Company that left a nasty taste in my mouth. - House Cleaner Merry Maids Employee Review

I worked for Merry Maids for a few months, the following is my opinion of the time that I worked there. This is strictly my opinion or things that I have noticed. I was hoping to find a company that felt like a family and that had room for advancement. I was immediately lied to about the atmosphere and the pay. At times it felt like you were thrown back into high school with a lot of he said, she said and jealous behaviors. The hard workers seemed to be overlooked while the ones who cut corners were often given the best houses that tipped well. Thus causing newer employees to cut corners as well. Favoritism was always hard at work and it often felt like office staff verse working staff. In my opinion, the pay was utterly ridiculous. They automatically took a good chunk out for their cut and the rest was for payroll with the people actually doing the work getting a very small percentage. Employees received a small stipend of what the customer actually paid. I felt the company cheated employees out of money any way they could. You got paid mileage for driving your own car but if you had to take a detour or got lost they would not reimburse you. They often knocked miles off if they felt that there were too many listed. If you weren't driving you got paid next to nothing and were basically working for next to nothing the majority of the time. When you come into the office to get ready for the day, while you are in your partner's car between houses and when you get back to the office to unload and prepare for the next day you make pennies. I calculated a few days from the time I got to the office til the time I got back where I only made $5-6 dollars an hour, since they only pay you in house hours. I would put $20 in my gas tank and in two days that would be gone and only I only about $8 reimbursed. Most of the customers think that you make a good chunk of the outrageous price they pay so they don't tip. If you worked as a third on a team you made a lot less. Sometimes I made $7 to clean a house. Their coverage area left some employees driving for nearly up to an hour or over 90 miles a day. Teams were often switched or if they were low on work they would send people out as a team of three. This made it hard to keep up as each team seemed to work differently in both style and time. It didn't matter if two people worked together well or not. The only thing most of the employees had in common were complaints in regards to the job or other employees. They cheat customers out of money. The houses were often overbid and normally it was the people who could barely afford the help. While the ones who could afford it were often underbid. For instance, one house might be a three bedroom two story house and would be bid for an hour and forty five minutes while the next might be a six bedroom with a finished basement and five bathrooms and be bid for an hour and thirty minutes. There was never a clear reasoning for the time bid. What was more ridiculous is that if we went under the bid time we would not get paid our full percentage, we would get paid for the time we were in the house, yet they charged the customer for the time they were bid for (Bid for an hour and a half, we would finish in an hour and ten, they would pay us for the hour and ten but charge the customer for the full hour and a half). However, if we went over out time we were not compensated for the overage. We cleaned houses I felt we should have not been in. Bugs, mice feces, pet feces, fleas, medication laying around, perverts and so on. The company would turn their heads and tell us to continue to clean even if we felt uncomfortable. Management let some customers and some employees have too much control. Big lack of marketing prevented any hope for further growth. Company did not provide benefits, even though you technically worked full time hours, since they only calculate in house hours. Management seemed to either ignore or not care about the issues within their structure and allowed bullying methods to take place. It is my belief that some of the office staff is the reason for the mid-high turn over rate. The personnel who sometimes did quality control checks would treat employees as if they were children. Some long term employees also took part in the bullying techniques. It did not take me long to realize this company was not for me. It had a lot more downs than ups and I believe a lot of the aspects of this company should be reconsidered or revamped. I'm not even sure how some of the conduct that is used is not illegal. Again, this is my opinion. I would NOT recommend this company for employment.