Cat sitter spending 10.mins per visit

[Catinaflatoday]

Installed a ring doorbell a month ago, which has just showed me that cat sitter spends 10 mins a visit not the 30 mins twice a day I thought I was paying for?

AIBU to think 10 min visit not enough twice a day ? 25 a day fee

Ok

Gardeners or mobile hairdressers or personal trainers (for completely random examples) don’t charge you for travel time, like in my pp it’s only when there’s animal care involved that people get really weird about how much you should be paying

Do these jobs earn less than the NLW over a working day? Usually the hourly rate for when someone is at a job working, is set high enough to cover the time when they are not. I would not expect to pay £12 an hour for personal training.

You pay for 30 mins so that's what you should get

What do you want them to do in 30 minutes?

I pop in to feed my friend's cat, for free, I'm only there 10 minutes.

All the additions would be a waste on my cat. He's a eat food and loiter in the garden type.

Well surely speak to them about it? Mine does 20 ,mins as standard but my cat is very shy and nervous, and usually hides, so I said to cat sitter to not bother staying the full time if the cat is hiding, as seemed pointless, it’s only for her food.

Gardeners or mobile hairdressers or personal trainers (for completely random examples) don’t charge you for travel time, like in my pp it’s only when there’s animal care involved that people get really weird about how much you should be paying

Any self-employed service rate needs to take into account non-billable hours (admin, marketing, travel time, accounts, providing quotes, handling enquiries, etc.) and the lack of employment benefits (guaranteed hours, employment protection, sick pay, holiday pay, pension contributions, redundancy, etc.) to be viable and sustainable.

My window cleaner charges £16 for 15 mins cleaning my windows. Of course (!!!) he will have sat down and taken into account travel time and how much he needs to charge to make the rate enough to cover his time between jobs. He’d be an idiot not to.

((He also works a round, obviously organising his route with the least possible journey time between jobs. Obviously you need to build up quite a large customer base to do this, and have a big enough market. Windows can be cleaned at any time of the day, whereas I’d expect most pets want feeding morning and evening.))

Same for gardeners and personal trainers and anyone else who works one hour at a time at separate locations.

It might not be of interest to you, but if their travel time is 10 minutes there and 10 mins back to your home for a half hour visit, they are spending 50 minutes on your job.

Of course they need to take this into account when charging. (Along with all the other factors mentioned above.)

In the case of the OP’s sitter, she should have a conversation with her, because obviously their expectations are misaligned. Is it that the visits are set by default in 30-min slots (i.e. there’s not an option to set a 10-min visit via the platform even if that’s all that’s needed)? Is it that the slot has allowed for up to half an hour (if needed) to do the agreed tasks?

OP, if you want her to spend longer, just ask if she would sit with your cat for 20 mins after she’s fed her. I should think she will be happy to do so, and obviously if not then just find someone else who can.

Well she hasn't showed up today yet

Just messaged her

She sounds potentially unreliable.

I do (paid) cat sitting as part of my business and often only spend 10 minutes there. I find the cats just get more stressed if I hang about as I'm a relative stranger to them and they just want to be left alone.

However I am clear about this to the owners and say that they're paying for "up to fifteen minutes" and that I won't hang about if the cat isn't interested.

Well, she came round 5 minutes after I messaged her and has done the full 30.mins this time.

Well I wouldn't be happy with having to remind someone who I'm paying to come!
I'd be looking for a new one

Do you really need a cat sitter on a daily basis? Our cat is happy doing her own thing during the day.

Once I'm home , I will let her know I'm unhappy and that won't be using or recommending her to anyone

No just the odd time I'm visiting parents at the weekend

Can’t trust anyone these days

Which sounds absolutely fine, it’s the clarity that’s the important bit.

OP what area are you in? DM me. My girl is amazing. Fingers crossed you're in the same area.

It's absolutely disgusting.

I am also a sitter on CIAF and the guidance is 20-40 mins so I make sure I stay 20 minutes as a minimum and I use my Life360 to double check how long I have been, the only one I stayed less was for one that has a cat flap and wasn’t even home when I got there so by the time I had washed the old bowls and done food and water ( no litter tray) it was barely 8 mins so I sat and waited in case he came back and then left after 15 mins. His owner had said I could “feed and go” but I had hoped to see him and make sure he was ok

I have set my radius to 5 miles but one weekend I had 3 bookings- 2 of those were only just in the radius and were twice daily so I am not sure if I even made much that weekend but I don’t like to refuse people if I can physically do it

I am quite new to it and charge the site minimum of £10 for 1 visit and £15 for 2. If I get more in demand may increase my price but at the moment this is handy for a little extra savings pot in an building up for my daughter :)

I think unless you have stated she can “feed and go” then she should stay for more than 10 mins especially if the cats like company as a selling point of a cat sitter is they then get to stay in their home AND get more attention than a cattery. I would speak to her