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Urgent! Recommend Me A Cleaner.

cesare said:
Anyone on minimum wage is being exploited.
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The nursery I am in at the moment is awful-thank god now I am a teaching assistant, I only have to spend ten hours a week there-no breaks allowed in six hour shifts and only minimum wage (despite me having over ten years experience) The THREE managers do fuck all which annoys me far more than the wage. We have all been treated so appallingly and talked to like shit by the management but nobody apart from me is in a position to quit as work is hard to come by up here:(
Sorry for derail.
 
dodgepot said:
then surely the humane thing would be to get them put down, rather than let them live their life in that state?
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:D

Seriously though, being a good cleaner does take skill and attention to detail. It seems that all skills that women tend to be traditionally good at are somehow undervalued and taken for granted and actively dimissed and not counted as real skills.
 
Iemanja said:
When I was a cleaner I was quite happy with getting cash in hand and didn't feel exploited at all. I much prefered working during the day in a safe environment than in a pub, for example. At least I had my evenings to myself.

People who take up cleaning jobs can often be students too, don't forget that. There's no such thing as a stereotypical cleaner.
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(my emphasis) - yes, there is. You are lucky not to be one of them. The 'stereotypical cleaner' (ie, the majority of cleaners) is not a student, does not speak fluent English, and is underpaid for the type of work they are carrying out.
 
cyberfairy said:
The nursery I am in at the moment is awful-thank god now I am a teaching assistant, I only have to spend ten hours a week there-no breaks allowed in six hour shifts and only minimum wage (despite me having over ten years experience) The THREE managers do fuck all which annoys me far more than the wage. We have all been treated so appallingly and talked to like shit by the management but nobody apart from me is in a position to quit as work is hard to come by up here:(
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:(:(:(

Is cash in hand work hard to get as well?
 
slowjoe said:
(my emphasis) - yes, there is. You are lucky not to be one of them. The 'stereotypical cleaner' (ie, the majority of cleaners) is not a student, does not speak fluent English, and is underpaid for the type of work they are carrying out.
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so who are the majority of cleaners? The ones I know where I work are employed through an agency and get £8 an hour (I know because I talk to one of the ladies in there regularly)

cleaners who work privately in houses are a different story and conditions will vary depending on the employee and whether it's done through an agency or not (which takes us back to the situation where some people can't/don't want to go through agencies)

p.s. I'm not saying there aren't people being exploited out there, what I'm saying is that it's not a clear cut situation.

When I did it I worked for people who actually paid for my holidays (the nice ones) and ones who were really arrogant, but I just treated it as a job. There are arrogant employees in all jobs.
 
cyberfairy said:
I have cleaned, made food, changed nappies and wiped up vomit from other people's kids for minimum wage-and I had to spend six months training to do that-nobody makes a fuss about nursery staff being exploited for bugger all money:p
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I hope this is a point in favour of the recognition of the exploitation of nursery staff (in which case I agree).
 
cesare said:
:(:(:(

Is cash in hand work hard to get as well?
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Yeah-like I said, now I have my other job I am fine and probably going to quit soon but there are people working there from the ages of 18 to 55 who are so miserable but still do their best with the kids despite the limited resources. Obviously people don't stay there that long if they can help it so the kids get really messed about as well. I would definitely ask parents considering a nursery to ask about staff turnover etc as a high one is an unhappy place for staff and often children.
Anyway-derail over-would love to find cleaning work on the hours mentioned above as would mean I could work half the hours for same money, not be treated badly by managers and would be not nearly so much splattered bodily fluids.
 
Iemanja said:
There are a lot of people out there who wouldn't actually know where to begin when it comes to cleaning, and therefore don't have the skills to do a good cleaning job.

It takes some skills to load up a vacuum cleaner without ripping the bag.
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Leaving aside people who physically can't do this stuff, how can one not know 'how to begin' cleaning?

The type of person who's MUM did fucking everything for them. And they should be made to live in a public sewer until they buck their ideas up.

Domestic cleaning's a piece of piss.
 
cyberfairy said:
Yeah-like I said, now I have my other job I am fine and probably going to quit soon but there are people working there from the ages of 18 to 55 who are so miserable but still do their best with the kids despite the limited resources. Obviously people don't stay there that long if they can help it so the kids get really messed about as well. I would definitely ask parents considering a nursery to ask about staff turnover etc as a high one is an unhappy place for staff and often children.
Anyway-derail over-would love to find cleaning work on the hours mentioned above as would mean I could work half the hours for same money, not be treated badly by managers and would be not nearly so much splattered bodily fluids.
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It's the sort of thing you'd expect parents to ask really.

Loads of people do cash in hand work round here, notices in corner shop, cards posted through letter boxes etc.
 
kyser_soze said:
Leaving aside people who physically can't do this stuff, how can one not know 'how to begin' cleaning?

The type of person who's MUM did fucking everything for them. And they should be made to live in a public sewer until they buck their ideas up.

Domestic cleaning's a piece of piss.
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I agree that cleaning is easy, but how come so many people just can't seem to get themselves organised to do it? It's because it is a skill that has to be learned and a lot of people haven't learned it. If you want to keep a house clean there's a methodology behind it ;)

Using computers is a piece of piss, if you know how to use them! That goes for any day to day skill really. Cooking is a piece of piss too but lots of people don't know how to do it.
 
slowjoe said:
I hope this is a point in favour of the recognition of the exploitation of nursery staff (in which case I agree).
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Of course:) I am not dissing cleaners in the slightest but at the nursery we are expected to clean up for them as they complain if carpet has glitter/sand etc on thus we have to get hoover out when we are completely knackered to clean for people who earn more than us and don't get constant supervision-it is not the same everywhere though tbf. And like somebody else said, they don't work that many hours in comparison.
 
Slowjoe if you read the thread properly I said £10 an hour was good money.

Another poster said it was not good money for a cleaner in london.

I replied it was more than I'm on.

So from my perspective £10 an hour is good money, because its more than I earn per hour.

I think thats quite simple to understand really.

I did not say that I was giving her a 'good deal'. You words not mine.

I do not want to employ my cleaner through an agency because I would rather she get all the money that I'm willing to pay her not just 60%, with the other 40% going to the agency.

This woman has a child cleaning fits around school hours and means she can look after her kids rather than having to pay for a childminder and it means she can spend time with her kid after school rather than being at work.

When she comes round I'll ask her if she feels expolited and count the seconds before she slaps me hard round the face.
 
MrsDarlingsKiss said:
Slowjoe if you read the thread properly I said £10 an hour was good money.

Another poster said it was not good money for a cleaner in london.

I replied it was more than I'm on.

So from my perspective £10 an hour is good money, because its more than I earn per hour.

I think thats quite simple to understand really.
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As I've already said, what you get paid for doing your work has little bearing on what it might be reasonable to pay a cleaner.

If what you meant was that £10 p/h was enough to offer in order to attract a cleaner, than that's a different matter.

But don't pretend that you're paying 'good money' just because it may be more than the paltry wage you get for doing what in any case is an easier job.
 
I'm not pretending anything....

What I get paid does have a bearing on what I see as good money tho. You failed to address that.

I feel its a fair amount of money considering other cleaners we checked out get paid £6.50

Anyways we aren't offering £10 per hour, the cleaner set her own price of £10 per hour. And that is also what we can afford. So we have agreed mutually about the fee.

You're really not convincing me, mate.
 
MrsDarlingsKiss said:
I'm not pretending anything....

What I get paid does have a bearing on what I see as good money tho. You failed to address that.

I feel its a fair amount of money considering other cleaners we checked out get paid £6.50

Anyways we aren't offering £10 per hour, the cleaner set her own price of £10 per hour. And that is also what we can afford. So we have agreed mutually about the fee.

You're really not convincing me, mate.
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What other people get is not relevant - got that yet?
 
Ol Nick said:
It is absolutely relevant.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/16/equal-pay-claims-gender
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Very interesting article - thanks for linking.

And it raises a very valid point (which I sort of made obliquely the other day but needs pointing out more overtly): cleaning houses at £10 an hour, with say an average of 4.5 hours a day while your kids at at school will net you an annual salary of £11k. Not a huge amount. But if you worked at a supermarket, same hours (which realistically is all you're going to get if you want to work while your kids are at school), you would earn half that.

If you work cash in hand, you still get benefits too. It's a no brainer really isn't it?
 
I have used one cleaner from an agency - SELCLENE - the agency get a load of the money, you might get a good cleaner but they send a useless one when s/he is unavialable etc. In the end we employed our agency cleaner direct - split to difference over the huge agency mark-up.

But best by far to fnd a cleaner by recomendation from someone you know and trust.
 
She's not my cleaner, btw, but I know her well and she can give impeccable references if she chooses to take you on. She can pick and choose. I believe she's sacked particularly flakey employers.
 
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