I know I should just let it go, but I've been very irritated and disappointed over a situation with a friend of mine for a while. I'm partly to blame, but I still can't shake my aggravation. Here's the deal...back in August, my mom had 2 office cleaning jobs, both places being owned by the same couple. As you may know, I go help mom with the cleaning. Anyway, we'd been doing these places for them for about
2 1/2 years. (One of the places we'd been doing since 1998, but they had bought it from our previous employer.) We'd been doing one of these offices for a low price, considering how big it is. We got $60 to do it. We requested a
small raise for this one, telling them that if they couldn't afford one, we totally understood and would still continue to clean for them at the current price. They call us a week later and tell us that they were letting us go at BOTH places!!!! They claimed that they couldn't afford to keep us on and they were sorry, blah, blah, blah! Frankly, I didn't believe it but what could I say? She denied that it was because we'd requested a raise. Mom and I had worked our butts off in this place! We cleaned it in detail and mom would even buy some stuff like deodorants for the bathroom out her own pocket! I'm not just claiming that we cleaned good, we truly did, especially being that my mom has OCD traits when it comes to cleaning! She couldn't do a poor job if she wanted to! So our jobs were cut from 4 down to 2, just like that! It has hurt us financially and I've been unable to find mom any other cleaning jobs to take their place.
Now if that wasn't enough to set my teeth on edge, our friend Leigh was working for them too. We had introduced her to them because they needed someone to do two of their other small offices. We couldn't do them because mom draws social security and can't earn over so much a year. Leigh was hired to do the other 2 offices in which she was paid $50 for one and $40 for the other. These places are a lot smaller than the one we were doing for $60, by the way! Leigh also started doing their ironing at their home for them. She won't work for less than $20 an hour and that's what they pay her. They did NOT let her go from any of her jobs. I was happy for her because she is a single woman who's husband of 30 years had left her for an "internet sweetie" and he doesn't pay her alimony like he's supposed to and she has to work a lot to pay her own way. Well, about 6 months after we were let go from the 2 jobs, Leigh calls me and wants to know if mom and I would be upset if she offered to clean the big office for them!! They had mentioned to her that they'd been letting an office worker clean it but they weren't doing it good and they needed it cleaned well and that they wished they could hire someone to clean that would charge by the hour...so they hadn't "technically" asked her to do it.
When she asked me how mom and I would feel about her doing it, I was taken aback! I admitted that I wasn't thrilled by the idea, but since she was already working for them at the other jobs and if she really needed the extra money, I guessed it wouldn't matter (mom agreed). I must admit that I hoped she'd think about it some more and NOT do it...but she did!
They pay her $20 an hour and it took her 5 1/2 hours to do it by herself! That's $110 and she doesn't even clean as diligently as we did!
(I'm not saying that she doesn't clean well enough, just not as detailed and deep as we did).
I know that I told her to go ahead and do the job, but now that she's done so, it really hurts my feelings so much, not just for me, but for my mom too! It's like Leigh cared more about the money than anything else and also our ex-employers must think it's a hoot that they found someone else to do it that WE recommended in the first place for other jobs! What kind of friend would happily take their friends' job that they'd been unfairly let go from? And we're in financial limbo because of those people too! We'd given up other jobs to take that big job 2 1/2 years before! I even reminded them of that, to no avail. Now I'm soooo disappointed in Leigh ( and very hurt) and mad as a hornet at our ex-employers!
I'm always thinking of this and wish I could just forget it but I can't seem to do so!
Thanks for letting me rant everybody...sigh!
jl