To sack my cleaner?

[BigLittleRedOne]

Just want to preface this with stating that I realise I am lucky to have a cleaner, and I realise many people don't.

I've had the same cleaner for 8/9 years. She is very good, thorough and it is a lifesaver as both partner and I work full time and have two (messy) kids and a couple of pets.

She currently is due to come once a fortnight.

HOWEVER she is very unreliable. She has a lot of health issues and so do her family. Most of her cancellations are due to this. But she lets me down so often and usually when I'm desperate for the house to be cleaned (today it's cos we've got guests arriving this evening for the weekend)

I've just counted up and in the last 6 months she has cancelled 7 times (out of 12!)

The trouble is I feel a loyalty to her, she's a nice person, I've known her a long time and the cancellations are genuine health issues. But I want to be able to rely on her and I need this support!

I don't know what to do.

Empathy won't get your house clean will it though.
Cleaning is a physical job and if someone can't do it then they can't, doesn't mean people aren't without empathy but presumably OP needs someone to clean her house. I am SE, I get paid for working end of.
In a large company where people can pick up the slack etc its less of an issue but a SE person not being able to do a job it means that job will not get done

You have contracted her to do a job, that she is not actually doing most of the time.

Just advise her that you really do need it done regularly and as she is unable to do that, her services are no longer required.

I have arthritis. It's a degenerative disease, so yes you are damaging yourself with overexertion. Permanently damaging yourself. You also will make yourself sick by overexertion because you'll become incredibly fatigued as well as causing extreme pain.

I am not lazy at all. I used to have a career, be a busy mother, take care of the home, and I'd be in the gym three or four times a week. If I need to sit on the sofa sometimes these days and watch some TV, everyone else can suck it.

It’s fundamentally important to keep active with degenerative illness. The more you sit around the more you lose existing tone and strength. High impact exercise can be damaging but low impact exercise is actively beneficial.

Unless OP’s work involves high impact activity (unlikely) it is not damaging her, merely impacting her fatigue levels due to having greater fatigue than a normal person. In terms of managing pain - sitting on a sofa will not actually reduce her joint pain, so there’s no benefit to doing that over working.

Of course it’s not shameful but it’s disrespectful and morally wrong especially when you are relying on others to pick up your bills. Pain and tiredness are mindsets not physical disabilities. How dare I put myself in the same category as someone who is terminally ill or someone who is physically/mentally disabled. In a choice between sitting on the sofa all day thinking about being ill and just getting on with it I chose to get on with it.

Am I in pain. Yes, but I’d be in pain sitting around all day anyway. I’d also have to get treatment through the nhs waiting for months on end because I can’t afford to pay for it, worry about paying bills and generally feel shit for relying on others.

Powering through benefits my mental health. I have something to focus on other than being ill. I am purplepig who has a business, a great life and her own ambitions not purple pig who sits at home all day talking about her illnesses waiting for her next outing to the hospital.

Im not running marathons but I am getting on with my life.

Pain and tiredness are mindsets not physical disabilities.

Sorry, but that makes as much sense as saying that poor people just have the 'poor mindset' and could easily afford all the stuff they need and want if only they just pushed on and appreciated it - and bought it anyway (somehow with imaginary money or with money that they need for essential bills before they get paid again).

Both scenarios are personal 'budgets' - which sometimes are in your power to increase to an extent, but sometimes simply are not, no matter how hard you try or how much you want it.

But why aren't you cleaning your own home, then? No excuses, just work through the pain, use a bit of willpower instead of being lazy and paying somebody else to do it for you.

I have a whole alphabet of conditions, too. Biologics are great but they can't fix the mechanical and the bastarding anaemia and deficiencies from one of the autoimmune ones also bugger me up.

I can go from remission/minor irritating pain after jogging and a whole 5 hours of sleep a night to unable to hold an empty cup or open a tampon wrapper. There's a clear difference between the two that you aren't appreciating because you've never actually been that bad.

It's absolutely possibly to be unable to do a cleaning job or any other work. Why echo the bollocks we get from those who have no idea?

I would say that all her recent cancellations have made you realise you can keep on top of it yourself (even if that's not true) so you won't be needing her after Christmas.

If she is good at cleaning (just unreliable) I would firstly say to her that you need her to be on time and regular. Point out that you rely on her and need her - if she can't keep to a fortnightly (or whatever) schedule you'll need to find someone else. Then if she is still unreliable after 2 months I'd say sorry it's not working and change her.

I suggest this because it's actually really hard to find a good cleaner! My regular left through ill health recently (her choice) but finding a good cleaner is difficult!

You don't need to tell me how my disease works. Yes, it's important not to be entirely sedentary. Telling myself that I'm imagining that my joints are fucked and continuing to push myself until I get to the point I'm in A&E at 4am crying and shaking with the pain and begging someone to give me anything to make it stop will not do me any good. And yes, that has happened to me before after what would be relatively little exertion for a healthy person.

If someone else with arthritis wants to spend their life miserable because they think being unwell is a moral failing, they can have at it. I will absolutely not be taking advice from anyone with that mindset though. As far as I'm concerned, it's utterly stupid to continually push yourself into damaging flare ups.

I should also point out that watching TV because you can't use your body to do anything else really isn't that fun.

How fucking dare you say I’ve never been that bad. You don’t know me. How do you know what I’ve done. When you’ve spent a day with me and seen what I go through to get things done then you can have an opinion.

And I don’t have to clean my big ass house because I go out and make the effort to earn money so I don’t have to do the things I find mind numbingly boring. I didn’t clean it when I ran marathons for fun.. I’m not going to start now.

No I haven’t. I’ve been waiting for the higher dose one to go on sale. It’s down to £750 today so I’ve bought it. Never been so excited about a bloody blanket

I've not read the full thread so perhaps others have suggested this but if you really want to keep her explain the situation and ask her to find a reliable back up to come when se can't. I do weekend gardening work. But since an injury, I can sometimes be unable to work at short notice. I have explained this to clients and have introduced them to my back up. If I need to send her in my place, I let them know. Could that be an option?

I don't think anyone is deliberately trying to offend you, but it clearly isn't that bad if you can both continue to work and also have no understanding of why others can't work.

Unless it's an issue with being able to empathise with other people, you can't possibly have been in significant enough pain to realise how bad these diseases can get.

I would talk to her first and say that they frequency of cancellations is becoming a problem and you need greater reliability. I would start by asking her to reschedule within the same week for every cancellation, or at least the week after as she comes to you fortnightly. If that doesn't work, I'd give her a month's notice.

Or maybe I’m just not a whinny baby who will sit on my arse at any given excuse. I shuffled myself across my office this afternoon because I can’t physically put my foot down on the floor at the moment and there was nobody here to get me what I needed. I absolutely know what horrendous pain is.

I think in your shoes OP, I would have a chat with her, and tell her that you really don't want to let her go, but bearing in mind the number of times she's let you down over recent weeks, does she perhaps have a friend who would be interested in filling in for her when she's not well. You might find that this is the answer to her problems and yours.

If you like her and have been using her a long time I would probably have a chat with her first and warn her that you will have to find someone else if she continues to be unreliable

Hm I reckon it's an issue with your self image, from what you've posted.

Not being able to do things because you have a disease is not being a whinny baby. Who told you that?

OP it doesn't matter why you want a cleaner.
If you can afford it there is no rule that says you can't have a cleaner if you could do it yourself! Whether other posters are too ill to clean or view having a cleaner as lazy is not what the thread is about.

Being a cleaner is a perfectly respectable occupation which can fit in with childcare. Find another.

I did not. I spoke of degenerative disease in general.

Ironically you’re telling @Thepurplepig how her disease works - “clearly isn’t that bad” - while preaching about empathy.

WTF? 🤬

She probably prioritises her weekly clients over her fortnightly ones when she needs to take time off, so her biggest loyalty isn’t with you. You don’t need to feel guilty.

There's definitely something odd going on there. It's not usual to drag yourself across your office because you can't walk lest you become a crybaby lazybones.

There's some ingrained lack of empathy for herself, let alone others. I think my comment was fair.

Is that what Stephen Hawking was doing? It’s not usual to continue working with MND. People make different choices..