trainers expect you to get a huge house with 5 bedrooms, 4 full baths and 2 half baths in 90 minutes (between two people) and then verbally abuse you when you inevitably cannot do it.
unlike what is advertised (up to $14 an hour) they pay only by commission. a customer pays $500 or so for a block of cleaning, then they take about 200 dollars off that and use some elaborate sort of algorithm that is never explained to calculate your percentage, which is usually between 5 to 15 dollars per house.
they make you clean up to 6 or 7 houses per day. this could be acceptable if they were ALL in one small local area but we frequently had commutes of up to 90 minutes between houses. i rarely got home before 9 pm.
any complain from a customer, including fraudulent or frivolous complaints, and even remarks about the cost of cleaning (even when stated as "Oh i adore so-and-so! i LOVE her cleaning. but i just got laid off/sick/my elderly mom moved in with us and can't afford it right now.") gets you dinged and you earn even less pay (minimum wage for the whole week).
they don't want to give you days off, even in advance. i had serious health issues and needed emergency medical treatment; they wouldn't give me any time off, even a half day.
related to above: you have to EARN days off by perfect attendance, perfect record, at least 4 compliments, etc. if you get sick and take a day off you get penalised, even if you get a doctor's note, because you didn't put in for it "in advance". one coworker at my former location injured their back very severely on a monday, and was basically forced by the supervisor to work the entire week, despite the fact that she was literally crawling on her hands and knees to perform the cleaning.
deceptive hiring practises: in the newspaper and online hiring ads they promised benefits, up to $14 per hour pay, tuition reimbursement, etc. nope, none of these. they only offered health benefits after a year with little to no time off (God forbid you get sick, and heaven help you if you are pregnant or have school age kids like my coworkers).
lack of upward movement or respect. i was called by my supervisor "the best they ever had"; i showed up early every day, had a consistently cheerful attitude which they even said was unusual for their employees, i got the most compliments of anyone there during my time there, and was the first to score a perfect 100% in the "sparkle program" instituted during my time there. yet they treated me like another worthless grunt, that they don't care if i'm sick, that i have to be there no matter what. when i found a better job with a MUCH better maid service, they said "We don't know what went wrong. you were the best employee we ever had."
