We have an account with a large Catholic Church in town and while I do go to church regularly I am not Catholic.

So Friday and Saturday we cleaned carpet over at the Catholic Church. We were almost finished Saturday when the Priest walks in and says that he is going to close the chapel and he asked the maintenance man if I was going to clean that. Well we had not planned on it so he comes over and asks if this is possible. I said sure. He tells me that it will be closed but that there still may be people in there praying and not to worry about just go in there and clean the carpet.

So, I go over to the Chapel and in a few minutes the priest comes and the maintenance man comes and the maintenance man is explaining to me that the priest is going in the Chapel to put up the "Host". Then the Chapel would be closed and I could go in. However, the Chapel is full of people praying.

So, I go in and crank up the Cimex and clean.

So, even though we clean at this church and many others I just felt weird cleaning with all these people praying. Has anyone else ever experienced this or something similar?

It just seemed that every sound was magnified 10x. The Cimex sounded like my TM at least in my mind. When I had to scrape gum, lots of gums, the scraping sound was loud. The Cimex hit the wall one time and that was loud. It took me about 45 minutes to clean the Chapel and it had to be the longest 45 minutes of my life.

In 5 years of having this account this is only the second time we cleaned the Chapel. The last time they completely shut it down and kicked everyone out.

Kevin Pearson

Kevin, I know exactly what you are saying. We were doing a tinting job in the chappel with lift truck running (windows go up 58') this summer while people were praying. The Father said to go ahead. It still did not feel right. Of course all the noise we made was maginified because there is no carpet in there. It is all ceramic tile.

Kevin,
Although I am not Catholic, the Catholics are a different breed. No offense meant to any Catholics. Their faith is strong and I assure you, the disturbance you felt you were causing was exactly as you stated...in YOUR mind. Most of those in there were probably so deep in prayer they never noticed you.

I had to go in and quote a Muslim (whatever they call it).

The cleaning lady was one of them at the time and she proudly said this is MY CHURCH. Incidently, after 09/11 she became a committed Christian and has had me working in her NEW CHURCH

Anyway we had to remove our shjoes and she totally briefed me before going in becuase we were not supposed to speak at all in there.

Fortunately I got off the job by insisting that I MUST wear footwear while doing the actual cleaning work. They said no I said yes but goodbye.

Felt strange walking around in silence having things pointed out to me and these muslims all round the place in different positions praying or whatever.

I know what you mean.

John

John Middleton
Carpet Pro Ltd
Palmerston North
New Zealand