Cleaning snow in Germany

I live in a so-called Terassen-haus (house on steps?) which has its floors placed diagonally on the side of a hill. So the building is not straight, rather diagonal. So the elevators opens its one door for the first 3 floors, and the opposite door for the higher 4 floors. I live on the 5th floor. Such an arrangement of floors gives each front appartment a big balcony, and each balcony is surrounded with bushes, so the whole building looks a part of the hill. The building is located a little above the base of the hill, so there are 3 sets of stairs before the building, with a 2 meter flat surface between each set of stairs. Why am I telling in so much detail? Because yesterday I was asked to remove snow from these stairs.

Each appartment in the building gets its duty almost once every month in winter to keep the stairs clear of snow. Last 2 months, there was no snow on my duty. But this month there is snow every day. They place the tools outside the building. They consist of a shovel, a long brush and a bucket of snow-salt. I had never done this before, so I took the shovel and tried the carry the snow on each stair-step to the side. Most of the snow was easy, but it was very hard where people had stepped. The surface was not smooth, so the shovel didn't move easily. Then I figured that fine cleaning would perhaps be better done with the brush. It worked, but not at some spots. I tried for half hour at my best and then sprinkled salt on it and left for office. It snowed heavily in the afternoon, reminding me that I have to clean again in the evening. When I reached home, the path that I made on the stairs was even cleaner than I left it in the morning. This snow-salt is a magic salt. Though, I was a little annoyed why I had I worked so hard in the morning, I would have just cleaned a bit and sprinkled the salt. But, anyhow, it showed me that Farmville is a lot more easier when played on PC :)