It is rare when I can spend a Saturday at home just lounging around. Usually my weekends are kept busy buzzling about town doing errands, cleaning house and completing work. In my leisure time this weekend, I spent it with my iPad thinking of new ideas for my blog. Many thoughts danced through my mind to what I could write about in the next coming weeks. It was when reminiscing about the many funny and intense moments since being in the cleaning business, that I was overcome with chuckles. I knew in an instant that I just had to share some of them.
I thought all was going well with this team in terms of getting along. I had paired my strongest team leader with a fairly new cleaner. In the reviews of her work form other cleaners she was doing well. The two cleaners worked together about 5 times and I did not receive any feedback on her performance form the team leader so I just assumed all was going well. Then I got the call. They were at their last house of the, and it was a huge home in a very quiet cul de sac. When I picked up the phone I heard a screeching voice, yelling that she is walking off the job, that she is done, that she can’t work with her and that she can’t stand when someone is constantly following her around checking her work. In the middle of her screeching, the other call comes in. It is the team leader, she is crying frantically and anxiously, and tells me her story. Of course the 2 stories do not match. According to her, she was doing her job by checking to be sure that all tasks are completed thoroughly. The other cleaner was not happy about this and did not like being checked up on. The cleaner then started calling her names and said some horrifying words…like I hope your fall down the stairs and break your leg. She was flailing her arms and waving clutched fists at her while screaming offensive things. As she spins off in her car, she flips the team leader the bird while still screaming hysterically. And to top it off, neighbours were outside watching the whole incident.
I do have a strong instinct of which story was more plausible, but it is not my position take sides but to listen and to find solutions to the problem. Being fairly good at conflict resolution, I was able to calm and direct each cleaner to continue on with the day. Of course each one of them had different cleaners they worked with for the rest of the day, and business continued on as usual.
