The Desperate Housekeeper

I started this blog, as a way to vent some of the things that my brain to mouth filter has a hard time catching.  I own a housekeeping business, which is a difficult business to run successfully, on the scale that I do.  Especially without a single employee.  This blog is an outlet and an emotional recycling bin, so that I may maintain my sanity. 

First, I have an open letter that applies to most of my clients.

To my valued and much appreciated clients,

I value you a great deal.  Each and every one of you.  I know that my service is valuable to you and that you can't wait to talk to me.  I want to take this opportunity to tell you to do just that.  Wait. If you want to call me at 6:30 am, wait.  If you want to call me at 3 am, wait.  Yes, I've had some of you do just that.

I have business hours, just like every other business in the world.  When my office is closed, please do not call me or demand that I get in touch with you.  At 3 am, I'm doing what most other people are doing.  Sleeping.  Housekeepers, even the desperate ones, need sleep.  We need to eat.  We need to decompress from our day.  While we make things look very easy, spending an hour on my knees, hunched over your bathtub, scraping off soapscum with a razor blade is hard work.  So is handscrubbing your kitchen floor.  Or moving your couch, because Junior decided to fling God knows what under there.

Perhaps I've mentioned that I'm up at 6:30 am and you figure that it's okay to call.  It's still not.  At 6:30 am, if I need to be up that early, I'm in the shower, drinking a very large cup of coffee or eating my breakfast.  Things that everyone does before work, so they can make it through the day without passing out from low blood sugar or falling asleep behind the wheel. 

This may come as a shock, but housekeepers are real people too.  We have lives, outside of our business.  We have families and we have hobbies.  Chat with me sometime and I may tell you about some of it.  What I'm not is a machine.  I'm not a robot that can be switched on and off, with no need for sleep, food or rest.  Please don't treat me like one and I won't treat you like a lifesupport system for a paycheck.

What some of you may not understand is that my business phone is a cell phone and it's the only one that I have.  While a landline would be easier for me, as I could switch it off at night, it's really better for you.  Landlines can't go with me to work.  They don't work in my car and I can't carry them in my purse.  The next time you have a holy crap emergency and I call you right back, be thankful that I use a cell phone and respect the fact that, if you call me at 3 am, it's going to wake me up.

Sincerely,

The Desperate Housekeeper