Our cleaner got offended

[Hocuspoc]

I am confused.
We have a cleaner for a couple of months now, a nice lady, but doesn't exactly stick to a schedule.
We agreed on 2 hours per week after her own assessment how much it would take her to clean the flat on weekly basis.
With the exception of first two times, she started leaving earlier, for a couple of weeks now she is staying no longer than hour and a half.
Yet, she always says at the end - 2 hours done hence x Pounds for today.
Because I don't find money on the street and because there are more things left to do every time she announces she completed the work, we decided to make a list of tasks so there is enough work to use up the 2 hours (which we are paying for).
She was absolutely livid when I introduced this plan. There was nothing out of ordinary on that list, nothing that she didn't do the first time she cleaned the flat. Yet she stormed through the flat for 2 hours to the minute and left without saying goodbye - assuming she is not coming again 🤷🏼‍♀️
I really don't understand people anymore,sigh...

Well done OP.
Find another professional.

Why on earth do you know about their problems? Or too much about their lives and families? I have always respected my cleaners but they come to work, not chat to me - they aren't my friends and firm boundaries need to be in place with staff - exactly the same at work.

YANBU

Apart from one really wonderful cleaner, this has been my experience with them all, they start off ok but that soon falls away and leaving early seems to be a pattern. I no longer have one.

Hmm, ok.

A bit of humanity doesn’t go amiss when you are employing someone in your home on a very regular basis.
we chat to our office colleagues about their personal lives sometimes. Why should this be different?

If she had worked extra hard to get away early and done a great job I wouldn’t mind her leaving early but that has to be agreed in advance, not assumed. My most brilliant cleaner used to leave a little bit early but only after achieving astonishing amounts.

I had one cleaner who by week 2 had told me so much about their lives by week 4 the agency had replaced her with someone else because she was "experiencing unexplained illness" which I took to be embarrassment from serious over sharing.

The problem with that is it incentivises shortcuts and slapdash work, so rather than getting into a discussion about time you have the even harder conversation about the subjective quality of the work.

For e.g if someone said they'd finished the hoovering and they'd not bothered to do under the sofa that would feel unfinished to me.

Basically, if the person you employ is all about extracting the most cash for the least work then it doesn't matter if that's a cleaner in your home or an office worker who swans off for long lunches and produces half arsed work.

Me too. We've given up trying to find a cleaner as it was causing more stress than it was worth.

This is the reason I clean my house nowadays. I have changed multiple ladies and got sick of paying to have to clean after them as well and to bear with their phone conversations/leaving early/coming late/being fussy of cleaning materials available etc.

Obviously she was wrong to do this — if you agreed two hours she should have stayed for two hours.

But I wonder if, for your next cleaner, it would be better to think in terms of a fixed price for the agreed job? So decide what you want doing every week and perhaps build in one additional deep-cleaning task? The cleaner will probably quote based on time, but once you’ve agreed the price it won’t really matter how much time they spend doing it as long as it’s done.

I am seriously interested in going back to cleaning as I could do with the money. It seems to be lucrative. Where would I go to get a good family to work for though? It works both ways

It's not like we chat for hours about their lives. However, they've been coming for years and during that time we've got to know each other and chat about various things. It's exactly the same with my work colleagues, I know about their lives. I thought this was all perfectly normal.
What's probably not normal is me feeling too awkward to stop overpaying them!

If someone is in your house and has access to all your personal details, it's normal to want to get to know them a bit.

That’s all in the brief, though. You have to agree exactly what each job entails. Hoovering means hoovering under the sofa as well as the bits you can see. So it’s not subjective. If they don’t hoover under the sofa you can remind them that the two of you agreed that the whole job of hoovering included going under the sofa.

Performance management is horrible. Looking someone in the eye and saying ‘you did not do a good enough job’ is so awful that most of us avoid doing it. Employing a cleaning company is much less stressful as you’re delegating the performance management to the company managers and supervisors. Of course you’re paying for that, but some may think it a price worth paying.

Every cleaner I have had we have had a discussion about what was to be cleaned. My longest employed cleaner who was with me 8 years got a real rhythm going so she did it more quickly. She did however take it on herself to do small extra things if she did. She was marvellous, when she stopped I was very sad to lose her. I attempted to find someone else but gave up plus I had retired for 18 months by then. It’s a couple of years now, if I could get someone as good as her I would.

Always agree the job.

I would expect your cleaner to do two hours. With my cleaner, after about a month she told me she could do it in 1.5 and just billed me for the 1.5 hours per week.

Maybe English is not her first language and there has been some misunderstanding, something lost in translation perhaps?

If not, tell her you no longer need her as she's not sticking to the agreed verbal contract of two hours.

I just do it myself now. Paid someone more than I earn per hour for a deep clean and I still do it better myself
I've never had a deep clean (paid for a few one offs as a treat to myself) and not been disappointed afterwards

I would also expect her to stay two hours.
but in my experience good cleaners are near impossible to find, and those who find them hold on to them for dear life. We went through 3 cleaners and trialled a further 2 before settling on our current fantastic lady. We treat her well. When the house is dirtier than usual, we tip her at the end. We offer her coffee etc. she takes a short break during the day which is on paid time. But all of this is worth it as I want her to feel valued and hence do a good job. It’s also about respect. Cleaning must be a miserable job to have for life. And she contributes so much to our family! Just as valuable as a nanny, in my opinion. So I suppose it’s a two way street - yes you have to manage them, but you have to also value them, in my opinion.

She's used to people just letting her get away with it. You've done the right thing ... fair days work for a fair days wage!

That's so weird. We have a cleaner who comes once a month for 6 hours (big, old farmhouse). He was done early, so he offered to clean the windows on the outside and clean the fridge! He is a keeper :D

She sounds horrid. You have to stand up to this, you did right. Otherwise you would be bullied completely by her, which is mad.

Ha a friend's DH unexpectedly working from home one day and the cleaning lady brought her young DD with her and didn't realise he was there. He overheard her say to her DD : "If the room looks tidy just spray some air freshener around they will think it's done"!
Two hours is two hours and she obviously had things to do to fill the time if she wasn't getting everything done. And surprised she tried it on with you actually at home!