Check this one out, kind of ridiculous (in my opinion)
£60 house, friendly lady, have been doing them for about 1,5 year. In the beginning she was funny because she wanted me to do other jobs, like clean the top of her kitchen block, and clean the ceiling lights, and clean all the blinds, I explained to her, that I am a window cleaner, and I'm already very busy with doing that, and that she would need a domestic cleaner for that, in reply she said, but your a cleaner, why do you limit yourself to windows?? I explained it again, said I had plenty of work, anyway, that was the second time I cleaned them, that I got that talk.
Next time she asked me for how long I was going to do this, being intelligent and all that (feel it coming?), I said, well I'm a fully qualified IT System Administrator, explained to her why I was doing this work, and that it's by choice. Hmm I thought, should have answered that all guns blazing (but I'm too friendly for that), and wouldn't get me anywhere anyway, I only realise things 2 min after people are being rude anyway (me being not English but Dutch lol).
After that a very long time, always cookies and tea, very friendly. Okay, very stiff upper lip lady though, bit of a funny one, never liked her.
Yesterday, she said to me, this is the last time we need your services, because me and the other residents got together, and apparantly, you don't clean over 1st floor (still trad) I said, yes that's right, and you don't clean my blinds, and you limit yourself to just window cleaning, so we got a big business coming in, who are prepared to do all those things, for one lump sum.
At that point I found myself getting ready to say to her what I thought of that in a professional way, so I replied to, well you know what you've got now, and you don't know what you are getting in to, well they've got very good references she said. I said, I've always been reliable, done the job to the best of my ability, and have never had a complaint, why would you dump me just because I can't clean your blinds and ceiling lights, like I said, you really need to find a domestic cleaner for that. Hold on I said, do you not have a domestic cleaner for that? I saw two ladies last time, can't you ask them? She said (quick voice), I'm not gonna ask that of a lady, immediately she thought 'what am I saying' then she said, well they have limited themselves just like you. I just want the best for me, and your not prepared to expand your job.
At that point I said, well so much for customer loyalty then, you have the right to do so, but I'm not happy about it. I'm just gonna finish the job then.
After I finished, she thanked me for all the work I've done, I smiled politely, and said, your very much welcome, hope to see you again, at that point I still had about 3,5hrs work there, she wanted inside and out done, thought of saying, well you can get the next cleaner to do it then, but thought, hold on, it's a £120, I'm not gonna let that go lol.
Pff, I'm glad in a way that I don't have her anymore, never really liked her, or her husband, but it's still 2 hours of work every six weeks that I need to replace. I've got one other customer in that place, that I haven't heard of yet, I hope she'll stay with me.
