The Barbershop: Cleaning as Part of the Craft

Imagine walking into a barbershop. You sit in the chair, get your haircut, and when the barber is finished, they sweep the floor before the next customer. The customer doesn’t have to ask for it, the manager doesn’t need to approve it, and nobody schedules a “floor cleaning sprint” at the end of the month. It’s simply part of the craft. A clean floor is necessary for safety, efficiency, and professionalism.

Software engineering is no different. Writing code inevitably creates some mess: duplication, rough edges, temporary workarounds. Just like hair on the floor, this debris accumulates. If ignored, the environment becomes harder to work in. In a barbershop, too much hair on the floor is unsafe and unprofessional. In software, neglected code leads to bugs, slowdowns, and confusion.

The barber doesn’t explain to customers why sweeping matters; it’s understood. Likewise, developers shouldn’t have to argue every time they want to refactor, simplify, or clean up code. It is part of doing the job well. If engineers skip this work under pressure to move faster, they only ensure that the workspace becomes harder to use and the pace slows down over time.

This analogy reinforces an important point: maintenance is not an optional luxury or a special event. It is routine, expected, and inseparable from the act of producing quality results.