A few days ago, all my co-workers on our floor and I received an invitation for a full-scale office cleaning event that will happen on Friday afternoon.

The event includes cleaning up desks and tables, sorting/throwing away old tech stuff that we don't use anymore, taking care of and buying new plants for the office and more. The head of the office also promised free snacks, burgers, beer and great music to help us clean. Since our office has quite flexible working hours, for some (~50%) of us the event is outside our working hours, including me. The invitation didn't specify whether the event is mandatory or optional.

Now, it is possible for me to make adjustments to my typical Friday schedule, and include this cleaning in my working hours (by coming to the office 2 hours later in the morning). However, I would rather focus on my hobbies, education or whatever is important in my life at the moment on Friday afternoon. Also cleaning in general is not something that I like, and I don't think our office necessarily needs it. I also double checked my contract and I couldn't find anything related to the cleaning in the list of my responsibilities.

While I am extremely happy with the job, the flexibility it offers and my manager, I am worried that the company is using us as a free workforce. I am quite sure the company will not come to my apartment on Friday afternoon and help me with cleaning. On the other hand, I understand that being professional includes team-bonding exercises from time to time, and this might be one of them(?).

The situation is set in Scandinavia, mid-sized company and my position is software developer.

_{Asking for a friend.}

Go.

Or rather:

Go if everyone else is going.

Do the cleaning. Be part of the team. Have a say in whether things that are yours get thrown out or kept. Have a say on what gets added to the office. Be part of the team.

Comparing it to cleaning your apartment isn't fair. Your team doesn't use your apartment. You do use your office. It is two hours. The visibility of which will make you look good. The refusal of which can make you look bad. Especially if you are one of the few or only people not there. Then it will show you aren't willing to pitch in with the rest of the team.

Is it a team-building excersize? No. It's an office cleaning. Will it lead to some level of team-building? Yes. So just go.

_{Most of us hate cleaning. Sometimes we do it anyway.}

Go even if not everyone else is going.

If it turns out I'm wrong, going once won't hurt your career, even if you don't get paid for it. You could even leverage a non-productive unpaid office cleaning exercise as an example of why you are in the future as careful about always getting paid as some feel people should be.

The people most integrated to the team will be going, unless they're otherwise unable to go. That likely includes the effective team leader, whether or not that's your manager. And it's team-building for everyone who does go.

We had an event like this at my first career job. This was, admittedly, in the US (Texas), and I was working for a contracting company, and this was at the contracting company office, rather than where I worked.

I expected it to be a team-building event. Two people showed up for it. I expected my manager to show up, at least, since he'd been the one to invite everybody. He wasn't there. The woman who was the other person to show up wasn't somebody I even recognized, but she somehow knew me, at least by name and contract.

She explained why three people weren't there. One of them was a sales manager, but the other two were just people I vaguely recognized as office staff. After waiting a bit longer, she said she guessed it would just be us, and we got to work.

She and the other three people she mentioned turned out to be the driving force of the office. She was the office manager, and one of the other people was the HR person I hadn't already met. Partially because I went there and gave it my best, and continued to be involved in things like that, I never needed to worry about having a contract, because the people who mattered knew me, and if I was an option for a contract, I was one of the first people they considered for it.

Also, while I wasn't interested in management positions (I was well aware I lacked the people skills to be able to do that), I was considered for them briefly several times, and most of the people I knew who rose quickly through the ranks at that company went to those events.

That particular company had a lot of optional events to go to that you could use to impress the people in charge, so there were other ways to make such impressions. But if you want to convince your office team that you care about the company and the work environment, there may not be a better way to convey that than going to this thing, because almost nobody likes to clean.

Furthermore, if you don't go, then you don't get to be the one to clean your workspace, which means you have no say in how your workspace is cleaned.

That having been said, I also strongly recommend that you talk with your boss about how the work for that will be compensated. That was a thing that I had failed to do, as I come from a workaholic family, and I was more concerned about making an impression about being a hard worker than I was for getting paid for every second.

But my manager called me after I turned in my next timesheet, confirmed that I had gone to the event, and reprimanded me for failing to fill out my timesheet correctly, and for having gone over on time for the week without approval. These things were considered important. It was certainly better for me to have gone even without having gotten the timesheet business right, but it would've been better if I'd have gotten that right, too.

If this office cleaning day is at the customer office rather than your employer's office, and your customer boss says it's unpaid time, double-check with your employer boss before going to this event.

Different companies are different, so rather than assume the company is a certain way, you should ask.

Note: Depending on who exactly is in your office, it may not be nearly as important career-wise as the event that I'd gone to turned out to have been for mine. But it's still team-building that's most likely with some of the most influential people in the office, and it's likely to get the notice of people that matter.

Of course, that's only helpful if you actually do a good job. At one of the later office cleaning events I went to, an individual performed in a way that inspired my comment about the importance of having a say in how your workspace is cleaned. That particular individual managed to influence himself out of a job.

TL;DR

Go

Long version

At my company (~25 people, located in Germany), we're doing this once a year. It usually takes place on a Friday after lunch (during office hours, approximately ~2 hours). It's a lot of fun for everybody involved and a great opportunity for team building. Also, my boss participates himself.

Think about it this way: what's the worst that could happen to you? You could spend 2 hours doing something you don't like (cleaning) with people you do like (or at least respect). There are worse ways to spend your time.

(In case you're wondering: yes, I dislike cleaning very much)

If it's in "working hours"

You should go.

There are, however, a couple of caveats:

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  If it's in "normal" working hours (i.e. some weekday between, say, 9 AM and 5 PM), but outside your working hours, you should still go (and move your hours appropriately).

  
  
  

  If your hours are written in your contract (as opposed to just being a perk at the company's discretion), you may have a stronger case for not going, but I'd still recommend going.

  
  



• If you already have other concrete plans (which doesn't seem to apply here), it's reasonable to decline the invitation. In this case, I would advise simply apologising and saying you already made other plans, without going into details. This would also apply if it's in your regular working hours but you've already put in leave for that day.



• If they are just looking for a small number of volunteers instead of everyone, you could still go, but I wouldn't feel compelled to do so.

If it's outside working hours

You should go if most other people are going.

A similar caveat as above applies to already having plans.

How do you find out who else is going?

• Look at how the invitation is presented. If they ask for "couple of volunteers", that's probably a good sign that the majority of people won't be going.


• Check RSVP's, if possible. If the invitation is via Google Calendar, for example, you can see who is and isn't attending.


• Ask around. Simple ask some coworkers "hey, are you going to the office cleaning [this Friday]?" in some informal setting.

Final notes

Important deadlines should be given higher priority. I'd say you shouldn't attend this if it would cause you to miss a deadline (or you have to work overtime to make up for it). Although if the deadline is more than a week from now, that wouldn't really be a reason to not attend.

Them asking you to do this isn't all that different from them just asking you to do whatever you do in day-to-day in your job (or attend a team-building, if you wish), so you could apply here whatever arguments you'd use for them asking you to attend a meeting or whatever instead at the given time. Related: How do I decline responsibilities that go beyond what's stated in my job description?

If in doubt, you should go. It is better to be the only person (or one of few people) to show up than the only person who didn't.

Going might allow for some networking to help you get ahead in your career, so you should go regardless of any of the above if that's particularly important to you.