to panic that I wasn’t going to get my washing out on the line before I had to go to class. 

I found myself counting the minutes and starring at the washing machine hoping that it would finish any minute now. It was already 11:30am and we don’t get a lot of afternoon sun at our house so I had to hope the wind was going to dry it now. I was starting to feel a bit helpless about the situation wondering whether I should wait till the next day to do the washing but I had already started the process so I soldiered on.

I fast tracked my flatmate’s rinse load and put it on to spin – lucky I did because or else I wouldn’t get mine in at all before I left for class. Finally the load had finished and I basically chucked her washing into the basket and threw mine in, got the powder in and turned it on, I was actually now making progress. 

I felt bad for fast tracking my flatmate’s cycle so I hung her washing outside quickly and I hoped that she might hang out mine in return while I was at class. I lined her washing up nicely; leaving space between so that it would dry faster so then some of it could come down when I was going to be putting my washing up.

I felt like I didn’t have much control over this task and it left me feeling frustrated. 

Woodside & McClam (2011) discuss that a way of meeting human need is to identify basic human needs and then ask if they are being met. So when we look in depth at this activity there are some clear needs that this activity meets.

The first need washing meets is health. Health has been defined by the World Health Organisation (2006) as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” This activity’s need is to meet health firstly on a physical basis, the upkeep of my personal health and ensuring that my clothing is clean which in turn creates a clean environment. The mental well being is being met as it allows me to complete an activity which allows me time to myself to think about what I will do for the day and to relax a little, even if I did find this activity stressful!

The second need that washing clothes meets is my need for systems and order. I wanted some clothes to be washed in particular ways and chose to wash them in the shower as I didn’t trust the washing machine to complete the task in the same way I could. Also I wanted to get my washing done on this particular day as this was a day I could get it washed and dried all in one day which is a preferred system of mine as I don’t like my wet clothes sitting on a clothes horse all weekend attempting to dry in a cold house. This task is something I do once a week as Green (1968) appropriately states that it is not only necessary; it is also endless. Once done, it must be done again. So if my washing takes several days to complete the task seems endless from week to week.

REFERENCES:

§  Bonita, R., Beaglehole, R., & Kjellstrom, T. (2006). Basic epidemiology. (2^nd Ed). WHO Press: Switzerland.

§  Green, T. F. (1968). Work, leisure and the American schools. New York: Random House.

§  Woodside, M., & McClam, T. (2011). An introduction to human services. Brooks/Cole: California.

Affordances in cleaning the bathroom out

Hagedorn (2000) states that affordance is anything which the environment can offer the individual which is pertinent to the role challenge and can facilitate role competence. I have split affordances into 3 categories to look in depth at the affordances in cleaning.

Firstly the connection and action properties:

Last time I cleaned was cleaning our flat bathroom. I hadn’t cleaned the bathroom personally since before I had gone on placement so I figured it must be my ‘turn’ as we try to keep it about even. The shower was orange and yellow around the bottom and the edges of the shower cubicle and there were odd long hairs everywhere from living with so many girls. My only hope was that it wasn’t going to be filled with hair and scum again the next day that hopefully the cleaning would be respected. I grabbed all the cleaning products, the rags my mum gave us and the buckets to clean the shower so it doesn’t feel horrible when I stand in it. I started cleaning the shower walls up high, working down to the scum and then the basin, the floor and then the toilet last. Each time something got clean it felt like a great sense of achievement for me, that I had done something thorough and well.

I had almost finished cleaning and I rinsed out the shower and then I realise the water wasn’t going down the drain. I asked my flatmate about it and we decided to pour some Draino down it to see if this would fix the problem. We poured the stuff down without really reading the instructions – later realising we should have been wearing masks and gloves while using it. The Draino didn’t work so we had to then call the landlord to get a plumber in. I was disappointed my cleaning job never truly finished and I knew I would have to come back the next day after the plumber and re-clean some areas.

Secondly communication:

The task started off as a solitary experience which was brought on by care of the environment I lived in and the care for the others I live with for us all to share a pleasant environment. This environment gave me a sense of place I belong to as well as a sense of place socially within the flat. I believe that I chose to clean the bathroom as it was part of my own expectations and a learnt behaviour from my parents and my upbringing. Louw (1998) states that observational learning or modelling refers to the viewpoint that people can learn behaviours by observing the behaviours of others. It was my parent’s behaviours that in turn lead to my behaviour. As the task developed I began to branch out socially and look to others for advice and negotiation of what the next step could be. I involved others who could be affected by any decision made.

Third and final section is the moral properties:

GOOD:

The good moral properties for me were that I was completing the task properly, the degree of precision, the gift it was to my flatmates and making do with the available materials.

BAD:

The bad moral property would be the waste of product – had I put the product to its full use?

 Maybe I need to consider something like the following clip to make the affordances have more good moral properties.

REFERENCES:

·         Hagedorn, R. (2000). Tools for practice in occupational therapy: A structured approach to core skills and processes. London: Harcourt Publishers Ltd.

·         Louw, D. A. (1998). Human development. (2^nd Ed). South Africa: ABC Press

Ergonomics of cleaning the stairs!

Today I was vacuuming the house as it had been two weeks since any of the flatmates had luxed the main living area and my room needed a lux too. I like to be able to walk around my room in bare feet without feeling anything foreign under my feet!

It’s an unspoken rule in our flat that if you think it needs tidying then it is up to the individual to clean it, especially after the roster failed. I personally feel like it is something nice I can do for the other flatmates to enjoy as well as myself even if it sometimes goes unnoticed, it is the one person that might notice it that makes it worth it. In terms of ergonomics this reflects how we share a job and treat it as everyone must do something to keep equality but leave open for error.

Dul and Weerdmeester (2008) write that ergonomics is derived from the Greek words ergon (work) and nomos (law).  Ergonomics aims to design appliances, technical systems and tasks in such as way as to improve human safely, health, comfort and performance. The first thing I notice about the vacuum is how much I have to bend to even plug in, turn on and then use this machine. I don’t want to end up like a funny old lady with a bent up back and neck so I thought of the machine and myself in terms of ergonomics and tried to improve my health. I put my back straighter and made the vacuum end longer, however it was not long till I was manoeuvring around a small space again and was back in the bent over position. The work that I had to do to complete this task didn’t fall into the category of “good” ergonomics so far.

The next part of the house to tackle was the stairs, by far a difficult task and at an ergonomic level the interaction between the person and the task it is important to emphasise the efficiency. The task is fiddly and time consuming and a small adaption on the machine means this task can be completed more efficiently as it will clean faster. I change the nozzle on the end of the lux so that the whole task becomes easier for me. Venda & Venda (1995) state that the goal is to reach higher efficiency or lower complexity of the interaction thus of the work.

Ergonomics really changed the way I thought about luxing the stairs.

Food for thought:

Mere activity characterised by necessity and futility. A man is not free whose life is totally absorbed in labour. His energies are spent in response to necessity, under the aegis of forces outside himself, forces he cannot control. He is not master of himself as he is himself mastered. (T. F.Green,1968)

REFERENCES:

·         Dul, J., & Weerdmeester, B. A. (2008). Ergonomics for beginners: a quick reference guide. (3^rd Ed). USA: CRC Press.

·         Green, T. F. (1968). Work, leisure and the American schools. New York: Random House.

·         Venda , V. F., & Venda, Y. V. (1995). Dynamics in ergonomics, psychology and decisions: an introduction to ergo dynamics. USA: Ablex Publishing.

Activity Analysis Blog - Cleaning!!

For semester two of Participation in Occupation 2 we have been asked to choose a task that is familiar to us and blog about it each week, looking at breaking down the processes we go through with the task so we can be more informed around occupations and become occupational therapists :)

I have chosen to blog about cleaning. Initially when I think about cleaning I think "jeez that seems boring!" but then when I actually get started I get motivated to not only clean one thing but maybe clean my whole room or more so I want to explore why cleaning is so motivating when you get started and include a few handy tips I've picked up or some websites just for interests sake. 
Occupations are made up of a combination of different activities, for example homemaking includes cooking, cleaning, laundry, home maintenance, shopping and childcare. Each of these activities includes a number of tasks (Turner et al, 1999).

Firstly I just want to talk a wee bit about cleaning: I am truly a clean freak! I enjoy it so much and I hate when anything gets dirty. Most of it is common sense stuff - I prefer to walk around in bare feet in the house so having a clean carpet feels nicer. When I cook I want the whole bench space clean so I can plan everything out easier. Cleaning makes me feel happy, organised, fresh, clean, relieved and excited - who would have thought? As stated by Turner and others above, homemaking includes cleaning so is it part of my motherly instinct to being interested in this area of homemaking, readying myself for the future? I hope to answer these questions during this blog.

Here below is the first link that is connected to cleaning, each week I will endeavour to find a site more interesting, bringing more information :)

http://www.howtocleananything.com/

There are a couple of considerations to think about while completing this blog, like the sorts of products I will need to cleaning for two hours per week and whether this is going to annoy my flatmates!! Although I doubt it!

Turner, A., Foster, M., & Johnson, S. E. (1999). Occupational therapy and physical dysfunction: principles, skills and practice. Philadelphia: Elsevier Ltd.