Made to hoover and clean office

Subcomandante Marcos

Subcomandante Marcos wrote: »

I'd make the argument that my time is more valuable than the cost of hiring a cleaner to come in for a few hours per week from an agency. If I'm being paid my salary to do a menial job that someone could be paid a fraction of my cost to do, it's plainly bad business for the company.

Everyone who is an employee likes to think that is true.

If it were in fact true, the owner/employer in the OP's case would have a cleaner. The simple fact is that it makes financial sense to do exactly what they're doing. Otherwise the 'tight' owner would change the arrangement.

Everyone can argue whatever other point of view they may hold, and that's fine, but it won't change the fact that the OP works for a privately owned company with an established practice which does not represent a danger to the employee (no matter the ridiculous suggestion made earlier on thread) and they'd be better off just getting on with it, instead of trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Shefwedfan

Subcomandante Marcos wrote: »

I'd make the argument that my time is more valuable than the cost of hiring a cleaner to come in for a few hours per week from an agency. If I'm being paid my salary to do a menial job that someone could be paid a fraction of my cost to do, it's plainly bad business for the company.

NZ use it as team building, different players after every match clean up the dressing room...not just the kids but the senior players. Not just clean it up, it will be spotless

The manager or senior person is also doing it, maybe it’s team building. Maybe it’s a tradition, the company is small, 8-10 people, so maybe when it was 2 people they took turns to clean up after and they just carried on the tradition

Has the OP ever asked? Or just do it half arsed in the hope he Doesn’t have to do it again

mrslancaster

JayZeus wrote: »

All nonsense in the context of the OP's employers business. All staff are on a roster to 'clean', it's current practice, common practice in many small businesses and entirely reasonable. I expect the OP is able bodied and is simply looking to get out of doing something they feel is beneath their pay grade. That's BS. As for the hundreds of business plans you've seen over the years, I'll take it you don't actually have the experience of running a small business then. Or you wouldn't have tried arguing from a rather abstract position. Like it or not, the OP has to roll up their own sleeves and do a bit of light duty cleaning once every few weeks. Stop making it out to be a big deal, because it's not.

Some fairly delicate whingers on this thread to be honest.

You'd take it wrong then and it's a big deal for the OP

frankythefish

Son, there was no need to bring this issue to the public. As you ve royally pissed me off now, your duties from hereon will consider primarily of cleaning. Chew on that. See you Monday. Bring your marigolds

Nobelium

You're in a shyte company with shyte half wit management. Stop wasting your time and life there. Get out. Move on.

heroics

JayZeus wrote: »

From €15 per hour. From. That will be if you have a contract cleaner on a contract, typically 20+ hours onsite per week, plus travel time, cleaning supplies usually on contract etc. Try getting a single cleaner to travel to your location and clean for an hour once a week for €15. Not going to happen.

In fairness I was getting a cleaner to clean my house in Dublin last year for 12€ per hour once a week. You seem to think that its way more than 15€ ph to clean an office.

Most of the professionals working for me are on ~€30 per hour. Why would I have them cleaning when I can get the work done for 50% of the costs. Makes no sense.

the_pen_turner

not sure its bad business.
probably cheaper to get one of the staff to dot he odd bit of cleaning than to pay someone to come in.

i would expect a cleaner to come in would be billed at 50+ euro for the first hour minium plus materials and suppplies.

mrslancaster

mrslancaster wrote: »

You'd take it wrong then and it's a big deal for the OP

I know it's a 'big deal' for the OP. It shouldn't be. At all. For anyone.

People who haven't done a hard days work in their life seem to find the smallest, most petty of things to complain about. This is a prime example. Workplaces exist where they'll get to do exactly what they want to do all the time. Small companies in many, not all but many, need employees who won't be so precious or so petty.

No matter, fire away in winding them up and telling them they're right to have a problem with being asked to tidy up and use a hoover for an hour ever few weeks. You're doing them a disservice, and I expect that you know it. There are many legitimate things to complain about, to refuse to do, to walk away from a job over. This isn't one of them.

heroics

JayZeus wrote: »

From €15 per hour. From. That will be if you have a contract cleaner on a contract, typically 20+ hours onsite per week, plus travel time, cleaning supplies usually on contract etc. Try getting a single cleaner to travel to your location and clean for an hour once a week for €15. Not going to happen.

Where are you getting this 20+ hours per week etc. Are you the employer that assumes all your staff are there to do anything You ask?

Shefwedfan

heroics wrote: »

Where are you getting this 20+ hours per week etc. Are you the employer that assumes all your staff are there to do anything You ask?

I would guess

2 hours per day to clean up after the people
The 1 hour to get to office and 1 hour to get back

20 hours

Hoboo

Is this AH?

Never read so much nonsense in one thread. OP your.contract should state clearly your duties. Cleaning other than after yourself, cups, your own bin and desk, is not considered acceptable when referring to 'other duties as directed by management from time to time'.

You don't train to be an accountant for example to hoover floors. Duties must be reasonable. What next, doing the gutters and tiling the toilets? Sure wash the bosses car while you're at it.

Refuse outright to do it. Sounds like the type of place that would fire you on the spot. Enjoy the payout.

heroics

heroics wrote: »

In fairness I was getting a cleaner to clean my house in Dublin last year for 12€ per hour once a week. You seem to think that its way more than 15€ ph to clean an office.

Most of the professionals working for me are on ~€30 per hour. Why would I have them cleaning when I can get the work done for 50% of the costs. Makes no sense.

Because as a business you very likely won't get a cleaner for €15 once a week. It's not someone who tidies you kitchen and cleans the bog, then does the same for a few others around the corner for cash in hand on weekdays. In some cases, sure, that's possible. I've worked in a small company where that happened, but it was based in a residential area where an old dear knocked on the door and the owner paid her out of his own pocket. And we were all billable resources working for him.

But as I've already said already, if it made sense financially to have the OP and their colleagues doing something else, something that was profitable for that hour each week (and let's face it, they're not all utilised at 100%, are they now?) then the owner would be paying a cleaning and counting his piles of money flowing in.

It's all pointless anyway. Established practice, not unusual, not harmful or demeaning, even for the delicate souls who think it is. So get on with it.

heroics

JayZeus wrote: »

I know it's a 'big deal' for the OP. It shouldn't be. At all. For anyone.

People who haven't done a hard days work in their life seem to find the smallest, most petty of things to complain about. This is a prime example. Workplaces exist where they'll get to do exactly what they want to do all the time. Small companies in many, not all but many, need employees who won't be so precious or so petty.

No matter, fire away in winding them up and telling them they're right to have a problem with being asked to tidy up and use a hoover for an hour ever few weeks. You're doing them a disservice, and I expect that you know it. There are many legitimate things to complain about, to refuse to do, to walk away from a job over. This isn't one of them.

I’m unsure if you are serious or having a laugh. You are the one winding people up. Are you an small business owner by any chance.

If some one is hired as a software developer or an accountant or solicitor for example why should they Hoover the office. As above they should keep their desk clean etc but if a company can’t afford a cleaner for 2-3 hours a week in my opinion they have bigger problems than the cleaning

heroics

heroics wrote: »

I’m unsure if you are serious or having a laugh. You are the one winding people up. Are you an small business owner by any chance.

If some one is hired as a software developer or an accountant or solicitor for example why should they Hoover the office. As above they should keep their desk clean etc but if a company can’t afford a cleaner for 2-3 hours a week in my opinion they have bigger problems than the cleaning

Indeed. They very well may have. But the OP reckons that €2M turnover means they should hire a cleaner because their employer is protected from all financial pressures because of their bags of money, right?

The OP's not being asked to clean the bosses car, walk their dog or run down to the shop for a pack of smokes, like a good lad. They're expected to take a place on the roster, as an employee, to help keep their workplace neat and tidy. If anyone legitimately objects to that, I mean a deeply held principled objection, they really need a proverbial kick in the backside.

heroics

heroics wrote: »

Where are you getting this 20+ hours per week etc. Are you the employer that assumes all your staff are there to do anything You ask?

From €15. That's not "€15 per hour". It's indicating what the lowest hourly rate is, which should indicate to anyone with any sense at all about how these things are priced that the rate is when it's part of a favourable contract for the service provider. You don't get the low end of the rate card when you want to use an hour per week. You get the low end pricing when you're spending enough to make it worthwhile for somebody running a business, paying for transportation, supplies, certs, wages and employers contributions. That will start at around 20 hours per week on contract for cleaning. Perhaps less if they can pad hours if there's another site nearby for a cleaner looking for a 30 hour per week contract.

You should know this. It's not rocket science.

Nomis21

I used to drive a bus from Amsterdam to London 3 times a week. 60 hours a week and the company insisted I clean the bus at the end of the journey. I was too tired to do it usually so I used to drive round to Kings Cross when I arrived in London and got one of the street prostitutes to do the cleaning for me.

strandroad

Everyone who thinks the OP has notions, if their boss now tells them to clean the toilets should they clean them too?

strandroad

strandroad wrote: »

Everyone who thinks the OP has notions, if their boss now tells them to clean the toilets should they clean them too?

I'd argue that the toilets should be kept clean in the first place by the people using them.

But that's not going to work because more and more people seem incapable of just doing the things they should have learned how to do routinely in the first place. I'm surprised some people can tie their own shoelaces, seeing how much of a mess some of these animals make of toilets.

Something that seems to have become more of an issue as more and more people seem to think someone else should clean up their mess after them, and so many argue in support of that childish expectation.

strandroad

JayZeus wrote: »

I'd argue that the toilets should be kept clean in the first place by the people using them.

But that's not going to work because more and more people seem incapable of just doing the things they should have learned how to do routinely in the first place. I'm surprised some people can tie their own shoelaces, seeing how much of a mess some of these animals make of toilets.

Something that seems to have become more of an issue as more and more people seem to think someone else should clean up their mess after them, and so many argue in support of that childish expectation.

That's a non answer though. In my house as well as in my workplace everyone has good manners as in you don't see any messes and yet they need their regular cleaning.

Should qualified employees clean the toilets to save on the cleaner if that's what their boss wants?

strandroad

strandroad wrote: »

That's a non answer though. In my house as well as in my workplace everyone has good manners as in you don't see any messes and yet they need their regular cleaning.

Should qualified employees clean the toilets to save on the cleaner if that's what their boss wants?

It should not be beneath anyone who uses a toilet to clean one. I’ve done so in the offices I’ve worked in for nearly 30 years when it’s been necessary.

With appropriate cleaning supplies, almost any able bodied adult should be capable of doing so. I see no good reason why not.

Augme

If I wanted to clean in work I'd get a job as a cleaner. There is no way would I ever agree to clean my place of work.

LionelNashe

SATSUMA wrote: »

Ok,

So there are 8-10 of us in an office. Each of us are on rotation to clean. This involves hoovering 2 large rooms, cleaning tables, fridge, empty bins, bring down bags of rubbish and boxes to another part of a large building. It takes at least one hour and more often than not, it's not done very well! There is no "deep cleaning".

At first i didn't think to question it, i just rolled up my sleeves and got stuck in. However, now i think it's unfair. We have more staff now the place gets dirty.

Can i/we refuse to clean and on what grounds? Do other organisations have to do their own cleaning?

Thanks

Companies should hire professional cleaners to do the cleaning. I'm guessing the boss isn't part of the roster? If I was in your position, I would have been assertive at the start and said that it's not on, and just carried on with your regular duties. Now that you've been going along with it for some time, you have weakened your position.

Rubberchikken

a cleaner once a week for an hour should only be 15 to 20 euro for that hour.
cleaning is necessary. a work environment is meant to be clean and tidy and having people who are hired to do a particular job also cleaning is stingy and short sighted of any employer.

Always Tired

Funny how all those who think OP should, literally 'suck it up' keep using the word 'notions.'

Who uses this word? Grouchy aul wans who still buy into this 'grovel at your betters' culture instilled into us by Catholicism. It's the business owner who has the notions: he thinks he owns the staff while they are on the clock and can make them do literally anything.

Being a business owner doesn't mean you get to assign your employees that you hired for a specific position to any random task just because the business needs it. Paying someone a wage doesn't make them your overall servant.

If every business did this all the cleaners would be out of work. Only the mickey mouse chancers (sorry, small business owners) in this country would try and pull this. In a proper business they wouldn't be caught dead at this craic, because if clients found out they'd start wondering things like:

Did that project take so long because this idiot has his employees assigned to it hoovering the office instead of working on it?

Are these people really qualified and talented in this area? Am I paying them to do (whatever the company does) or am I paying them to clean?

Subcomandante Marcos

JayZeus wrote: »

Everyone who is an employee likes to think that is true.

If it were in fact true, the owner/employer in the OP's case would have a cleaner. The simple fact is that it makes financial sense to do exactly what they're doing. Otherwise the 'tight' owner would change the arrangement.

Everyone can argue whatever other point of view they may hold, and that's fine, but it won't change the fact that the OP works for a privately owned company with an established practice which does not represent a danger to the employee (no matter the ridiculous suggestion made earlier on thread) and they'd be better off just getting on with it, instead of trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.

My wages is multiples what a cleaner is paid.

If I'm doing menial jobs for even 2 or 3 hours per week, it's wasted money for my employer. I know my worth, I know my value, it's a lot more than the cost of hiring a cleaner to clean.

If my emolyer asked me to clean the office I'd tell them to go **** themselves.

Shefwedfan

strandroad wrote: »

Everyone who thinks the OP has notions, if their boss now tells them to clean the toilets should they clean them too?

Our toilet has signs all over them, leave in same condition as you found them. Something along the lines of that

You don’t have to turn into a dirty person just because your in work. Basic manners to clean up after yourself

Shefwedfan

Always Tired wrote: »

Funny how all those who think OP should, literally 'suck it up' keep using the word 'notions.'

Who uses this word? Grouchy aul wans who still buy into this 'grovel at your betters' culture instilled into us by Catholicism. It's the business owner who has the notions: he thinks he owns the staff while they are on the clock and can make them do literally anything.

Being a business owner doesn't mean you get to assign your employees that you hired for a specific position to any random task just because the business needs it. Paying someone a wage doesn't make them your overall servant.

If every business did this all the cleaners would be out of work. Only the mickey mouse chancers (sorry, small business owners) in this country would try and pull this. In a proper business they wouldn't be caught dead at this craic, because if clients found out they'd start wondering things like:

Did that project take so long because this idiot has his employees assigned to it hoovering the office instead of working on it?

Are these people really qualified and talented in this area? Am I paying them to do (whatever the company does) or am I paying them to clean?

As I posted above which everyone ignores because it doesn’t suit the agenda, maybe it’s seen as team building. A tradition....you don’t know...the person that works in company hasn’t even bothered to check

Remember multi million sports stars have no issue cleaning up

Jim2007

Always Tired wrote: »

Being a business owner doesn't mean you get to assign your employees that you hired for a specific position to any random task just because the business needs it. Paying someone a wage doesn't make them your overall servant.

If you actually understood a little bit about running a business and in particular a small business in this case, you'd know that you pay people to do the job you need them to do not the job they'd like to do. You simply could not afford that kind of nonsense and expect to survive.

You don't want to do the job the company needs done, that is fine, then move on. Don't expect for a minute that any small business owner is going to put up with you, they can't afford to.

Batgurl

Jim2007 wrote: »

If you actually understood a little bit about running a business and in particular a small business in this case, you'd know that you pay people to do the job you need them to do not the job they'd like to do. You simply could not afford that kind of nonsense and expect to survive.

You don't want to do the job the company needs done, that is fine, then move on. Don't expect for a minute that any small business owner is going to put up with you, they can't afford to.

You are looking at things with the bias of a business owner. Of course business owners want employees to care about their business as much as they do, to be willing to muck in and have the business grow and prosper.

The problem is employees don’t think like that because employees don’t gain anything from a successful business. They clock in, earn a wage and clock out. Employers have no problem cutting staff in tough financial situations so employees should show the same level of commitment. No employee is indispensable and no employer is either. People get fired and people get new jobs; that is life.

The only person who benefits from a successful business is the owner (and managers who receive bonuses based on making sure income is more than expenditure).

Employees are hired to do a job that they themselves have picked as they have decided it brings them some level of personal fulfilment (or at the very least is something they can stand doing).

What exactly does an employee have to gain from doing work which they didn’t sign up for and which, most people would agree, adds nothing to their CV?

Im not talking about cleaning up after themselves BTW, that’s basic common courtesy. But my reading of the OP is that the cleaning takes hours as the manager expects a small team of 8-10 people to clean up after the larger business overall. OP - please correct me if I’m wrong?

strandroad

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Our toilet has signs all over them, leave in same condition as you found them. Something along the lines of that

You don’t have to turn into a dirty person just because your in work. Basic manners to clean up after yourself

Do you honestly think that if everyone is neat toilets do not to be cleaned?

Floors, walls, doors must be wiped down, sanitiser and bleach used, taps cleaned, mirrors polished. Do you wash the floor and walls after each use to clean after yourself? Or clean under the rim of the toilet?

What this thread exposes is how many people do not know what proper clean entails!