A changing laundry

It's the last day before the holidays - and a somewhat sad time for laundry assistants Jette Danielsen and Winnie Andersen. Danish Decommissioning is a organisation that must gradually close itself down, and that goes for the laundry too. After the holidays, Jette Danielsen will be left alone to sort out her colleagues' work clothes.

V Washing machines and dryers are divided into two large rooms. In one of the rooms, the eye is caught by yellow, triangular warning signs. Here, the laundry that may be contaminated with radioactive particles is treated under special precautions.

Both Jette and Winnie are seasoned employees who can launder their work processes at their fingertips. October is 14 years since Jette was hired. Winnie has been here since 1988:
"That's when the big reactor was running, so there was plenty to wash. When I started, we were five laundry assistants and a laundry master who provided the laundry for the entire Research Center Risø."

As the changes have taken place on the Risø Peninsula, the amount of laundry has quietly gone down. So the employees in the laundry have regularly had to change – not least in 2007, when DTU and the research center were merged. DTU chose to send their laundry elsewhere, and this made innovation necessary:

"Here with us we suddenly did not have enough work, so we had to take on some cleaning tasks too. To make it all come together, we got a colleague who had worked on the Lean mindset to help us. It was really healthy to go through all the laundry's work and routines with a pair of fresh eyes," says Winnie.

"We cursed the whole process from afar while it was going on, but afterwards we were really pleased with the changes. Before, everyone had had their fixed seats and tasks, and there was no question about that. Now we had job rotation in place, so we all switched between washing, pressing, repairing, sorting and putting the clothes together," Jette adds.

From three to one
In the past, there were 60-70 boxes of clothes to be packed and shipped around the entire peninsula. Now there is only The Danish Decommissioning Laundry to keep track of.

"A year and a half ago, we were told to step down from three employees to one. The message didn't really come as a surprise, but it wasn't nice to get," says Winnie.

"But after all, we have been happy to have it in such good time. Together with our manager, we have had a very good process where we three laundry assistants were themselves helping to determine how the de-escalation could happen, both in relation to the customers and ourselves. It's made everything safer," Jette explains.

Winnies and Jette's colleague, Yaa Skovvad, accepted the offer of an intensive Danish course and in 2015 was helped to join Berendsen Textil Service. Winnie has chosen to retire at the end of 2016 and will spend the rest of her employment scanning old drawings and buildings for the electronic archive after the holidays.

And then there is Jette, who will in future be alone among the washing machines:
"It's weird to look forward to. Winnie and I know each other out and in and also could share what was difficult. But then I just have to use my other colleagues some more. They are good colleagues, even though most of them are men," she smiles.

"We have always had a good togetherness, both here in the laundry and with the others at the waste treatment plant . During the shared coffee breaks, we get a lot of professional and private stuff," Winnie elaborates.

New times
At the same time as Winnie's farewell to the laundromat, some of the workflows have been streamlined so that Jette can get to work alone. This has meant, among other things, that new, iron-free kits have been purchased and that tea towels and towels are no longer pressed.

"It doesn't look so nice to have to drop off a stack like that," jette says, pointing to a pile of lightly curled towels in the closet. After so many years in the laundry, the professional pride and the will to make it good is clear to read.



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