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AIBU?

To expect poo stain removal for £16 per hour

120 replies

LaurieFairyCake · 12/05/2011 21:22

I have just got off the phone to my friend who has hired a new princess cleaner. She wasn't too impressed with the clean as the loos looked it hadn't been cleaned properly so she called the company up (think Molly Maid type thing):

Her: "I'm not too impressed as the loos still looked like they hadn't been cleaned properly"

Female Manager: pause "We don't clean loos Madam"

Her (stupefied): "Sorry, you don't clean the loos"????

Female Manager: "No, we can't have our maids do that as really that's up to the householder"

Her (totally flummoxed) : "Er, ok right - well, I guess the rest of the clean was ok"

and then she signs up for 4 hours a week at £16 per hour

When she phoned me up she seemed quite resigned to it.

I am totally [shocked]

I would expect the loos to be cleaned for £16 per hour.

Is that unreasonable? Fgs, care assistants in care homes round here get paid £6.75 an hour to do all sorts of heavy cleaning.

When did cleaning become so precious? And WHO EXACTLY do you need to hire to clean the loos? - Local council dramatically masked bio-hazard folk???

OP posts:

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Lunabelly · 14/05/2011 00:12

Until you've been up to yer elbows in a u-bend filled with other people's red-wine vomit then truly, you haven't lived! For £16 and hour, you clean the bog. If you are a cleaner, you clean, seemples. :o

(My special favourite was the vomit in the showers. I believe 'boak' is the saying used here?)

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PaWithABra · 14/05/2011 00:14

Pa...you don't have to have "the upmost gratitude" to someone who is working as your cleaner. Why would you? You're paying them! They're not doing you a bloody favour!

you're paying them ? does it make them less than you ?

people on here ...sheeessh

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usualsuspect · 14/05/2011 00:18

£16 an hour is not enough to clean shit up ...

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OrdinaryJo · 14/05/2011 00:19

Yes Pa Jesus did in fact have a cleaner, I believe her name was Mary, aka The Mother of God and head of Holy Bog-wiping. WTF???

If we are really going to examine bourgeois constructs here, perhaps we should be focusing on the agency who are no doubt pocketing £10 of the OPs friends £16 ph while paying the actual cleaner minimum wage....

I have a cleaner. I'm working class. I earn £35ph for my skills though, so economically it's better for me to pay someone else to do those jobs. Which includes cleaning the toilet.

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freeandhappy · 14/05/2011 00:20

i had a job cleaning in a religious institution and had to clean the bishops toilet, a toilet reserved for bishops and it was way larger than normal size, actually up on a pedestal but also bigger in the seat than normal and a cold spooky atmosphere

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freeandhappy · 14/05/2011 00:22

and i didnt get next or near to £16 an hour for it so no YANBU.

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OrdinaryJo · 14/05/2011 00:22

Ta Luna that's me right off that final glass of red wine :0

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sunshinelifeisgood · 14/05/2011 00:25

YABU actually I agree with fabby if ever I had a cleaner (yeah right it will not be any day soon ) I would not expect her/him to clean the toilet that is full of rubbish. If it was clean when they got here, yes I would expect them to throw some bleach down and wash it out with a brush but that is all.
Hey I clean up my own shit- rubbish lol

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MumblingRagDoll · 14/05/2011 00:30

pa....no but you don't have to have the upmost gratitude to ALL your staff all the time! And that does not make you better than them!

Do you think my clients have the upmost gratitude towards me when I finish a piece of work for them? Of course not! And I don't expect it...they are paying me! Sheesh!

Equally...when the guy who mows my lawn mows my lawn I say "thanks"...and pay him...not ""I am your most grateful servant forever."

You sound idiotic!

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MumblingRagDoll · 14/05/2011 00:32

Anyway Pa it's "Utmost" not "Upmost" I have allowed myself to get sloppy with my grammar due to getting wound up by you!

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PaWithABra · 14/05/2011 00:46

well Mumbling, idiotic to you i may sound. But as a sucsessful and relatively wealthy artist/businessman i am indeed gratetfull and thankful to the highest to those who facilitate this. To feel otherwise would be awfully arrogant.

To see business in terms of 'well i pay them' is your loss entirely.
i may sound idiotic but at least i have my business relationships on a footing where mutual benefit, trust and respect are far more important than money.

you have 'a guy who mows the lawn'. bet you would just love to be talking about the trouble with 'pool cleaner' at those coffee mornings , hey ?

And Mary Magdeline wasn't Jesus' slave/cleaner. She was his lover. There is something in that for all of you who 'just cant get the staff'

bourgeois car nuts ....

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PaWithABra · 14/05/2011 00:49

thanks for the grammar.

was always a weekness.

utmost - superlative, upmost - uppermost. never even knew there were two words.

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FreeButtonBee · 14/05/2011 00:49

Freeandhappy. You really made me lol - tell me more about the bishops bogs!

I have cleaned bogs for a part time job. I now have a cleaner who does a fanbulus job including cleaning the loo. As a rule i try to leave it 'visually' clean. I can't vouch for my dh (and i hope paforabra doesn't expect me to rremind him to give it a clean after a number 2) i libe in SW londo and pay £10 an hour direct to the cleaner via recommendations.

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togarama · 14/05/2011 00:51

PawithaBra: I reckon that quite a few people on here including me have cleaners and manual workers in their families. Don't try to make this about class when it isn't. I wasn't "slumming it for beer money" - I was doing a job which happened to be available, which I was competent at doing, and which paid money that I needed. Now that I'm older and better qualified I can do other jobs which I enjoy more and which pay more.

Unlike you, I don't regard being a cleaner as demeaning or a sign of inferiority. As I said before, it's just a job that needs doing by someone. It's not fun, it's work, and £16 an hour would definitely make it tolerable for many of us.

I would ask exactly what your problem is, but I don't much care and I suspect you're just trying to wind people up anyway.

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PaWithABra · 14/05/2011 01:05

my problem is with middle class bourgeois folk who think they are too good to clean their own shit and have the indignity to complain about that the hired help doesn't want to do it for them.

was that not obvious ?

At no point have i implied that cleaning is demeaning (infact at least two generations of my forebears were cleaners), this is your projection. So whilst you were happy to take the money , you always knew you were better than this ,no ? What does that say about you ? I know there is a word for it.

To employ someone ought to be a humbling position, it's to ask someone for help with the things you cannot do. Money may change hands but the graitude and thanks to the employee should be humbling to the employer. Without help he is left wanting.

thats what winds me up about this 'my cleaner wont wipe shit up even when i pay them 10/12/16 pounds an hour' .
Its disgusting middle class arrogance that thinks everything has a price.

Again . What would Jesus do ?

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OrdinaryJo · 14/05/2011 01:05

When I referred to 'Mary the mother of God' I meant 'Jesus' mother' not Mary Magdelene who was an entirely different person. I bet they both cleaned his bog though...

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MumblingRagDoll · 14/05/2011 01:07

Pa I have a guy that mows the lawn but I clean my own toilets...I don't have a pool. I am not eternally thankful to my lawn man...though he is very nice....he is happy to get some extra cash and I am happy my lawn is pretty.

If my loo was shitty I would not allow the cleaner in there...but nor would I prostrate myself at her feet in order to show my utmost grateful thanks. There's no need. She's not going to want the embarrasment of my fake gratefulness....she'd rather a nice bottle of perfume and a bonus at christmas I'm sure.

I have worked as a waitress, a coathanger maker, a bar manager, an actor and a writer and nobody...not once has expressed their pleasure or their joy at my work. Despie the fact that I have cleaned up mess, wiped tears and beaten off theives...and I would not want them to either.

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OrdinaryJo · 14/05/2011 01:14

:o coat hanger maker? Do you have any hang-ups about that period in your life? (sorry!)

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PaWithABra · 14/05/2011 01:15

"She's not going to want the embarrasment of my fake gratefulness"

what a shame your gratitude has to be fake.

maybe the people you served where truelly grateful and appreciative of your waiting on/writing/wiping/saving skills, i don't know, i have known servers who have made the evening great instead of ordinary.

Perhaps you did this for some but your attitude and projections of it being worthless intimidated them into not saying thanks or tipping appropriately.

Anyway if your gratitude would be fake, then i suppose too would be your service.

ah well.. your loss , your life.

Good night, Its been interesting.

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mathanxiety · 14/05/2011 06:44

Freeandhappy, I am strangely fascinated by the description of that Bishop's toilet..

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TheHumanCatapult · 14/05/2011 07:02

Well i am not middle class far from it .But when I am home am planning on getting a cleaner if can find one locally it sthat or a gardener downside to small viallage finding anyone .Oh and before i get told of for drip feedling or being lazy arse .I am in a wheelchair and single parent so some jobs be just to much

to help with some of the stuff I will struggle with so can save some of my engery to do fun stuff and yup I make sure the toilets not full of skid marks but other than that yes I would expect someone to come in and clean the loos.

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purits · 14/05/2011 07:09

ROFL @ cleaners saying "We don't clean loos Madam".
How long before nannies say "We don't change nappies Madam"

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Animation · 14/05/2011 07:41

I think everyone should clean their own toilet - or at least make sure it's decent before the cleaner arrives.

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Animation · 14/05/2011 07:51

I am also strangely fascinated by that Bishop's toilet and the atmosphere.

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trixymalixy · 14/05/2011 08:24

Snort at " ask yourself- did Jesus have a cleaner?"

So pawithabra shall I phone up my cleaning agency on Monday and tell them that I have come to the realisation that I'm a bourgeois cunt and it's demeaning for the cleaners to pay them to clean my house?!?!

I suspect my cleaners would be gutted as I pay them more than the agency ask me to, and give good bonuses at Xmas, and they'd be effectively redundant. I suspect the agency lady would be gutted at losing business as well.

I have employed my cleaners for years and have a very good relationship with them, for example we sold our car to one of them, and let her pay it over a few months as she couldn't afford a car otherwise. So I don't treat them badly at all.

The fact is that it is a livelihood for some people and if they don't do that then they'd maybe be on the dole. Which do you think is the preferable option?

And FWIW we never leave the toilet shitty for them, but I do expect it to be wiped.

And if cleaning paid the same as my salary then I'd jump at the chance, I love cleaning, find it very satisfying.

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