Cleaner praised for brutally honest note to ‘cruel and aggressive’ boss on last day before retiring after 35 years

A former cleaner at HSBC Bank has been praised for the candid retirement note she left for her boss.

Julie Cousins, who recently retired from her job as a cleaner at HSBC, went viral online after leaving a brutally honest note to her “aggressive” and “cruel” boss.

What the post said

The note was posted on Twitter by Cousins’s son, Joe, where it quickly went viral. It read:

"Hi ladies, tomorrow will be my last clean for HSBC. I have made up a bucket of cleaning materials for the next cleaner whoever that may be!

"I've left the job after the way you dressed me down in the office.

"It was nothing more than aggressive and cruel but that's a reflection on your character, not mine.

"So going forward, please all of you remember: in a world when you can be anything, BE KIND.

"Because you are all no better than the cleaner."

‘This is why I love my mum’

Joe Tweeted the note with the comment “And this is why I love my mum. She’s been cleaning banks for 35 years and today walked out with this lovely note left for that awful manager. Happy retirement Mum - always have the last laugh eh!”

The note was retweeted over 13k times, with a number of people commenting beneath praising Julie and sharing their own experiences of unkindness against staff lower down in work hierarchies.

“Never understood why people think what they do for a living reflects their importance. I was raised to believe that a job is a job and anyone getting up and going to work deserves the same respect, whether they pick up trash or run the company. Good for your mom! Respect” read one Tweet beneath the original.

Another wrote: “When interviewing people for jobs, I always asked the reception staff how they were treated by the candidate. A few failed the 'attitude test'.”

Several people praised cleaners as the “most important” people in any workplace.

After the Tweet was reported on by several media outlets, Joe followed up his original Tweet with another which read:

“My mum’s note has gone viral! I’m so happy that people understand in a world where you can be anything - you should just be kind!”

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