To be appalled at an email I’ve just received

[EltonHoratio]

I do a little bookkeeping in the evenings to help out with bills plus a little cleaning here and there.

The bookkeeping is for a holiday home company. I’ve been in email contact with an owner of a holiday home, let’s call her Joan. Joan is complaining about the cost of cleaning her three bedroom holiday cottage £60 is four hours at £15 an hour.

Not unusual for an owner to ask and it be explained it’s difficult to get cleaners in this area for less.

Joan has continued to complain and her last email explains the rigorous process she goes through to train her cleaners and to regularly turn up unannounced to check up on them, she proudly states they know she could turn up at any time but never know exactly when that will be. She claims it stops them wasting her time and money on fag breaks and playing on their phones! She proudly attached her own checklist of how to clean, including gems like hoovering carpets and cleaning toilets, who knew?

A quick stalk of her on Facebook and she’s one of these “I sold my soul to help the orphans of Cambodia”, plus she runs her own “charity”.

She’s a fucking hypocrite! Sorry just need to air this.

I'm not sure how policing her cleaners makes her hypocritical tbh. And I'm also unclear why you're so outraged about it. In the hierarchy of twattish behaviour, it's pretty minor IMHO.

She's probably just got higher standards for housework than you, OP.

You're feeling miffed as a result.

She has also started a charity and you're jealous.

Either that or Anne Boleyn and Madame Pompadour are going on a two-week break to Timbukto.

Eh? So, if you run a business and have expectations of those who work for you, you're not allowed to give it to charity?

The half a bottle of red that I have consumed this evening may have something to do with it but I really don’t know what your AIBU is and I don’t really understand your post.
The woman runs a charity and checks on her workers to make sure they are not skiving. What is she doing wrong exactly?

I'm only here for the Mme Pompadour references . . . so colour me disappointed

I don't understand. Why is she wrong to give her cleaning staff exact and explicit instructions on their cleaning duties?

It's a very very good business practice so everyone knows exactly what is required. A decent hotelier would have the same (if not even more detailed) written directions.

Got fuck-all to do with an absence of philanthropy OP

@EltonHoratio
I am confused , does she help charity's or is that a lie ? if ahe does then good for her if she doesn't then she needs to be told to stop tell lies.

As for her checking up an her cleaners , why shouldn't she ? everybody that works is answerable to someone why should they be exempt ?
If they skive off work she is paying them to use there phone.
If they do not do a good job she will have to redo it her self
Does she rent the cottage out ? if the cleaners do not do a good job she will not get good reviews , she will lose money and have to sack / cut the cleaners pay = nobody wins

So do you clean her cottage as well as doing the book keeping?

Or do you arrange cleaners for her?

I don't understand why she's complaining to you.

Is this yet another 'I'm bitter about those who are richer/do less work than I do, so therefore I'm going to find something to slag them off about' type threads, of which there's been many recently.

I'm with you OP, she sounds high-handed, self-righteous and stingy. But publicly plays the saint. I'm sure she thinks she's perfectly entitled to behave like this, after all one cannot trust a lowly cleaner. I fucking hate people like her.

I don’t get this , so she earns money and she might donate it to a good cause . What am I missing ?

I’ve read the OP five times and I still can’t make head not tail of who Joan is and why she is a hypocrite

Is she an owner asking you company to provide cleaners and moaning about the cost?

Or is she employing the cleaners who you use for the holiday lets????

I dont understand the issue.

She turns up, unannounced to make sure the cleaners are cleaning for the hours she is paying for?

I would suggest that's quite sensible. My mums friend once found her cleaner napping on her bed.

Dont know why she cant run a charity and check up on the cleaners.

I think Joan owns a holiday cottage, and the OP is a part-time book-keeper and full time busybody and Joan has emailed the OP because she thinks that £15.00 per hour for cleaning her cottage is over the top.

Not only that, Joan has mentioned that she has very high standards re - the cleaning and keeps careful tabs on people employed to clean her cottage as she has too much time on her hands

OP, in the meantime, has ascertained that Joan either runs a charity, donates to a charity or something else entirely which I fail to understand

This makes Joan a hypocrite. Apparently.

If you can see through this fog, well done. It's marginally more comprehensible than the thread about coy mistresses and fucking/not fucking your boss/co-worker who you hate.

I think.

Op has disappeared to try to make sense of the other thread about Anne Boleyn and Madame Pompadour's head being cut off in the Chalet School by a disaffected employee.

Or maybe that's another thread again.

Thanks @LauderSyme I was beginning to believe I’m a moron who can’t string a series of sentences together as I’m too busy being a busy body. Happy Friday night folks.

I've got to say, £15 an hour is really good . So I wouldn't be expecting someone to be on their phone or have a fag break, especially on a 4 hour shift.
(I say this as something with a physically exhausting job who earns £9 an hour and wouldn't even dream of having my phone on me..)
But I don't really get the point of this thread.
She's paying well so why would she want staff to take the piss?

£15 an hour is the going rate for a cleaner in this area. The cleaners work for several owners and can do up to three houses in one day (although rare as it’s very physically demanding and doing 12 hours would exhaust even the fittest).

@EltonHoratio You're welcome. You're not and you can and no, that's not a fair representation.
I am struggling to see why people are so confused.

Um... what is Jean complaining about? Are they your cleaners? Why do you care?

I’ll try and clear this up for those interested enough to still be reading who are confused. I’m a bookkeeper for a holiday let company. Joan is an owner of a holiday home. She’s complained about the cost of her invoice for cleaning. I’m also a part time cleaner for a different company (unrelated
To Joan but meaning I have a bit of empathy for the cleaners).

I’m in the wrong job if cleaners get £15 an hour!

I think OPs trying to say that if Joan is charity supporting and left wing then she should want her cleaning staff to be fairly and adequatly paid? I think?

Maybe you are @Littlechocola we’re well paid, would you want to do it?

Elton If the cleaners are busy actually doing the job properly when she spot checks then there's no problem though, no?

I don't work in cleaning but if my manager walked in unexpectedly to find me on a fag break and/or playing with my phone they wouldn't be too chuffed either. I'm not sure why cleaners should be exempt from a manager/boss being annoyed if they were.