Grandchildren’s messy house!

When we lived in Suffolk, several years ago, a friend got a cleaner. I thought that if she can have one, so could I. Her cleaner came round to view us. Unfortunately we'd just had a bad thunderstorm and one of my dos had peed in doors. The other had an (unnoticed) tick on his chin which ashed on the floor leaving a small trail of blood. I hadn't noticed this before she arrived but she said that she would come the following Tuesday. On agreed day we got a phone call to say that she'd remembered her regular weekly hair do and couldn't come.

One day my DH wanted to use our friend's washing machine (he'd had permission). The cleaner was at the house and would let him in. The door was opened by the cleaner's husband, a former soldier wearing frilly apron and pink rubber gloves. Imagine his embarrassment!

Germanshepherdsmum

I would love to have a cleaner as I loathe housework, but feel I would be insulting someone if I paid them to do a menial job which I can (ok, sometimes with some pain and difficulty) do myself. It would be different if I were not physically able to do it. I would just feel so uncomfortable even though I know many people depend on cleaning work for their daily bread - and when I was a very hard up single parent I considered early morning office cleaning.

I have a friend who runs a cleaning company for a living and her menial (?) job enables her to have many things I couldn't afford. I don't think it is insulting to pay somebody for a job they are happy to do as long as you are giving them the going rate which is usually far higher than the minimum wage these days. If you are no good at reading or writing, aren't mathematically articulate, etc, cleaning work at least gives you job satisfaction as there is a better end product than when you started. I think there are lots of other jobs which may be considered to be less menial where you can't say that.

I don't see any difference between paying a cleaner and paying a hairdresser or decorator, or buying ready made clothes or bread instead of making them yourself. In all cases people are paying money for someone else to do something that they could do, but maybe not well and maybe not willingly.

I don't see cleaning as menial, and doing it is not a waste of anyone's abilities.

To put it bluntly, why should I expect anyone to be willing to clean my loo? The other examples you give are of skilled people.

I spent my college years cleaning toilets in an old people's home. With the proper cleaning equipment and a pair of rubber gloves, it was no problem even though would spread stuff around where they had dementia. Some people just have no problem with that sort of thing.

icanhandthemback

Germanshepherdsmum

I would love to have a cleaner as I loathe housework, but feel I would be insulting someone if I paid them to do a menial job which I can (ok, sometimes with some pain and difficulty) do myself. It would be different if I were not physically able to do it. I would just feel so uncomfortable even though I know many people depend on cleaning work for their daily bread - and when I was a very hard up single parent I considered early morning office cleaning.

I have a friend who runs a cleaning company for a living and her menial (?) job enables her to have many things I couldn't afford. I don't think it is insulting to pay somebody for a job they are happy to do as long as you are giving them the going rate which is usually far higher than the minimum wage these days. If you are no good at reading or writing, aren't mathematically articulate, etc, cleaning work at least gives you job satisfaction as there is a better end product than when you started. I think there are lots of other jobs which may be considered to be less menial where you can't say that.

If you are no good at reading or writing, aren't mathematically articulate, etc, cleaning work at least gives you job satisfaction as there is a better end product than when you started

That statement proves my point exactly - why do you assume that cleaners are no good at reading or writing, aren't mathematically articulate ie, as one ex-teacher said to me the other day "duffers"?

Why??
That is just intellectual snobbery.

The cleaner we interviewed (or was she interviewing us?) used to run her own industrial cleaning company, is a school governor and parish councillor. She just happens to love cleaning and is excellent at it, according to references from others.

At the moment DD is doing ours (she's a lecturer btw).

Because that’s what they willingly do GSM.

Agreed, Call. I've known mine since she was a child, and she runs her own business, picking and choosing clients.

I don't see her as unskilled - she is a lot better than me at cleaning glass for a start - and she is selling a service which I am happy to buy, so we are both happy.

The dignity of labour has been recognised throughout the ages, in principle if not in practice..

If someone is paid a fair wage for the work they do then there is nothing demeaning to employer or employee for them to do work that is either personal or requires only physical skills. Most of those in menial jobs can dot he work better than their employer could. I have my windows cleaned, and grass cut by people who do the job better and more effiiently than i did when i did them for myself.

Our 3 daughters' bedrooms were a disaster area when they were teenagers. The night before the cleaner was due they had to blitz them, putting clothes away, picking up socks, bringing assorted mugs and plates down.
Now as women in their 40's with their own homes they put me to shame! Despite dogs and 6 children between them, you could eat your dinner off their floors (whereas years ago it only lookedas if somebody had!) the surfaces gleam and there are no dodgy bits lurking at the back of the fridge, like at their dear old mum's.
I don't know what I did - if anything but I wish I could match up to their standards!

Doodledog

Agreed, Call. I've known mine since she was a child, and she runs her own business, picking and choosing clients.

I don't see her as unskilled - she is a lot better than me at cleaning glass for a start - and she is selling a service which I am happy to buy, so we are both happy.

Our cleaning team were childhood school friends of our daughters. Our daughter insisted that as a family we help them start their business - best choice we've ever made. They're responsible, good cleaners and come out to the country. Plus never a question as to the messes of grandchildren and pets!

That statement proves my point exactly - why do you assume that cleaners are no good at reading or writing, aren't mathematically articulate ie, as one ex-teacher said to me the other day "duffers"

No, that is your assumption that it was what I was inferring. My point was that there are people in the world who may find they are not able to do the more intellectual job so if everybody felt that it was a job they couldn't give to a person because it was menial work, you would be taking opportunities to work away from them.
My mother's cleaner was studying for her Forensic Science Degree although she was nearly my age and it was something she could fit in between caring for her disabled son and grandchild for whom she had custody. She needed cleaning as a job because it was reasonable money and could be done a couple of hours at a time on a regular basis thus fitting in with her lifestyle.

That is just intellectual snobbery.
I think the fact that the way you view the job as a cleaner as snobbery; I just see it as a different type of job that I wouldn't enjoy.

My mother's cleaner was studying for her Forensic Science Degree

Is she working as a forensic scientist now?

Callistemon21

^My mother's cleaner was studying for her Forensic Science Degree^

Is she working as a forensic scientist now?

I have no idea. The last I heard, her grandsons mother had Stage 4 cancer and Social Services were asking her to take on the second child who wasn't her blood relative but it meant the children could be together. She'd already had to delay her degree once to take on the first grandchild but as he was at an age where she could manage it and her disabled son was at college so she went back. Although I have tried to contact her, she hasn't responded. I hope she at least managed to finish the degree but fate did seem rather against her.

When DS had a student job in Tesco, he said there was an inverse law for education levels and job level.

None of the managers had degrees and many had joined the company direct from school. Till operators had GCSEs, Undergraduates worked the store floor, filling shelves answering customer queries. DS, studying for an MA was relegated with other MA/MSc students to the ware house where they loaded trolleys and took them to the interface area with the undergraduate shelf stackers. PhD students were the bottom of the heap and were allocatted all the cleaning duties.

icanhandthemback

Callistemon21

My mother's cleaner was studying for her Forensic Science Degree

Is she working as a forensic scientist now?

I have no idea. The last I heard, her grandsons mother had Stage 4 cancer and Social Services were asking her to take on the second child who wasn't her blood relative but it meant the children could be together. She'd already had to delay her degree once to take on the first grandchild but as he was at an age where she could manage it and her disabled son was at college so she went back. Although I have tried to contact her, she hasn't responded. I hope she at least managed to finish the degree but fate did seem rather against her.

I hope so, it will be an interesting career and suited to someone who is meticulous.

M0nica

When DS had a student job in Tesco, he said there was an inverse law for education levels and job level.

None of the managers had degrees and many had joined the company direct from school. Till operators had GCSEs, Undergraduates worked the store floor, filling shelves answering customer queries. DS, studying for an MA was relegated with other MA/MSc students to the ware house where they loaded trolleys and took them to the interface area with the undergraduate shelf stackers. PhD students were the bottom of the heap and were allocatted all the cleaning duties.

How odd . What sort of store manager could be bothered with that level of discrimination?

Doodledog I doubt whether Tesco had any official policy, I doubt the HR department was even that interested in what type of degree people were doing. All would have been grouped simply as students working 16 hours a week. It was just the way it panned out and caused the students involved some amusement.