What if You Hate Your Cleaning Job? The energy you put is contagious like a virus. Here are some ways you can cope at work when the cleaning job is frustrating.
Everyone gets the “I hate my job” bug when a job gets repetitive or boring, it’s normal! But, when you can’t stand working for your cleaning company, how you act is important.
Attitude is everything, it’s time to release the negative energy and change your outlook.
Listen: What if You Hate Your Cleaning Job?
Watch: What if You Hate Your Cleaning Job?
Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.
What do You Do if You Hate Your Cleaning Job
What do you do if you hate your cleaning job? I’ve had several consults this week with house cleaners, that hate their jobs. Now, this has got me thinking because if you hate your job, how on earth can you be of service to your customers?
Because right now there’s a global pandemic going on that is a virus, known as the coronavirus and everyone is afraid of catching it. But did you know that people can also catch your attitude? So, if you show up to your job and you hate your job, that also is contagious.
So, everybody around you knows, “They hate being here. Why have I hired this person that hates being here?”
Your Hate Shows in the Words You Use
Not only that, but it slips out in the words that you choose. And so now your employees know that you hate your job or you hate the customer. So, some of the things that we say, it gets icky and convoluted because you don’t want to go there. Now your employees don’t want to go there either.
Everybody that shows up from your company that goes to that, “dreaded customer’s house,” and what happens is the customer feels that. “No one from this company likes my family. Why am I keeping them employed?” So, you need to stop for a second and imagine if you were to go into quarantine because now we all understand the quarantine.
You remove yourself from the situation. You take a step back and you kind of let the dust settle. Let’s quarantine our attitude for just a second, of hating our job. And let’s stop for a second and think about what is that? What does that mean?
Your Job is Your Livelihood
The job is our livelihood that pays for our bills. It puts our kids through school. It puts food on the table for our families.
So, if you don’t like your job, get out of the business, and go find another job. This is not the right business for you because this is a people business where you serve others.
And if you hate this job, go away. This is not the right business for you. But stop, if you can compartmentalize what this is and you can manage it, now your business can flourish. So, what happens if you hate the job or you hate a customer?
Why Do You Hate the Customer?
Why do you hate them? Is it because they’re nit-picky and they’re trying to make you better? Is it because they’re high management and they’re frustrating or they’re difficult to be around? Or is it that they’re highlighting things that you need to know?
Because one of the problems we have is there are a lot of people that are cleaning houses that don’t have proper training. And so, then a customer comes in and says, “That’s not the right way to do it.” And they’re like, “Oh, what do you know? I’m a professional house cleaner.” You’re a professional house cleaner with no training.
The customer knows what they need in order for the job to be complete. And so, if you listen to that, you say, “Wow. That could make me better.” And then you implement what you learned, how you can implement it at all the houses you clean. “Oh, my goodness. You got that much better. Thank you very much, mister customer, for highlighting that and bringing that to my attention.”
Change Your Attitude Towards Your Customers
It’s your attitude. And so instead of dismissing a customer and going, “Oh. They’re too high maintenance. We’re not a good fit,” and moving on. That is not scalable.
As you grow your business, for every customer that has a request or every customer that has a bad day, if you dismiss them and move on, you’re not going to have any customers. You will forever be reinventing the wheel that already exists.
If you have a customer that believes in you, that wants to pay you, that needs a service that you offer, by all means, listen to what they have to say. And they go, “Oh. Well, certainly that’s reasonable. We can implement that. We can make that work in the business.”
Have a Compartmentalization Process
Then we have at Savvy Cleaners, this is part of the training that we do. We have a compartmentalization process. We’re at the end of the clean, we take off our personal protective equipment. So, this would be our gloves. It would be our face masks.
It’s our shoe covers. It’s the Swiffer Duster replaceable head. We’re throwing the disposables away at the end of the job. At that same time, if this is a high maintenance customer, Its recommended that you emotionally dismiss everything that happened in that house.
They may nit-picking or be high maintenance or people complaining about their surgeries and their aches and pains, because you get a lot of that at people’s houses.
Take Out Your Baggage After Your Cleaning
Take that baggage from that house, along with your personal protective equipment, and throw it inside the trash. Just emotionally imagine bringing all that ugh into the trash. Throw it in their big trash receptacle that gets pushed out onto the curb on trash day and then go get in your car and go to the next house.
You left that behind. Now that you’ve compartmentalized that and you’re not taking it with you and you’re not all frustrated and sad and sorry and whatever, now you’re going to the next customer with all of that, emotional virus.
If you take all that gunk from that customer’s house, you’re going to go infect the next house.
Leave Everything Behind at the Customer’s House
So, if you leave all that behind and you do a little self-quarantine and then you get back in your car. And you go to the next customer’s house and you’re on time and you feel fantastic and you love your job.
That’s also contagious. So, you can either bring that with you, which is contagious or you can start all over again. Wipe the slate clean. It’s like disinfecting your attitude. Go to the next customer’s house, now you’re ready to rock and roll.
Then when you get back to the office or if you interact with any of your other teammates, all you’re bringing with you is a great, happy attitude. And suddenly, instead of everyone in the company complaining and being miserable, now everyone in the company loves their job and everyone ha this infectious, “I love to come to work for this company.”
Employees Like When You Love Your Job
Here’s where it gets really exciting. You’re going to have people banging your door down to say, “Can I come work for you?” Because other companies don’t operate this way. So, do you want to be the company that attracts people or the company that just infects people and pushes them away?
So stop and do an attitude quarantine about all the things that are going on inside your head if you hate your job.
Because if you hate your job and you keep showing up for it, you are in the wrong business. Just go away. So, either figure this out or go away and go get a new job.
Resources
These good karma links connect you to Amazon.com and affiliated sites that offer products or services that relate to today’s show.
Happiness at Work: Be Resilient, Motivated, and Successful – No Matter What – https://amzn.to/2XyobdU
How to Be Happy at Work: The Power of Purpose, Hope, and Friendship – https://amzn.to/2A17COS
How to Quit Your Day Job and Live Out Your Dreams: Do What You Love for Money – https://amzn.to/2XvnwtC
What Color Is Your Parachute? 2020: A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers – https://amzn.to/370F6sy
Attitude Reconstruction: A Blueprint for Building a Better Life – https://amzn.to/2MvWvAe
Permissions To Share
You Have Our Permission To Share This Episode
Show Sponsor
Savvy Cleaner Training – House Cleaner Training and Certification
My Cleaning Connection – Your hub for all things cleaning.
HouseCleaning360 – A hub connecting homeowners with house cleaners
Savvy Perks – Employee benefits for your employees.
Turnover Cleaning Tips – for Vacation Rental and Airbnb Hosts
