 Are you being picked on while you're cleaning? Oh, this is a tough place, but we're going to talk about it today. Hi, there. I'm Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question and I get to help you find an answer. Now, today's show is brought to us by FunnyCleaningShirts.com. This is a website that has all kinds of gifts and t-shirts and clocks and coasters and collectibles and all kinds of really fun stuff for house cleaners. So check it out at FunnyCleaningShirts.com. Also the holidays are coming up. It's a great place to get your house cleaner a gift. FunnyCleaningShirts.com. All right. On to today's show. There is a housekeeper, not a house cleaner, but a housekeeper. She works for a hotel, and she called in and asked this question. So I am Alyssa Irwin, and I work as a housemaid at Comfort Suites. I am faster when I do, but I guess I'm not fast enough, but I'm very, very fast. I know I am because I have put in through so much work. And the big dogs, you know, the ones that are fast, they're picking on me, you know, but they don't pick on the slow person that they've been picking on me because I had the potential and everything like that. So I just want to let you know, am I doing something wrong? Am I doing something bad or good or something? So just let me know. All right. Alyssa, I hate that for you because you should not be treated that way while you're at work, right? Here you are giving of your heart and soul, you're doing the very best you can and you're being picked on. All right. So I don't know what the situation is. I don't know if it's jealousy or if you're outsmarting someone at their own job and they're afraid they're going to lose their job. I don't know what it is, but I do know this. It happens a lot. It happens a lot while you are the housekeeper and there are other people working with you. When you put two teams together and they go into a property to clean, it also happens between a house cleaner and a homeowner who is jealous that the house cleaner is better and that her husband or her family is not going to think as much of her because she didn't clean her own house. So there's bullying and there's making fun of and snide remarks and all that kind of stuff in house cleaning. It happens all the time. Now I would love to stand here and give you a series of strategies for you to punch your opponent in the proverbial nose, but I'm not going to do that. There's no value whatsoever in taking someone down in order to rise yourself up. Never happened that way. It's never going to happen that way. So my suggestion to you would be to change yourself and the way that you perceive their bullying. There are lots of bullies out there. There will always be bullies out there. There will always be haters. But my suggestion for you is to change the way and reframe the way that you think about it. So the first thing that you have to realize, it's a concept that I learned from Sean Cannell who is a big time YouTuber and his concept was this. If 100% of people like you, you're a people pleaser. And if 100% of people don't like you, you're just a jerk. And if you're 50% people like you and 50% people don't like you, you're probably a leader. And so I really loved that concept because it's so true for just about every industry that we work in, right? So as a house cleaner or a housekeeper, you are there cleaning. You're doing your best. You're learning. You're getting faster. You're learning the systems and the methods and all that stuff. It's very possible that you are a risk to them. So you have to realize even if it gets really bad and they fire you, you now have a new series of skills that you'll be able to take to any hotel and you'll be able to get another job because of the skills that you have. There will also be people that secretly admire you that will give you a recommendation. So I'm not worried at all about your level of skill and your future. So that said, why are people being unkind to you? And oftentimes it's a matter of somebody wants to prove to you how smart they are so that you will respect them equally. So what I would suggest to do is switch the tables. A person bullies you, they're trying to get noticed, they're trying to get attention. It's like when a tiny child acts out and they get all crying and screaming and yelling and they're acting out, it's usually because they want attention from the parents. And it's easy for the parents to lash out and yell and scream and threaten and all these things at the same time because that's how it made them feel. But that should be a trigger. When someone makes me feel that angst and that anger, what I should do is I should stop and realize this is a person that's just trying to get my attention. What is it that they need in this moment? And so oftentimes it just means you're stopping and listening. And if somebody is making fun of you because you're not working as fast, what you might say is, hey, you've been doing this a lot longer than I have. Would you mind showing me what the best methods are because I really respect the way that you do your job? And I would love a few pointers. And they might say, well, yeah, sure, here and then they'll show you how to do it. Because once you have turned the tables and you have let them share with you what they know, it might be that they just wanted to be appreciated and recognized as well. And in house cleaning and housekeeping, it's a pretty thankless job. We give up our heart and soul. And oftentimes there's no one on the other end to go, hey, great job, super that you did so much cleaning and that you were so fast and efficient and all these things. Very rarely do we get that. And so if you were to partner with these people that are bullying you and just say to them, hey, listen, you might have a better way. I would love for you to show me what your way is. How can I do that as well? And it often diffuses the situation. I know when it becomes this situation and you're in a home and you're house cleaning and it's the homeowner that's then having these bullying attacks, oftentimes I will stop and I will ask them, is there something that I specifically did that triggered this behavior or is there something else going on? And oftentimes they'll stop and they'll say, well, no, I guess I'm just feeling inadequate because I don't clean my own house. I'm like, don't feel inadequate. That's why you paid me. You've outsourced this task because you have more important things to do. This is just not your priority. It doesn't make you any less of a house cleaner. You probably run circles around me and they're like, oh, yeah, you're right. I am pretty important. I have a pretty important job. You're right. That's why I hired a house cleaner. It doesn't make you any less of anything to have hired a house cleaner, right? No shame. And then as soon as you have that conversation and you're able to get it out in the open, oftentimes they will run circles around you to try to help you and to try to encourage you. But you have to lay it on the table and you have to break it down and you have to give it a name. And so my suggestion to you would be to not be afraid of the bullies, but to be in awareness that maybe they need attention and maybe they're feeling unappreciated and maybe they're feeling unloved and maybe by just asking a question or two, like, hey, show me your technique. I'm all ears. Maybe that's all it needs to turn them around. And then once you have those conversations and you've kind of bonded a little bit, as possible, they become your very best friends. Some of the people that I work with right now, we agreed on day one, we don't have to like each other, but we have to respect each other and we have to work together. And it's amazing the hoops that we jump through even on bad days because everybody has bad days from time to time and you're going to get really irritable or PMS or mood swings or whatever. And on those days, you have to remember, all right, we agreed on day one that we might not even like each other, but we're going to try respectfully to get along in the same space. And so this might be one of those scenarios that you can patch up really easy without it going down a road of you losing your job and being threatened and frightened and all these things because that's not a good environment to work in. But my suggestion is not be to change them, but to change you and the way that you interact with them because right now, you can give all your power away to them or you can keep all your power and you can empower them to be nice to you. All right, I hope that helps a little bit. If it does, give us a thumbs up. Let us know that this was a value to you so that we can keep making content like this for you. All right, until we meet again, leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.