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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Cleaner is refusing to soldier

390 replies

biscuitbrown · 05/02/2019 21:45

I've been lucky enough to have a cleaner help out once a week since my first DD was born, we pay her well and we've always been super flexible, she works the day that suits her (rather than a Monday or Friday which I'd actually like). I've always thought we we had a friendship based on mutual respect and flexibility. She's not English and I've gladly helped her with insurance claims/mobile provider issues / school issues /hospital appointments etc. We give her a generous bonus at Christmas, we look after her. I've just gone back to work 3 days a week (long hours) and we've taken the huge step of getting an au pair, which is the first time we've had any childcare. Our au pair is brilliant - capable, trustworthy, hardworking, helpful, she cooks when I'm working, keeps their rooms tidy, washes their clothes, babysits etc. We found her through an agency and they explained how it is a cultural exchange, gave us guidance on what you can and cannot expect an au pair to do.

Anyway to cut to the chase, we pay our cleaner well to clean the whole house. But now we have the au pair she outright refuses to clean her room. I am only asking her to vacuum and dust, not tidy or touch her things (and au pair is SO tidy). I asked her why (this was all on text) and she said the au pair is old enough to look after herself. She's 18. But cleaner is paid to clean all the rooms and has been doing so for years... AIBU?!

OP posts:
dustarr73 · 07/02/2019 11:22

So @biscuitbrown what are you going to do.Ithink you need a face to face chat.
And you need to put some bounderies in place.starting off with getting the cleaners days sorted.

I think this ruckus is needed.You can get things in place with your cleaner,and get things sorted fur once andfor all.

FairyMoppings · 07/02/2019 17:21

As a professional housekeeper/domestic cleaner myself, I'd clean the au pairs room, without thinking twice. It wouldn't cross my mind who occupied the room now/who used to occupy it before. It is a room in a dwelling that requires my professional services, of which I'm being paid for.

Culture clashes/pecking order insecurities are irrelevant. The client has a room that they want cleaning, so I clean it.

I'm quite friendly with some of my clients, but it remains at the forefront of my mind at all times that my services are a business arrangement, ones that I'm obliged to fulfil regardless of friendship.

Just to clear this up though, your cleaner is not your employee, she is a service provider. You don't class your regular window cleaner, oven cleaner, chimney sweep, gardener etc as your employee's, do you? (I appreciate you may not you the services of one or more of my examples, but you get where I'm coming from, right?)

I had an issue once where a client thought she could order me around like a lowly servant, speaking to me disrespectfully, and ecpecting to keep changing the goalposts of the service arrangement without prior notice and adding more duties into my already tight schedule, because she considered herself my employer and I should do as I was told.

I dropped her as a client.

There still seems to be a weird notion that hired cleaners should be whipped housenaids and be grateful for it.

I run my own business, and I do it bloody well. I take pride in my work. I quit a 15 yr career in somethong considered more 'professional' to do this. I'm educated and I'm not on the bread-line. I'm nobody's servant and I expect to be treated respectfully like any other service provider.

And as for "she chooses days to suit her, not me" Im afraid I have to do this too. Because, and I hate to brag, but I'm bloody good at my job! I'm sought-after with a growing waiting list of potential new clients, and my entire week is full to the brim of bookings. If I allowed every one of my clients to specify their days they would ALL pick Friday or Monday. I simply don't have the time to accommodate all my clients in those two days. I'd die of exhaustion and I'd never get home to my own family! So when I meet with a potential new client I let them know what day/time slots I have available. They are free to decline and look for another cleaner if I can't offer the day they want. But, because I'm a good cleaner, my clients have always been happy to take what days I can offer.

If you're not happy with your cleaners days OP, you are free to take your business to someone else. But just because she's a cleaner, it doesn't mean she should HAVE to give you the days that you'd prefer, like other pp's have been suggesting. She has commitments too... other clients, kids etc. You are not her entire world and your payments are not her entire income.

As in my previous comparison, you don't expect your other regular services providers, to give you the exact days you'd prefer. They will if they can of course. But if not you can both discuss other days or decline their services and look elsewhere.

OftenHangry · 07/02/2019 19:26

I be,eve this to be true as all reputable media outlets have reported it. If you haven’t heard it please google. Accessing information is better than focusing your anger on these delivering it. It is a very anxiety provoking situation. Much more so for some than others.

Except that it was thrown out. So please. Google.
No £30000 salary treshold.

StillCoughingandLaughing · 07/02/2019 21:17

And as for "she chooses days to suit her, not me" Im afraid I have to do this too. Because, and I hate to brag, but I'm bloody good at my job! I'm sought-after with a growing waiting list of potential new clients, and my entire week is full to the brim of bookings. If I allowed every one of my clients to specify their days they would ALL pick Friday or Monday. I simply don't have the time to accommodate all my clients in those two days. I'd die of exhaustion and I'd never get home to my own family! So when I meet with a potential new client I let them know what day/time slots I have available. They are free to decline and look for another cleaner if I can't offer the day they want. But, because I'm a good cleaner, my clients have always been happy to take what days I can offer.

But as you say, you’re a good cleaner and people can make the choice - is that more important than the timeslot? However, if you started throwing in provisos around which rooms you’d clean (and which members of the household you’d clean for), you’d soon find you weren’t considered such a good cleaner, and someone else who could do the days that were convenient and would clean any room they were asked to got the job instead.

FairyMoppings · 07/02/2019 21:22

StillCoughingandLaughing did you not read the part where I said:

^"As a professional housekeeper/domestic cleaner myself, I'd clean the au pairs room, without thinking twice. It wouldn't cross my mind who occupied the room now/who used to occupy it before. It is a room in a dwelling that requires my professional services, of which I'm being paid for.

"Culture clashes/pecking order insecurities are irrelevant. The client has a room that they want cleaning, so I clean it."^

StillCoughingandLaughing · 07/02/2019 21:58

Yes, I did read that. But the point I’m making is that you can probably still attract clients even if you’re not available at their most preferred time because you’re getting everything else right. The OP’s cleaner isn’t - therefore what seemed like a minor inconvenience becomes part of a bigger problem.

josbd · 08/02/2019 17:58

Might it be a jealousy thing?

Whatever it is, it should not be happening at all. YOU are in charge, and what you say goes.

Pashal2 · 12/02/2019 02:00

Do you think she sees the au pair as a threat?

DrinkFeckArseGirls · 12/02/2019 09:01

Did the situation resolve, OP?

LellowYedbetter · 15/02/2019 15:01

Refuses to fucking soldier. Who even talks like that?

Halo84 · 15/02/2019 17:18

Do you have anything constructive to add, Lellow, or are you here merely to snipe?

SummerHouse · 15/02/2019 17:24

I have seen very similar scenarios on Downton Abbey.

LellowYedbetter · 15/02/2019 17:27

No I have nothing else to add. You could say that I’m refusing “to soldier”. If I was the cleaner I’d make a mess in the house and then quit, simply because the OP expected me “to soldier”.

pepsirolla · 15/02/2019 17:29

Lellowyedbetter. If you read the thread you would have found out it means to do your job as in soldier soldiering on. Lots of people both ex military and others use it. Life would be dull if we all spoke the same

HumansCannotEverChangeSex · 16/02/2019 14:18

LellowYedbetter Many people say it.. the full phrase is to soldier on.

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