Documenting the experiences of three young women, this article shows that far from being a trivial activity, janitorial work is a constant renegotiation that defines its very meaning and reveals the contradictions and difficulties that the cleaning ladies are confronted with. The article’s three successive parts are edifying: first, it shows that between the cleaners and their team-leaders the commitment to do the job correctly requires constantly adapting to reality, whether material, organizational or human; second, it reveals how supervisors set and decide on tasks, distributing them in a way that collides with male role-modelling in a, rarely challenged, gender-based division of the jobs to be carried out; finally, the article illustrates how this kind of work is dependent on immigrant labor and characterized by discrimination, creating work relations that encompass ethnic and family based dimensions that have to be navigated through, both on the part of the cleaners as well as supervisorial staff.