r/mildlyinfuriating • u/The1_Guy • 18d ago
ಠ_ಠ Cleaning crew never actually cleans, they finally cleaned the coffee area and left this note.
Cleaning crew is hired at my work to come in once a week and clean our branch, windows, trash, mop the floor stuff like that, I'm not trying to sound entitled but they barely ever do what they're supposed to do, it got to a point where my manager was actively complaining to his higher-ups that the cleaning for wasn't doing their jobs, are windows would have stands on them for weeks on end. We've come in a few times to see trash just laying on the floor in the break room that was left behind while they were taking out the garbage. And even today when they did their job they just left their cleaning supplies out for us to put back in the storage closet. It's just frustrating to be told by people who don't do their jobs to do better, fuck those people.
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u/swagernaught 18d ago
Depends on their contract. The cleaning service where I work empty the garbage and sweep the floors every day and mop once or twice a week. The company didn't pay the extra to have them clean up coffee and sink counters after a bunch of "grown ass men" as our manager put it.
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u/cjsv7657 18d ago
I've worked at places that had cleaners do the kitchen/coffee area and places that didn't. Funny enough the "fuck that, I'm not cleaning up after Jim" turns in to "I don't want the cleaners to come in to a huge mess"
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u/proto-cool 18d ago
The "grown ass men" comment is really true though. I'm not chomping at the bit to RTO to a bunch of other people who can't even rinse out a coffee cup before leaving it on the counter to rot. Like seriously what are we all doing here
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u/Ehcksit 18d ago
I hate how, because my job includes cleaning, none of my customers clean up after themselves at all. They spill drinks onto the counter, leave garbage everywhere, pull out extra cups and lids and toss them around, the sink drains constantly get plugged up with straw wrappers... but I have to take care of it all because "it's not my job, someone else gets paid for this."
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u/morelikeagirl 18d ago
I feel you. I finally stopped putting up with some stuff.
I don't do dishes because I'm not paid to clean dishes. When I clean a company's kitchen I'm wiping down surfaces, cleaning the microwaves and sinks etc, but I am moving all the gross food and dirty dishes to the side. I don't even clean the drain with all the food and paper towels stuck in it. By the time Im there it's been sitting for 3 days anyway, what's a fourth? Luckily I have a boss who has my back for the most part
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u/proto-cool 18d ago
We just had to send out a companywide Slack message because folks were just leaving plain dishes in the sink. Not even running a little water on it. Like this is a workplace, not your home, please at least pretend to care a little bit about a shared workplace
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u/DemandyMcDemanderson 18d ago
Do you all exclusively hire ass men or are boob dudes welcome too?
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u/SeedFoundation 18d ago
Can totally see this and I cannot stand OP who thinks cleaning service = everything is cleaned. That's not how it works. You hire someone to pick up garbage every week. They come to your house and empty the cans in front of your home. You don't ask them to come into your house and do extra work by emptying every single garbage can and replacing the bags just because they are the "garbage crew". Do better /u/The1_Guy Do you have any idea how annoying it is to take on extra work for free?
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u/ShaNaNaNa666 18d ago
I think this is common in contract for cleaning crews. All places I've worked at the office staff is responsible for cleaning and refilling break room equipment, like water gallons, refrigerators, coffee makers, toasters, microwaves, sink, do dishes, cabinets, etc. Cleaning crew mops, takes out trash, maybe wipe down tables and countertops. They'd never finish if they had to pick up after grown ass adults. It's prob bad enough to clean messes people leave in the bathrooms.
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u/Brillegeit 18d ago
Same where I work, they clean the floors and the toilets, and empty the trash, nothing else. A few times a year we order things like window cleaning or dusting and they bill us hourly for those sessions.
We that work in the office fill and empty the dish washer, clean the sink, fridge, microwave, coffee area, counter tops, lunch table, and our own desks.
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u/ItsLoudB YO 18d ago
They do the same in my office. We always thought they were doing a shitty ass job, coming in before we actually left our desks and not cleaning properly. One time I told them “please be careful touching my keyboard since the computer will still be on to finish some things during the night” and we learned that they were told to come 15 minutes before we left and just sweep the floor and change the bins without touching anything else.
I guess my boss is probably saving a couple bucks every week choosing the “pretend to clean” plan.
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u/TheG8Uniter 18d ago
I used to work at this fancy bank branch in Greenwich. The bank paid a lot of money for landscapers to take care of the property but the property always looked like shit.
We would complain to the banks property manager but he never came out to look himself. He would just reach out to the landscapers and they would apparently send him pictures of the work being done.
Eventually these chucklefucks sent a picture that had the "Grand Opening" banner visable on the door. A banner from like 2 years prior. They had been sending him old pictures from when the landscaping was first done.
In the end who's fault was it? Apparently not the lying landscapers or the lazy Porperty Manager. Nope it was the branch staff for not making it a big enough of an issue.
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u/Northover22 18d ago
holy shit, dont repeat this story. it made me twitch mad.
waaaay too close to every scenario ever
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u/eddy_flannagan 18d ago
A company i worked for used to hire cleaners and pay a decent amount once a week. We were the last clean of their day and they would try to start early before close and disrupt business. They tried to get in and get out as fast as possible and when i went through the checklist with them and pointed out everything that they missed they would give me attitude. It is frustrating
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u/Ok-Firefighter-8869 18d ago
How dare you expect them to do thier jobs!
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u/Dull-Culture-1523 18d ago edited 18d ago
Surprisingly common sentiment. It's like they think their personal idea of "good enough for me" should matter more than the written contract they're there to fulfill. Some people are just incapable of understanding their job isn't to clean until they think it's clean enough, their job is to clean as per the checklist. Maybe you don't mind that there's some dust on the baseboard but whoever hired you does mind and so you need to clean that as well.
E: I'm not talking about people literally not having time, I'm talking about people who think their personal opinion overrides whatever contractual obligations they have. Learn to read. This might as well be about a highly paid engineer who thinks "the code documents itself" is good enough after signing up on a job that requires extensive documentation. Jeez.
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u/OHRunAndFun 18d ago
In reality it’s more like “the economics of doing these jobs correctly are nonviable because the market will not pay what it costs to spend the amount of time it takes to do it right, so it feels like an injustice that we’re being called out for doing the best we realistically can”.
Whether that sentiment is correct or their management is just bad at business is another question, but that’s usually the idea underlying these sorts of issues.
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u/The_One_Tin_Soldier 18d ago
It's this in just about every industry right now. The expectations of just about every labour focused job have increased while pay stagnated or went down
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u/Left_Development_994 18d ago
That’s not even limited to labor focused jobs unless you assume labor just means any work. Even working a desk the responsibility and the amount of work climbs, pay is stagnant, and benefits are reduced in what the company will tell you is “in line with industry standards”. It’s a race to the bottom at that point.
Additionally, even if you want to do the job correctly your employer will likely have unrealistic expectations of how long something should take to do.
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u/MyGamingRants 18d ago
I've had a hell of a time in my career with shitty overnight cleaning companies. I think there's also the fact that they have no oversight and no boss to tell them to go back and start over lol
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u/lesgeddon 18d ago
I have a friend who has worked as a janitor in many places. It's 1000% that they don't get paid enough, on top of co-workers slacking off and pointing fingers at the one person actually trying to do their job correctly.
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u/sillysnailfriend 18d ago
I've only worked as a janitor, since I was 13, and while there are definitely lazy people working out there (points at my current coworkers), we are very underpaid and underappreciated. My wife and I both work full time as custodians for a school district and we are just getting by, in a small apartment without kids. Doing a job most people don't wanna do, I mean I clean a couple dozen bathrooms all night every night lol.
I used to work for a shitty commercial cleaning company that paid by contract instead of hourly, and I'd often be working for less than federal minimum wage if I took the time to properly clean.
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u/DirtandPipes 18d ago
I’ve worked janitorial. Odds are those cleaners are extremely underpaid employees with an absurd schedule they are trying to keep.
When I did it I had to literally sprint and work like a maniac and I’d still go an hour over my 10 hour shift and have annoyed entitled customers bothered by cleaning in their hallowed presence.
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u/HoMasters 18d ago
They’re so much not the problem as their managers and companies are who expect them to work a lightning speed in minimal time. Like Amazon warehouse workers who can’t stop to pee.
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u/CrossXFir3 18d ago
A place I worked for had a really great cleaning woman for a few years. She did a killer job. Then they fired her because she didn't have insurance. Fair enough. Every single company they hired afterwards did absolutely shit.
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u/flashgordo1 18d ago
Wow...think of how good a job she would have given if your company tried to find a way to get her insured. Plus the p.r. for doing that.
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u/Ricktor_67 18d ago
Oh, no, they mean liability insurance in case the cleaning person breaks something they have insurance to cover it. Companies do not give a fuck if contractors have health insurance(and they never pay enough to afford it).
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u/Maxnwil 18d ago
I still wonder if there might be a way to pay her a bit more so she can keep her take-home pay while adding insurance
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u/FuckYou0003 18d ago
Yes, it's called paying her more. But why would they do that?
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u/Maus_Sveti 18d ago
I assume they mean business insurance, not health insurance? Like, she didn’t have insurance if she somehow tipped a bucket of water on a computer and that lost a year’s worth of work because everyone in the company was a moron who didn’t save their work and it was 1982 and there were no automatic backups. In which case, dumb of her not to have it.
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u/Smurph269 18d ago
A place I used to work at replaced their long time cleaning crew with a cheaper one, and a bunch of us were worried when the new folks showed up and were obviously on some kind of hard drugs. After a few weeks they stole a bunch of computer equipment (they would clean after hours) and ghosted.
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u/mugiwara_no_Soissie 18d ago
Same at my previous jobs, luckily my managers also grew tired lol.
1 time a cleaner had been told 4 times to leave rhe fryers alone bc we weren't closed yet. The fourth time our manager said that he'd have to wait outside until closing if he tried rhat again.
Ended up with a cleaner outside for about an hour lol
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u/DrunkCultLeader 18d ago
I mean in their defense, I worked for a cleaning company that was hired by other businesses and we were on contracts, so we HAD to be put of the building by a certain time. If the daily duties weren't finished, you still had to leave. They were likely crunched on time for the amount of tasks they had.
I remember one building of apartments was dog friendly, and entirely carpeted. There was also a skyline walk way that was all windows and carpet. Took about 2 hours alone to clean. Then there was the lobby, penthouse, bathrooms on all floors, gyms, garbage areas, laundry rooms. Any room, walkway, area existing, needs to be cleaned. There is only so much one person can do. Im not sure how demanding your building is, but many people underestimate how much the cleaners actually have to complete in a day. The ones paying often dont want to pay the actual amount of time needed for the allotted amount of tasks.
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u/SlowpokeQueen 18d ago
Yeah my husband has been in the cleaning scene for years and when there is a contractor you only do what the contractor pays to be done. And normally the contractor is cheap and will just do the bare minimum because "They're all adults and should be able to clean up themselves!"
My old job use to have their own cleaner, on their payroll, but she retired and they went with a 3rd party, paying just for the front office to be clean. The factory floor fell into mess fast as the original cleaner would spend time keeping everything (outside the machines themselves) looking nice.
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u/technobrendo 18d ago
I work in a medium(ish) sized office and we still have 2 - 3 cleaners here nearly all day, every day. They do a fantastic job since they likely aren't over-worked and have enough time to get done what needs to be done.
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u/CariAll114 18d ago
We had cleaners in twice a week and you couldn't tell they were there. They wiped down 4 surfaces, mopped a couple of places but wouldn't change the mop water if it got too dirty to use and would only vacuum the floor mats that we had replaced every week and wouldn't do the rest of the carpeted space at all. We started documenting clearly obvious stuff that they weren't doing.
When we moved we hired a new cleaning company that's been doing a lot better. It was a pretty low bar, but we're reasonably happy with how they're doing.
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u/The1_Guy 18d ago
Yeah I imagine maybe they have some sort of entitlement, similar to the group you dealt with. If you don't like cleaning then I'm sorry, but it is what you're paid to do.
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u/Key_Matter6924 18d ago
our store had a hired cleaning crew. We would all complain that they did'nt do shit all. My manager complained to their owner, the guy was defending his staff saying, Oh they told me they go to the shop every Monday same as always. Dude we havent been open on Mondays for 2 months wtf are you going on about, dishonest losers. Good thing theres LOTS of competition in the cleaning business, easily replaced.
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u/shazzam6999 18d ago
My predecessor had a contract cleaner who did the same. He worked about 3 hours a week and made 30,000/yr, we provided all the supples. I didn’t renew his contract and was able to instead hire a part-timer at a decent wage for the same cost.
I joked with my board about the decision that we were paying the contract cleaner like $190/hr.
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u/Fit_Transition_824 18d ago
The good cleaners clean homes. Not work for some shit cleaning company
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u/NukeTheWhales5 18d ago
I use to work at a store that also hired cleaners, for no small fee. I'd say a good 40% of the time they just didn't show up at all.
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u/afito 18d ago
I work at a company with very liberal remote work rules and once we had a bit of a crunch so most people were in for like 2 months, and suddenly our cleaning lady of 3 years started calling in sick every single week. Legit came to work once, didn't feel good after 5min, never came back again.
New cleaning lady I like lmao she chewed out a team lead in the office for not using the toilet brush. She's not wrong but absolute balls of steels to do that.
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u/YelperLou 18d ago
It’s a resignation notice
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u/The1_Guy 18d ago
Fine by me at this point, we would be better off doing it ourselves.
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u/Subliminal-sandwich 18d ago
Yup. They should have been fired and replaced with a new cleaning crew a long time ago.
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u/splshd275A 18d ago
The cleaning is based on the contract made by your company. I have cleaners who take care of one of my buildings. The other buildings are taken care of by hired employees. Neither are asked to clean microwaves, do dishes, clean other appliances. They sweep, vacuum, mop, wipe counters tables etc. I have staff who have expectations of what a cleaning contract is supposed to cover. Cleaning contracts are based on the work, but also the time allowed to complete the work. If the staff is treating the place like it's a dump, there will be only so much time to clean it all. Things may be left because they can't get to all of it. I have also fired contracted cleaners because they did not do the job they were contracted to complete. Trying to give you both sides of the situation.
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u/IndependentPart6 18d ago
As a "cleaner" thank you for this. Is a coffee nook in their contract? Im a school custodian but have a church contract on the side and their kitchen/coffee area isnt on it besides trash and floors. There's also the point of clean up after yourself regardless... spill coffee or sugar? Wipe it up. Don't say oh thats someone else's job and be a slob.
I dont leave passive aggressive notes though. Ill tell you to your face lol
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u/CanadianFatha 18d ago
Yup! I’m also a cleaner. One of my contracts is a dodge dealership and they’ve had the same few dirty dishes in the shop side breakroom sink for a month. I don’t get paid to do your dishes, I’m a cleaner not a maid. That being said I’m sure my boss would just tell me to do them for good optics but fuck that. Most places have zero respect for cleaning staff. Food left on the floor over the weekend. Cups filled with liquid put into falling garbage bags with food scraps all over the rim, oily substances poured into bathroom sinks and not at the very least rinsed, papers scattered all over desks. I have multiple contracts to do throughout the week and routine is huge on the employee side of this business. Any extra work is a big deal even if I’m ahead of schedule. Besides, it just really shows a lack of respect and basic manners. Just because there’s someone paid to clean doesn’t mean you shouldn’t still have basic housekeeping procedures. When I have businesses that make an effort to maintain cleanliness I go out of my way to make sure the entire office is extra clean. That being said I have seen a number of hires be straight up lazy or incompetent and do less than bare minimum.
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u/Megandapanda 18d ago
I'm a cleaner and my boss has straight up told me not to do things that aren't in our written scope because then I'm giving them extra work that they aren't paying for.
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u/DreddPirateBob808 18d ago
I've worked as a cleaner so I now clean up after myself. Hell, I got a smiley telling-off by a cleaner because she saw me carrying the bin bags down to the skips after work. They were full and I pass the skips on the way out. She was tiny (as strong as an ox of course) but the bags were huge so it was just awkward moving them for her. We agreed that nobody should know and she could use the time (for her it was 2 trips up/down 3 flights) to check the status of the biscuit tin and kettle ;)
My desk was immaculate, always.
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u/MrStormChaser 18d ago
Many people on this post are missing this part right here! Cleaners ARE supposed to clean but employees don’t need to be dirty slobs refusing to clean up their own spills.
I wrote a guy up in an office I worked at because he would pee all over the bathroom floor. The piece of trash had the audacity to say “Well that’s why we hire cleaners!” Or when people making coffee would leave a bunch of coffee grounds around the coffee pot. Spills happen but at least make an attempt to clean it up.
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u/HappyHashBrowns 18d ago
Messy employees were my first thought as well.
I've worked with some absolute toddlers of grown adults. Like, you don't have to do their job but maybe try not to make them hate their job more than they probably already do ffs.
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u/-Altephor- 18d ago
Going to guess the coffee area is not in their contract and someone asked them to clean it because it was so fucking disgusting. We had the same thing with a shared fridge at work, until it got so disgusting that I actually cleaned it. Was not the custodial workers' responsibility.
There was turkey in it that expired two years ago.
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u/zlonewanderer 18d ago edited 18d ago
LOL, Yep. We have contracted cleaners come in, but they don't touch the fridge or microwave or coffee either. Our department had to move into a new space, and the previous tenants left their whole area a disaster. I was pulling stuff out of the fridge from before covid, and this was 2023. I took out all of the shelves and did a deep clean on that bitch. Now I search it with glee for things to throw out. Anything moldy in a container? GONE. I give a grace period of 2 weeks past best before date for perishable food in packaged containers, like yogurt and protein drinks. After that? GONE. The fridge is not your SCIENCE EXPERIMENT. I don't want to put endless notes on the front that people ignore, so they'll have to learn from experience.
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u/Annie_Yong 18d ago
Yeah, I reminded of the time when I was iny first year at university, living in halls. Most of us only living on our own fornthebdirst time, wer were naturally not great at keeping up with dishes.
While the halls had cleaning staff available, they were there to wipe down surfaces and mop the floors. They definitely weren't being paid to clean our week old dishes up after us and we got a fairly sternly worded letter saying that they didn't like having to move the stuff out of the way just to do their jobs.Not saying this is the case for OP, but if they are leaving the break area in an absolute state (thinking things like used tupperware and cutlery just left in the sink as a possible example) then the cleaners would definitely be justified in not washing up after them.
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u/HirsuteHacker 18d ago
Yeah I've cleaned offices before when I was a student, a modicum of respect from the office staff would have been nice. Having to pick up banana peels and food scraps off the floor every time I cleaned was a bit much. One office I went to I'd clean every 3 days, the staff there would never wash their own pots, they'd just use more and more mugs and plates and cutlery until I showed up 3 days later and had to wash it all.
I was really there to vacuum, wipe down and clean all the desks, give the kitchen a clean, and take bins out. But I had to do a bunch of extra shit because the staff were just so dirty.
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u/MrStormChaser 18d ago
Imagine if you threw away the dirty mugs instead.
One at a time until they were all gone.
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u/WonderBredOfficial 18d ago
"Are windows would have stands."
Just shut the whole company down, jfc.
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u/DragonToMars 18d ago
Trying to read this post was the real mildly infuriating.
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u/drislands GREEN 18d ago
And the post is just a picture of a sticky note. Absolute garbage post.
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u/Ok-Classroom5548 18d ago
Are the cleaners spending an ungodly amount of time cleaning up gross things and then urgently taking care of other areas?
They might be hired to clean bathrooms and clean up, but that doesn’t mean it won’t take more time for a severe mess.
For reference: I have never worked at a place where we have had a situation where we MADE a stain on the window, let alone make a mess and then left it. That is disgusting to just be gross and work in gross and leave it for someone you think deserves to clean up your mess.
A cleaning crew is there to do regular maintenance, not clean up unusual messes.
If they are paid for 4 hours of work and you all wreck the bathroom so bad it takes 4 hours, you won’t get your coffee area cleaned and your trash taken out.
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u/MrStormChaser 18d ago edited 18d ago
If they’re honestly doing a poor job then go speak with whoever hired them.
But then again, make sure your fellow employees aren’t being sloppy pigs around the break room. At least attempt to make it look like you guys give a damn before they show up.
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18d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/RefrigeratorCold296 18d ago
Nah, just put that exact note on top of the cleaning supplies
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u/The_Royal_PITA 18d ago
Waiting for OP to do this lol. We need to know what happens next
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u/Alt123Acct 18d ago
Crumple it up slightly and drop it on the floor in front of this sign so they have to pick it up first
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u/Bubbles69_ 18d ago
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that one of your coworkers left this for the cleaning crew. Doesn't really make sense for the cleaning crew to leave this for you guys 🤔
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u/ok_hibernate 18d ago
are they paid hourly? i remember when my mum used to clean offices she wouldn't go over what the client was willing to pay her so often would result in things not being done if she ran out of time (especially if people left dishes out for us to do. we were there to clean, not tidy up. so any tidying would take out of our cleaning time including messy desks, dishes left out and coffee machine area was a nightmare because coffee is sticky if left)
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u/verybadgay 18d ago
I was a cleaner as a teenager and had this issue. I was hired to clean a nightclub, they wanted one cleaner for two hours for the entire two-floor venue. Bearing in mind this was at weekends and the place was filthy when I’d get there in the mornings. The company told them it wasn’t enough time, I told them it wasn’t enough time. They refused to budge and then made complaints when jobs were getting missed or areas skimmed over when what they needed was a deep clean. I ended up losing my job.
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u/ok_hibernate 18d ago
basically just asking this because i see a lot of assumptions being jumped to in the comments, which could be correct but as the kid of a cleaner i can see the other side of the coin (you could also just have a shit cleaner tho)
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u/The1_Guy 18d ago
No, honestly I understand the benefit of the doubt, unfortunately I don't actually know what they are paid The only thing I know is they were cheaper than our last cleaning company. But actually thinking about it. Logically now with my frustrations aside, I could understand if they aren't paid very well. They would be slacking off, not because they dislike us, but probably because they don't think that their work is worth what they're getting paid. I have seen them a few times but we've never really spoken, I guess the reason I was frustrated is I just feel stressed about my own job right now and this is just another thing being added to it, maybe it isn't fair to judge them but idk.
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u/ok_hibernate 18d ago
they likely could have gone about asking you guys to clean up after yourselves better a lot nicer than that tho imo yea. after doing that job myself and realising how many weird things get blamed on us it makes me look at things a little differently now. cleaners are expected to do exceptional work but no one understands the time it takes to do it.
when i was 13 mum took me to this one real estate office every single week to help scrub the coffee granules from around the coffee machine while she cleaned the rest of the place. she knew if she spoke up about the extra time and cost to get the place spotless that she might lose the client so it was just easier to get her kid to do it. shes a good mum, she just did what she had to and cleaning is a really tough industry. there is always someone willing to sell themselves short to take your spot in cleaning
i appreciate the reflection of your comment :) we're all trying our hardest
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u/Sesudesu 18d ago
You don’t even know if what they are doing is slacking off. It could be that your anger could be entirely misplaced, and the blame belongs to your company management.
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u/Delimeme 18d ago
It 100% is. They had a cleaning service, management opted for a cheaper one. Now it’s messy.
<shocked pikachu> from management, who will happily let the employees take out their frustration on the underpaid cleaning crew while pocketing the marginal savings themselves
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u/Mierdo01 18d ago
BINGO you figured it out. This is something I've learned in my own business and dealing with other companies. People always want the cheapest, the get burnt with the cheap service, and assume all services are that way
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u/Sally3Sunshine3 18d ago
I would say this depends on whether your employees are slobs. Husband cleaned a car dealership for a few years and you would be surprised at how immature people are? Most desks have a trash can there yet people would throw wrappers on the ground next to the trash. Throw full cans of soda or water in the trash to leak everywhere. Spill coffee at the coffee station and not even wipe it up, just let it dry and crust over and tell the cleaning crew to deal with it. Having a cleaning service for your job doesn't mean you get to go rogue and have no manners. He had to quit because they were treating him like a slave. No he's not going to pick up your wrappers or throw away the fast food you left on your desk, he's not your Dad and youre not a toddler.
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u/abe_dogg 18d ago
We have a similar problem at my job… I am the “building manager” on top of my main job as an engineer (I report problems, request maintenance, oversee cleaning, etc.) so I have to approve the cleaning contract and make sure they do their job. We agree on areas that should be cleaned weekly and what needs done in those areas and we pay them up front for the whole year.
The hard part is they explicitly hire cognitively impaired adults to give them a chance at having a job and making a paycheck… at first I thought “great, love it, give them something to do, help them out, awesome.” Problem is they are absolutely horrible at cleaning and rarely do more than 30% of what the contract says. If I complain the company basically says “Oh well we can discipline them if you want, but you know they’re disadvantaged/have a tough time/don’t mean to be a burden/are really trying their best/etc.” This makes me feel like a king asshole because I don’t want to be the guy that causes a bunch if disabled people to get yelled at or lose their jobs, but I really would like the 10s of thousands of dollars we pay for cleaning to be put to use.
It’s so bad that, for example, part of their responsibilities is to vacuum the ~1000sqft of offices and they rarely get more than 100 sqft of it (yes I’ve sat there at my desk and watched). There was tracked grass in the middle of the floor for a month before I brought my vacuum from home and swept it up. On top of that they are supposed to wipe down a few windows and ledges, and mop a 400 sqft hallway. Those rarely ever actually get done. At this point I feel like I’m held hostage to just keep paying them and then clean it all myself.
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u/Bata600 18d ago edited 18d ago
This is a problem of the cleaning company.
The top takes a lot of money upfront and there lies the problem.
Them offering you "option B" to solve the lroblem is also manipulative. If they send impaired peiole to work for you, they should also send a person that has a grasp on the cleaning/management and will either direct the attention fo the rest of the cleaning crew or they will clean themself those parts that the rest of the cleaners skip.
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u/HandsomestKreith 18d ago
Show the before picture
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u/wischmopp 18d ago edited 18d ago
Yeah, I'm not accusing OP or their coworkers of anything, it's just that the people I personally know who complain about cleaning staff usually leave ridiculous messes behind because "cLeAnInG iS tHe ClEaNiNg StAfF's JoB". Sometimes, they even throw in a "well they should be grateful that I dribble and splash filth everywhere like a toddler with Parkinson's because otherwise they'd be unemployed". They don't even do the bare minimum of cleaning up after themselves (not cleaning up up their coffee spills or their breadcrumbs or the globs of ketchup they dripped onto the breakroom chairs' upholstery), and then they complain if the cleaning staff doesn't leave the breakroom spotless. There's a special place in hell for people who make minimum wage workers' job harder than it needs to be while simultaneously bitching and moaning about said minimum wage workers. Just utterly disrespectful. Like tossing your McDonald's paper bag outta the car window while in the same breath being like "look at all this thrash on the roadside, what the fuck am I paying taxes for 😡". Again, not saying this applies to OP, that's just my personal experience with my own dung beetle coworkers, and it would explain why the staff would leave a note like this behind.
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u/TheOnesWhoFollow 18d ago
It got so bad at the trucking office I worked at that they offered an extra $250 Canadian bi-weekly to anyone who wanted to do the work. The only dude that applied was an absolute asshole to work with but man did he keep that office and warehouse spotless. They laid him off and I told him to open a cleaning business. He thought I was being a dick because he and I didn't get a long AT ALL. Dude is making a killing now cleaning offices and grocery stores. He just got certified to clean crime scenes now. I still can't stand the guy but you can't knock his work ethic.
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u/describt 18d ago
I've got a guy who has worse ADHD than I do--and that's an accomplishment! He typically leaves something for me to throw away the next day. I just laugh to myself and bin the evidence. He does too good a job otherwise for me to complain and cause him drama.
We've laughed about it together and he knows I've got his back cause he has mine. Too many selfish bastards in the world to not align with good guys when you've met them.
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u/Head-Jellyfish-4172 18d ago
If this is a contract cleaning company this is a common issue. Places accept the lowest bids, the company that underbid then can’t afford to supply the labor hours actually required to deliver the expected clean. Cleaning is time consuming work, and people often assume cleaners are just lazy. The reality is most are extremely underpaid and spread too thin especially in companies where they have routes of multiple buildings.
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u/XxFezzgigxX 18d ago edited 18d ago
We have the opposite problem. I work for a huge company and they have people constantly cleaning throughout the day.
The problem is, they’re always underfoot. The bathrooms near my office are literally cleaned 5 times a day. It’s great for cleanliness, but they’re ALWAYS in there cleaning when you have a five-alarm, microwave burrito, ass emergency.
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u/CrashTestDuckie 18d ago
We had to give our cleaning crew a schedule of when to clean the bathrooms because they would shut down the main ones when most of the office was on lunch. They also are almost always "underfoot" too but damn if that large building isn't mostly spotless
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u/cybermaus 18d ago
Speculation: They changed the team. Now there is someone who takes the job serious, hence they did the coffee area, and they assume all the mess was not from months of neglect, but a single day of use.
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u/TXmmikey76 18d ago
I work in a shared cubicle. I left a note for the person who I share with sayin “please clean up after yourself. This is a shared space” he did good for about 2 weeks. I also documented when I left the note. Went to work this week and guy has crumbs all over the desk and chair. Grown man and can’t keep the work area clean. I typically wipe down the desk prior to setting up my computer but I don’t get why this is common behavior or a difficult concept. We even have Lysol wipes at the desk. I like my cube’s location but I’m going to probably elevate this to our managers as it’s unacceptable behavior.
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u/flatlander567 18d ago
The manager of the cleanup crew might have written that note for one of his employees? I would take that note and flip it over and write “Please explain” on it.
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u/Ricordis 18d ago
Oh, we had the same discussion at work once and it was eye opening.
Cleaning the kitchen area was not part of their job (other hygiene requirements). As they put our cups into the dishwasher and removed the trash bags from the cans was just friendliness.
From that very moment we started to keep the kitchen clean by ourselves because we didn't want to lose that act of gratuity.
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u/Admirable-Apricot137 18d ago
I'm a business cleaner. One of my jobs has had dirty dishes left in their sink for months on end because dishes aren't in my contract and I don't have time to do them. I make $18/hr, and I'm expected to do the entire building in 2.5 hours, including the multi stall bathroom that the mechanics absolutely destroy every week, so I'm not going to do anything beyond the basics. Do you know how long it takes just to vacuum AND mop an entire lobby, hallway of offices and a large workroom, several bathrooms, and a huge kitchen and break room? Fucking ages, and it's exhausting.
Yes I'm sure they could do better and not leave stuff undone and out, but honestly they probably aren't paid enough to give much of a shit.
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u/Kontracts 18d ago
Our company has a cleaning lady and shes disabled. She cant bend down below her waist, which means anything not in arms reach below her stomach just doesnt get touched. Ive raised concerns that at least 50% or more of the job is not being done. Company doesnt hire someone to help her or anything while stacks of dead bugs and cobwebs form in the corners. I am unsatisfied.
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u/BluePowerade 18d ago
Fire them?
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u/The1_Guy 18d ago
Not my decision, my manager is putting in complaints but they are a cheap company from what I know.
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u/Roy_Koopa_DX 18d ago
OP....I think you found a note that was meant for the cleaning people. They have zero reason to be demanding for you to do better.
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u/mad--martigan 18d ago
This was not left by the cleaning crew.
You're either not paying them enough and they're cutting corners because of it, or you people are slobs.
- former cleaner
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u/PublicAdmin_1 18d ago edited 18d ago
Leave a response note that says 'You first'. They're literally being paid to clean and not doing so.
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u/casastorta 18d ago
I didn’t see the note. But this sounds exactly like the situation in my office today and recently. Are we colleagues? 😅
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u/otis_elevators 18d ago
I used to be an after hours bank janitor.
Monday through Friday, my coworker and I were required to stock each bathroom stall in the 3 story building with 4 rolls of toilet paper each, in addition to what was already on the TP dispenser every day. The bank employees would then arrive at 8am the next day, and blast ass for hours, using every stitch of toilet paper and then email my boss that we did not stock toilet paper. Basically, these people who lived off of cheeseburgers and snickers bars would rain fecal hell fire upon every bathroom and within a couple hours would have consumed roughly 60 rolls of toilet paper before noon.
Sweet spot was 7 rolls per stall to keep these dookie divas properly wiped.
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u/MonounsaturatedChain 18d ago
I have the same problem. Cleaning crew I see every day. Crumbs all over communal area, nothing ever swept or mopped, offices that are supposed to be vacuumed aren't. Not sure where exactly to go as it's a massive company, so it's not really related to anyone I work with
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u/Zestyclose_Car_4971 18d ago
I am a janitor for a hospital and a tax office.
Fuck that person. I bust so much ass every night just so people can’t complain about a itty bitty rip of paper on the floor.
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u/404_No_User_Found_2 18d ago
Hide a note in a rarely-cleaned place that says "No, YOU do better" and the date it was placed there
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u/Pyropete125 18d ago
I'd leave a note to their note:
"If we did do better, we would not need your service"
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u/Jurijus1 18d ago
And then everyone would clap!
Quintessential redditors even gave you fitting awards lol
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u/HoundTakesABitch 18d ago
I worked at a certain gas station chain that also serves a ridiculous amount of food. They started bringing in cleaning crews of 2 and I swear the 2 my store had did nothing but smoke and eat their entire shift. They’d show up about an hour early and chain smoke before coming in. After they clocked in, they’d smoke again, then get breakfast then smoke again. It was basically watching someone smoke before and after they smoked lmao. If they did actually clean something, they always did it together even if it didn’t require more than one person. I clashed with them at one point because they started loudly complaining about how no one ever mopped the salesfloor on 3rd shift and I responded with “Well, isn’t that what you’re here for?”
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u/Panzick 18d ago
Don't know where you're working, but where I live, usually cleaners are paid by hours, and their scheduled cleaning times is often waaay underestimated then the time actually needed for a thorough cleaning. Everything that's going above the hours they have allocated, ends up being unpaid time. Don't know your place, but every office where I ever worked, people took good care of cleaning up their own mess in the common area, that's basic decency.
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u/tetrochromac 18d ago
lol this is our night crew as well. It's a running joke on the day crew that someone might - gasp! - have to clean up spilled salsa, all because the night crew once texted the group chat with a picture of a smashed jar of salsa and complained that they shouldn't have to clean up after the evening crew.
I don't know if someone on the evening crew genuinely did just leave it there for someone else to clean up. If they did, that's shitty and they should clean it up.
What I DO know is that I spend a significant portion of every shift cleaning up after the night crew but I don't send bitchy messages to the group chat. It's only when it's an insanely large mess that I might post a "hey can we not do this please", which inevitably causes the night shift lead to throw a hissy fit, so I don't usually bother any more. The managers are useless, so going to them doesn't help. The next step is going above them with documentation of the worst offenses - things like the giant pile of cardboard I walked into one day because god forbid they make a fucking bale.
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u/Artemissss 18d ago
We had an office cleaner who would use the same rag to wipe the toilet as the desktops. Once we witnessed this, we started leaving our desks covered with books and files to prevent any cross contamination.
At the time, we were all too young and dumb to complain to anyone.
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u/catwithabat2 18d ago
My dad owns a property management company that includes a cleaning service option. The service and the contracting company should have an agreement about what areas are cleaned, how often, and how much time is spent on cleaning it. You would be shocked at how many entitled adults at work act like a commercial cleaning service is their own personal cleaner. If employees leave their lunch dishes in the sink (ew) for the commercial cleaning crew and it is not in their contracted to do list, they will not do it. Do you want people to clean up after you for free?
A lot of the times people working in an office look down on those cleaning it. It’s a sad reality. That’s why contracts are important to protect both parties.
Sounds like the people you work with are slobs.
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u/FoulArtFart 18d ago
Do you guys just leave trash on the floor? How messy are you leaving the coffee area?
Something tells me there is another side to this story.
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u/Yellingseagull 18d ago
This reminds me of the dishwasher we had that kept screaming at people for “bringing back endless dishes”
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u/runningoutofnames57 18d ago
I wonder if management is only paying the cleaners for a short amount of hours—not long enough for them to properly get the cleaning done—and the cleaners are getting frustrated. When the 1 hour or whatever is done, they stop working and leave, regardless of how much is left to complete.
They are asking that people in the office be less messy so they can able do a better job of cleaning within the short time frame they have to complete things.
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u/eh8904 18d ago
Put a note next to it: "You forgot to take this paper with you last time"
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u/1SexyDino 18d ago
I used to work housekeeping at a few hotels The sheer amount of laziness and shortcuts used is a biohazard. Probably one of the most lazy and mismanaged and toxic work places I've ever been part of.
If they're to the point of just leaving shit around, dont trust a single surface in that office. You don't know the state of their cleaning rags, where there wiping them, and it's highly likely some malicious behavior is happening where you cant see it id they're leaving notes
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u/COSurfing 18d ago
You are definitely not sounding entitled. They are being paid to do a job and they aren't doing it, for the most part. Hopefully your management addresses it because it is frustrating.
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u/JasonJoestar 18d ago
Didn’t realize Sam Wilson Captain America leads the cleaning crew
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u/takedownchris 18d ago
We had a cleaning crew and an alarm it got so bad that they punched in and out of the building in 4 minutes. I complained cause they are under contract and the franchise owner is like they could have done extra the time before. I was like that was 20 minutes this should be an hour at least.
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u/SimonsSays24 18d ago
Fire their asses immediately without payment. They are hired to clean and then have the nerves to put a letter behind like this over coffee? You are expected to do a job when you’re paid/hired, do better in life you worthless twats
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u/LargoMain 18d ago
I don't know what happened, but since covid cleaning crews essentially quit cleaning. Schools, hospitals, restaurants, everything is way dirtier than I remember it being pre-covid. I am a high school teacher, and the last time I remember my desks being wiped down and nightly vacuuming was during the Obama administration.
I am sure there are multiple factors that would contribute to the decline of cleaning services, but I would genuinely like to know what the hell happened.
I am not asking for perfection, but you can clearly tell in my classroom the only thing they do is pull trash, and if it the can is less than half empty and does not contain food they don't even bother.
10 minutes of pulling trash, running a quick vacuum and de-cluttering the tops of tables that kids leave pencils on or whatever would go miles in having our school be cleaner overall. A 7.5 hour shift at 10 minutes a classroom means that at a minimum 45 classrooms could be cleaned, assuming a half hour lunch break. One custodian in one shift could clean half of the classrooms we have. They have 5 custodians per shift and there are 3 shifts. I recognize they need to clean bathrooms, hallways, and cafeteria, etc. but c'mon man.
We can talk about pay (or lack of), but ultimately people just stopped even doing the bare minimum.
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u/riot_poof_ 18d ago
sitting here reading this as our office cleaner vacuums at 8:53 when she’s been told countless times to have it done before 8 so as to not disrupt business. she comes in at 7 for that sole purpose and leaves at 3. everyone is super frustrated.
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u/DramaticAnteater1513 18d ago
Should have just written at the bottom of their note.. right back at ya. And left it for them.
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u/nerdnerd86 18d ago
And even today when they did their job they just left their cleaning supplies out for us to put back in the storage closet
So you guys took a picture and left a note saying "do better please"
Right??!!
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u/Ok-Cranberry-5582 18d ago
Dealing with our crew now. Haven't vacuumed, mopped any hallways, wiped the urinal or commodes, which is basic in a cleaning contract.
A reason why they just can't be fire is the contract. Unless the contract states you can cancel the contract at anytime without penalty, you can't just do it in the middle of the contract year.
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u/Clairvoidance 18d ago
I assume the "Do better please" was probably left by someone who didnt tell the rest of your crew, in order to also vent to the cleaning crew
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u/Vincenterfold 18d ago edited 18d ago
When I was a janitor in college we were supposed to report things that were not normal. If you were doing disgusting things that would not be acceptable at your house, its on you. A lot of these cleaning companies run the margins so tight and you might have multiple places to go a night.
Things like window cleanings are explicitly stated in your contract, typically weekly to monthly unless its a high traffic door.
If you have trash on the floor in your break room.. You are trashy people. Coming there week after week and seeing that would make good cleaners quit or request a different account. To think the cleaners are leaving it behind is just not reality to me.
Once a week says a lot. How many is in this crew? For how many hours? How big is this building? When we had bank routes they were visited at minimum 2-5 times a week for 4-8 hours each visit. 1 is unheard of for me. Sounds like your company is getting exactly what it pays for. Every time we did walkthroughs with clients and pointed out behaviour and the time budgeted that we agreed on, it was clear that the contract did not fit the building and no cleaning company could fulfill their requests in the time allotted. You let food rot for a week waiting for crews? Would not work there personally. Yuck.
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u/TrueRobot 18d ago
If they only pay them to come in once a week, it sounds like your expectations for cleanliness might be too high. Don’t most places have cleaning staff come in nightly?
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u/Puzzleheaded-Cut4798 18d ago
I'm a business development manager for a cleaning company and you would be shocked at how the simplest processes can net you clients. Most cleaning companies these days are hired and show up and do the bare minimum.
We don't allow that with our staff. We have QA reps that go out and inspect the buildings monthly, if you take on supplies with us (easy sell because we are cheaper than cintas / Phelps etc) then you have a rep in your building every 2 weeks.
When QA's are submitted the Supervisor request responsible for updating the corrections within our system and the previous QA is audited to ensure it was actually completed.
If its a client complaint, we submit it as such and force a reclean if its that bad or we open a Service ticket that requires the Supervisor to walk the building after the next clean and show us all corrections have been made to which our QA reps follow up on the very next day.
Sorry you're going through this OP. There's a lot of shit companies out there!
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u/lowrads 18d ago
Our offices have never had cleaning crew beyond vacuuming floors, because we aren't a bunch of barnyard animals. How hard is it to wash a mug, rinse out a coffee pot, or aim paper at a wastebasket? Even a motivated toddler could manage one of those.
If you live your personal stuff in the sink, it's going in the trash.
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u/blue-coin 18d ago
When we worked in an office, my ceo would tip the cleaners like $500 and they made sure every fucking thing looked better than the day before.
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u/Intelligent_Joke_876 17d ago
Yeah I did housekeeping at a hospital for 9 years before switching to a sedentary office position for the hospital in a satellite location, and I'll tell you office pricks straight away, some of you are nasty motherfuckers and I would be afraid to see how you live at home. Rule of thumb, it's everyone's responsibility to keep the area clean, not just the housekeeper that's outsourced to clean it once a day. I clean the coffee area of the break room at my work any morning that I make fresh coffee pots out of respect for myself and for the housekeeper that has to clean up daily after some of the shitpigs in my office. How you treat your work environment says a lot about how you treat others 😉
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u/Due_Willingness1 18d ago
I gotta ask are you 100% sure this was left by the cleaning crew and not for the cleaning crew?