Professional Help

I thought I'd borrow the term from Terry, since she blogged about the topic that was in MY head! (Bad Terry)

As I mentioned in the last ramblepost, at long last, I decided to hire a cleaning service. I've bandied this idea about for quite some time, and haven't committed to it for any number of reasons, ranging from "I can't afford it" (bollocks) to "I'm exploiting the immigrants" (bollocks) to "Am I really so lazy that I cannot clean my own home?" (yes) to "I'm not sure I trust these people in my home when I'm not there" (still sorta true).

But I was talking about it with one of the girls at work and she absolutely RAVED about the service that she uses, and claimed that another one of the girls in the office uses the same service and that said other girl is equally enamored of them, and here's their number, don't delay call now! She really did give them such a glowing review that I thought... why not? We really never are around long enough to clean... we both work long days and by the time we get home, have dinner and clean up from that, it's past 8pm and no one is in the mood for cleaning or any other sort of "ing" other than sitt"ing", talk"ing", smooch"ing" and sleep"ing".

So I called them up and made an appointment. I was so excited, I called Chulo straight away with my announcement. His reaction?

"You did what? Why?"

"Um, because the house is a mess"

"So, we can clean it"

"Clearly we cannot, my love... otherwise it would be clean right now"

"I think you should cancel"

"The shop fumes are affecting your reason, honey... why would I cancel?"

"Give me $64, I'll clean the house. Crazy woman!"

Hehe. Reminded me of an old boyfriend who, when I would admire this or that little trinket (or pair of shoes, or window treatment), would say "I can make that." Uh, no you can't. And Chulo can't clean the house, either. I mean he CAN, but not the way I want it cleaned. Not the way I'm expecting it will be cleaned by two women being paid $16/hour each (or at least that's what I'm being charged ... God KNOWS how much those girls get out of that).

In the end, Chulo always lets me get away with murder (thanks baby!) and I told him we'd just hire them this one time to see how it goes, then decide from there whether we'd sign up for regular service. So we forged ahead with the plan. A minor adjustment to the plan, since I had originally arranged for them to come last weekend when I forgot we'd be out of town attending a wedding (SEE what I mean about never being home? Yeah.)

So yesterday morning, bright and early (ahem, 7:48 am), two girls came knocking on our door (poor Chulo was asleep). I let them in and they took quick stock of the place, then busted out their bucket of cleaning supplies (I asked them to use mine instead -- I'm particular about smells), and got started. I was busy for a while, trying to hang up all my carelessly strewn clothing and put away all the dried but unfolded laundry, and deal with the piles of undealt-with mail (I hate mail and hardly ever open any). But I was done with all that after about a half an hour and then I thought... well now what do I do? So then I started feeling guilty and slothful, because there we were with the tv on and these two girls were slaving away... I mean, I found the one girl dusting my wine bottles. Thankfully, I'm not the pretentious sort that prefers dust on the bottles as proof of aged authenticity or whatever. Plus, there's nary a $20 bottle on the rack. But I digress... I guess if I'm going to let people service me, then I have to learn that it's ok to let them do their jobs and not flutter about trying to make myself feel more productive and less guilty/lazy/elitist. I had to learn it after I got my first pedicure, and I'll have to learn it again now. Fine.

About 30 minutes into the job, one of the girls asked me if this was a one-time thing or if I planned to schedule regular service, because she would be happy to come and work for me "away from the company" but that if she did, the other girl wouldn't be helping her. I was thrown off -- I think I'd have less of an issue with it if she'd been to my place a few times and we were comfortable with each other. But that just made me feel that she was a dishonest person. Chulo says she's just trying to make a decent buck, and I guess that's true... but I didn't feel it was a good start to our professional relationship. And in the end, she was the one who did the worse job of the two girls. So I believe I'll pass.

And the verdict is, they did a good job. I was expecting a great job, from the tremendous endorsement of my coworkers. But it was good enough, the house is clean and neat, smells nice, and I'm pretty sure I'd like to keep using a service. But I don't believe I want to use those girls again. First, there was the underhanded offer. Then I found some dirt in my shower and under the faucet in my bathroom sink (Chulo's bathroom looked good but his shaver attachment is missing). Also, my front door is on the first floor... there's nothing ON the first floor but a teensy foyer and a closet, but there is a first floor and there are stairs. The girls did not vaccuum the stairs, nor did they sweep up the bit of dirt on the floor right inside the door where I put the plants when I brought them in for the tropical storm a few weeks ago. They didn't sweep or mop the patio. All in all, it was fine. But had I done it myself, I would have done a more thorough job. Of course the whole point of hiring them was because I don't have the time to do it myself ... but I think I'd like a service that would do as good a job as I would do myself... or is that pipe dream?

The next hurdle? Convincing Chulo that we should have this service at least once a month.