We were scheduled to clean Heather's house on Thursday. The thing about
cleaning house for teachers is that when June rolls around, they usually
let you go. On Wednesday she called. Her voice on the machine was upbeat
and professional-sounding. The message was: I don't need you anymore. Heather's
a substitute teacher without a contract position, so she is not on a paid
summer vacation. And like she said, she can probably handle the house cleaning
for three months.
Far from feeling let down, Ev and I were relieved. Our schedule is already
full and we don't really need the work right now so we're okay with it. But
that's not always the case. We might have been counting on that $75 from Heather
for groceries. Heck, it takes $27 to fill up Ursula the Nissan these days.
But still, I wish people would give us the courtesy of giving some notice,
maybe a week or two. Two weeks is polite. One week is tolerable -- enough
to start arranging for another client or to put in a couple of earnest days
of fliering new neighborhoods. But 24 hours notice is just downright inconsiderate.
On the other extreme, our client Bob is moving next month. He and his family
are packing up for another house in another town not too far from here. Bob
told us more than a month ago that they were going to put the house on the
market. The next Friday, our normal cleaning day for him, he met us at the
door when we were leaving. He looked apologetic. The house had sold more quickly
than they ever imagined, he said, and they'll be gone by July 9.
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I remember when Bob hired us, he asked me on the phone if we planned to
be in the area cleaning houses for awhile. We had just moved here and I told
him that our intention was certainly to stay in the area, but that you never
know what changes life will bring. I wanted to be honest. We were under the
impression that he was asking because he didn't want to have to "train" another
house cleaner after investing his time in the two of us. Now I know that
he was checking to see if we'd be there for them as they prepared to sell
their house.
Heather and Bob have very different approaches. She gave us 24 hours notice.
He gave us more than a month. I like his method better.
How can we get people to be more considerate in their approach to letting
their house cleaners go? I don't know. If you ask them ahead of time to give
you notice you risk making them mad and losing the job, I suppose. If you
don't ask, you just have to take what comes.
Thank goodness for fliering though. I can't believe how people hang onto
them. It always seems that when someone drops out of the radar our phone rings
with another job. It's happened twice in the past week. I'm so glad we paid
that fliering person last February!
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