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Athens: She became a symbol of Greece's anti-austerity uprising: the populist surge that put Syriza in power and Grexit on the cards.
But now Despina Kostopoulou, 53, cleaning lady at the Finance Ministry, is a symbol of Greece's next step: back at work, paying more tax (in euros) on less pay, unsure about the future – but somehow believing a line in the sand has been drawn.
Ms Kostopoulou worked for 22 years at the Finance Ministry but was laid off in August 2013.
"It was like someone took life from me," she said through an interpreter.
"The then minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis decided that among the layoffs that the troika [European financial bodies] was asking for, it would be the men and women, the cleaning people at the Finance Ministry. It wasn't announced to us, we learned from the television.
"We had very little money to survive in the months after that. I moved house, I rented a cheaper and smaller one. I took out of my life everything I couldn't afford like a car, or going on holiday. Even daily expenses, food and clothes, some were out of reach."
She and her co-workers were replaced by private contractors at a third of the cost.
En masse, they camped outside the ministry's offices in downtown Athens, waving their mops and rubber gloves and demanding to be rehired.
They became known as "the 595", symbols of the country's resistance to the austerity imposed by former prime minister Antonis Samaras' government – a cull of thousands of public sector workers to placate creditors and cut spending.
From "day one" Ms Kostopoulou started to gather her colleagues to protest – she was the first with a tent outside the office, she says.
"We wanted to do something against austerity," she said.
As Syriza's star rose, the leftist party's politicians became regular visitors to the cleaners' camp.
Current Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras came before the January elections and picked up a megaphone, promising they would be the first to be rehired if he could form a government. Ms Kostopoulou had her photo taken with him.
Syriza won power and in May passed a law to rehire public sector workers, including the cleaning ladies, school guards and other civil servants. Finally, on July 8, Ms Kostopoulou returned to work.
"I was happy not only because of me going back to my job but because we have a left government for the first time in Greece," she says.
She recognises many of the new faces around the department in the new government from her time at the protest camp.
On her first day back at work she even found herself feeling a "little empty", missing the other cleaners she had met during her two years protesting.
She has been rehired on double the hours – moving from part-time to full-time – and is paid less.
But the money is vital. Ms Kostopoulou says she is divorced and supporting two adult children, neither of whom can find work in a country where the unemployment rate is more than 25 per cent.
"My life has changed. I am more tired because I am working! But I am very happy. I have a job. I have my life back."
She may not be out of the woods yet.
As part of the bailout agreement foisted on Greece at the recent crisis talks in Brussels, the government agreed to "reduce further the costs of the Greek administration", and to either backtrack on the commitments it made in office, or identify extra savings elsewhere.
It was widely interpreted as meaning the cleaning ladies could be out of a job again.
When the details of the bailout deal were announced a lot of Ms Kostopoulou's colleagues called to ask what was going on.
Government officials, including the labour minister, told them not to worry, that the government will find a way to keep them all – by imposing a staff freeze.
But she is realistic.
"In three months it might change. It is something that may happen. Maybe this will be asked of them. I hope it will not happen. I don't want it.
"The other countries have no right to decide, not only on my job but everything that has to do with the internal affairs of Greece."
Ms Kostopoulou says she is optimistic by nature. "I'm a survivor," she says, defiantly.
"For some years it will be very hard but we will manage. We owe that to our children."
Meanwhile, at the Finance Ministry, there's some cleaning to be done. She found the minister's office "in a good condition", she says – but other women she spoke with say they found "some places very dirty".
