Mile High Cleaning - Shannon Dixon A cleaning company that doesn't clean? $70 for 55 Minutes? How can this happen? No call back, refund or customer service? Parker Colorado

Again, I am the owner of Mile High Cleaning. I wanted to say thank you for the comment about making my case and understanding these situations! I don't understand why staff grabs the check from the client when on the job and thinks that I make a 60% profit if the check is for $120 (for example) and they make $48...so many costs go into that amount! My profit (assuming no discounts have to come out from the shoddy work people can do thinking they deserve high pay no matter what) is usually only about 10-15%! I'm certainly not living the life of luxury like they all say I am when they are trying to increase their hourly rate by insulting me. More than $12 per hour is not deserved until you show you are a great employee and care about the work you do...luckily I do have some of those to help even out the crazies! I wish they all had the same work ethic.

I also think it's funny that everyone out there in the work force knows that if you quit your job you receive your final paycheck or paychecks on the normal scheduled paydays. If you are fired you receive your paycheck within 72 hours. I can't tell you how many (at least 90%) of the former employees I have that quit their job and expect or demand their check that day! When I tell them they do not get their check until payday I always get threatened, the BBB gets called on me or the labor board. I don't have to worry because I'm the correct person in these circumstances, but I can't tell you how annoying it is that every employee I hire doesn't seem to know the most common rule out there!

The worst thing I deal with is the holding my cleaning materials for ransom unless they get their check when they demand it. This is why I have them sign a document when they start that states the materials must be returned upon termination or quitting their position within 24 hours, if they are not returned then they will be docked $25 per day from their final check until I have my materials back! I have had employees (such as Tanya from the complaint above) who said that fee is illegal, wouldn't give my materials back and sent lawyers after me! As far as I can see, if they signed it and they are purposefully holding my materials as blackmail for their paycheck then I can't possibly be doing anything wrong. How else can a business owner protect themselves from loosing $300 of materials everytime someone quits and doesn't want to drive them back to my home!?!

What do you think? Does anyone else deal with this kind of crap on a fairly normal basis or am I the only business owner who is lucky enough to go through this!?!

I do have a close friend who owns a similar business and we trade crazy employee and client stories all the time! He helps give me advise on when to sue or when to just take a huge loss and try and just drum up more business to cover that loss in the mean time. So, at least I know there's one understanding soul out there!

Business is tough!

Wow!

I'm not sure who's side I'm taking re: client vs you but I am certain your former employee is wrong about you.

Good luck and keep up the good work. I know its hard to find good employees even in this tough job market. I once owned a cleaning business and I know exactly what you're going thru.

One more thing, why don't employees understand that the owner has expenses? That taxes and insurance alone kill your profits?

I am the owner of Mile High Cleaning and have been unfortunate enough to meet and hire some pretty ridiculous and dishonest people. One of my first employees lied about their criminal record on their application (by saying they had none) until I had a client who only wanted them in her home if she could run a backround check. I said no problem. To my surprise this person had a 9 page rap sheet...I learned my first lesson of doing backround checks whenever possible!

This employee who has reported me for non payment, paying minimum wage and several other nasty comments was one of the worst I've had to deal with in quite sometime. I put out an ad on craigslist like I always do to find some good two person crews at the last minute. My current staff had quit the day before and of course had no intention of giving me a two week notice. I didn't have time to meet with anyone by the time one of my very high end clients needed to be cleaned. Had I rescheduled we would have lost the business.

So, I went through the 10 applicants I had received that day and emailed qualifying questions to see who would be a good fit for the position. By the time I received all the responses from the one I "thought" I wanted to hire it was too late in the day to meet. I asked her every question I could to make sure she was right for the job and we talked on the phone for quite sometime time about my policies as well. I decided to hire her sight unseen and just have her start at that high end clients home the next morning. Had I not been under the extreme time constraint and pressure to not loose this weekly business I would have made the time to meet her as I have always done. Lesson number two!

Things were going good and she was doing a great job so far. When it came to payday, she had only worked for me for a week and a half. When she received it in the mail she text messaged me saying I had "stiffed" her by $12.00. I was shopping with my family so I told her I would double check my numbers as soon as I got home and to just hang on for me until then. She was not about to be patient and said again that I was "stiffing" her. I personally have no reason to put up with that, so I told her if she insisted on using that word and not waiting for me to get home then she could find another job. She said she was already quitting because I wasn't paying her for her work! Aaah! All I asked for was time to get home and look at my payroll records, instead I had to go back and forth will in Walmart buying groceries!

When I got home I had checked and my numbers were correct. I double checked when she clocked in and out for her hourly homes but when I emailed her the breakdown of her paycheck she said her time spent at one of the homes was an hour more than I paid (I paid 3 hours, she said it was 4). Then she finally looked up the time she spent at that home and agreed I was correct, she was saying I should round up for 10 minutes past the hour instead of paying for her 10 minutes!

The higher end client she was cleaning once per week had been with me for over a year and was paying for a four hour cleaning for one person or two hour cleaning for two people once per week at $30 per hour for a total of $120 per cleaning. This was always the case. Sometimes I would only have one girl available, other times I would have a two person crew...this equaled the same billing either way. The first time this employee (let's call her Tanya) cleaned her home with her partner she did it in 4 hours with both of them equaling a payroll of $96.00! I only make $120.00 on the home regardless, but I allowed it because it was her first week and I wanted the home to be good and detailed for the client. After the first time I informed the employee that this was one of the salary jobs I mentioned when I hired her (salary was only on a clients home that paid a solid rate each week based on the size of the home, they don't pay per hour each time. These clients have been with me for a long time and cleaned by enough employees for me to know how long it takes and what to pay), it was a 4 hour cleaning for one person or half that for the two of them equalling $48.00 each cleaning.

She is accusing me of paying minimum wage for a 4 hour cleaning for two people, but that is not at all true. I paid $96 the first time and told them that from then on this home only needed to be done in 2 hours for both of them and if they finished early they needed to find another project because the client was paying for 2 full hours and needed her money worth. I never said 4 hours for two people...ever! Over and over I told her it was a 2 hour job and that's all she needed after the first time, but now she accuses me of over charging the client for them to waste time on the clock! Ask my client, she knows what she is paying for and we speak weekly to make sure she is happy with my service and the time spent on the job. I would never rip off a client, the woman I worked for before I started this business would charge people based on their wealth and not the job so I started my own company so people would have someone honest in the industry and be charged by their house size rather than their personal wealth status.

It is not my fault this employee was as dense as a ton of rocks! I have the emails to prove everything I told her about this job and how long to spend each time. The only time 4 hours was mentioned was when she decided to ditch her partner and clean alone. I told her over and over but she kept accusing me of paying her minimum wage. This woman is older and must not have the ability to take in information anymore since she just couldn't seem to understand the concept of hourly pay for hourly paying clients and salary pay for salary paying clients. She insisted that 4 hour jobs took twice as long, but when we've been doing those homes for years we know when someone is lying and milking the clock, that is why I pay salary on regular clients instead of hourly...I'd go broke paying out of pocket payroll when my pay from the client stays at our agreed amount no matter the time spent is!

This whole problem was over $12.00 and she threatened me with lawyers, called me every name in the book, harrassed me by email and text...and I'm the bad guy. Do you have any idea how quickly people like this can break you down when you didn't do anything wrong. You can only hear those kinds of nasty things and be yelled at for so long before dying inside a little. They go and try to steal my clients and they post awful things on a website for the world to see. When you own a business in this type of industry you have to be cautious, have everything in writing for when they try to screw you and have a tough skin for when a nice mother of three gets called an evil b..ch or worse over no fault of her own. You wouldn't believe the stories I could tell you about crazy clients and even crazier employees! It's always my fault and never anyone else's.

Unfortunately I have dealt with many employees like this, and there may be comments in other places about me too, but these are the people I do the most for and they treat me the worst. You tell me what company out there in today's society would give advances to employees who have worked two days and can't pay their rent or need gas money. Tell me who would sponser a poor employee's family for Christmas by paying for everything from their groceries that should last them weeks to presents for their children, only to have them quit with no notice and never return my $300 worth of supplies!

These employee's always say that I must make a great profit with as little as I pay them, but after payroll, discounts I have to give on poor cleaning jobs, clients that don't pay at all and may have never intended to, taxes, insurance and supplies...I barely make anything. Thinking I bring home the entire amount of what the client pays me other than their personal payroll amount is ignorant and an unfair assumption.

What would you do if you dealt with this every other day!?!

I am the owner of Mile High Cleaning, a company I started from the ground up while being a stay-at-home mother of three small children. I have always had a great reputation other than the few crazies I have to deal once in a while. 1 out of every 100 people just can't be reasoned with. This is true of the report against me about the $70 cleaning for 55 minutes. I am so incredibly insulted at the false accusations that people now have the ability to read and make a judgment from without having accurate information.

Never in the 5 years I have been doing business have I ignored the complaint or phone call of a client or not responded. I may have a pit in my stomach when having to deal with conflict I can't resolve, but I have never ignored a client or employee like this woman says.

This client failed to mention that the 55 minute cleaning was two peopl! Before the economy got so tough the average rate of all my competitors (at least the ones that hire legal workers and pay more than minimum wage) was $35 per hour per person...since then we have lowered our rate to accomodate the current economic climate. When we serviced this client in Lakewood I did have problems with staff not showing up to work or calling in sick every single day. I couldn't get them to care about their job even though I pay $12 per hour per person as a starting point, that's not including gas reimbursement or bonus structures! This is good pay for this industry, but until recently when it became hard to find a job people didn't care and would just walk on me with no notice or blow me off to do something with friends when I had a full schedule to cover. This caused many unhappy clients when I had to reschedule at the last minute with no notice due to flaky staff! I tried my best and still do. Then on top of my staff being an issue the first three times we were scheduled and me begging the client to allow us another chance at a discounted rate, the client complained about the actual work that was done. People may disagree, but I don't always believe the customer is always right, not when the staff I finally was able to send her (because we were able to go on the weekend when they were available) had been with me for over a year with zero complaints the entire time. Those two girls were requested every day and were working 3-5 jobs per day to fit in all the clients who wanted them and no one else. I trusted my staff that I new over this client that I didn't who said they didn't do things they absolutely did. Unfortunately there are people out there looking for a free service if they complain and complain, but when we finally got to clean her house we did a good job and I will back my staff up all the way.

We did take a discount and only charged this woman $55 instead of $70 because of the inconveniences prior to the actual cleaning. She said her home should have been done in 4 or more hours, but she lived in a small home or apartment less than 1,000 sq ft. To be there longer than 1-2 hours with two people would have meant her home was incredibly dirty and needed double the time to get it up to standard or that we were milking the clock for a larger invoice, neither are true. It was a simple cleaning...there was no pleasing this woman so I lost the client and ended up being lied about to the world on this website I just became aware of.

Tell me how this is fair. All you business owners out there know that you can't make everyone happy and when you can't give them a solution they will be happy with you just have to deal with the fall out. It's unfair to those of us who are honest, hard working people who are just trying to run a business through more obstacles than you could imagine to provide for their family.

My company and I are honest and offer the best services possible. If my staff doesn't represent what I am selling and does an average or poor cleaning, I always take care of it as best I can. Very few times are the clients just not pleasable like this woman. That's business I guess.

I am the owner of Mile High Cleaning, a company I started from the ground up while being a stay-at-home mother of three small children. I have always had a great reputation other than the few crazies I have to deal once in a while. 1 out of every 100 people just can't be reasoned with. This is true of the report against me about the $70 cleaning for 55 minutes. I am so incredibly insulted at the false accusations that people now have the ability to read and make a judgment from without having accurate information.

Never in the 5 years I have been doing business have I ignored the complaint or phone call of a client or not responded. I may have a pit in my stomach when having to deal with conflict I can't resolve, but I have never ignored a client or employee like this woman says.

This client failed to mention that the 55 minute cleaning was two peopl! Before the economy got so tough the average rate of all my competitors (at least the ones that hire legal workers and pay more than minimum wage) was $35 per hour per person...since then we have lowered our rate to accomodate the current economic climate. When we serviced this client in Lakewood I did have problems with staff not showing up to work or calling in sick every single day. I couldn't get them to care about their job even though I pay $12 per hour per person as a starting point, that's not including gas reimbursement or bonus structures! This is good pay for this industry, but until recently when it became hard to find a job people didn't care and would just walk on me with no notice or blow me off to do something with friends when I had a full schedule to cover. This caused many unhappy clients when I had to reschedule at the last minute with no notice due to flaky staff! I tried my best and still do. Then on top of my staff being an issue the first three times we were scheduled and me begging the client to allow us another chance at a discounted rate, the client complained about the actual work that was done. People may disagree, but I don't always believe the customer is always right, not when the staff I finally was able to send her (because we were able to go on the weekend when they were available) had been with me for over a year with zero complaints the entire time. Those two girls were requested every day and were working 3-5 jobs per day to fit in all the clients who wanted them and no one else. I trusted my staff that I new over this client that I didn't who said they didn't do things they absolutely did. Unfortunately there are people out there looking for a free service if they complain and complain, but when we finally got to clean her house we did a good job and I will back my staff up all the way.

We did take a discount and only charged this woman $55 instead of $70 because of the inconveniences prior to the actual cleaning. She said her home should have been done in 4 or more hours, but she lived in a small home or apartment less than 1,000 sq ft. To be there longer than 1-2 hours with two people would have meant her home was incredibly dirty and needed double the time to get it up to standard or that we were milking the clock for a larger invoice, neither are true. It was a simple cleaning...there was no pleasing this woman so I lost the client and ended up being lied about to the world on this website I just became aware of.

Tell me how this is fair. All you business owners out there know that you can't make everyone happy and when you can't give them a solution they will be happy with you just have to deal with the fall out. It's unfair to those of us who are honest, hard working people who are just trying to run a business through more obstacles than you could imagine to provide for their family.

My company and I are honest and offer the best services possible. If my staff doesn't represent what I am selling and does an average or poor cleaning, I always take care of it as best I can. Very few times are the clients just not pleasable like this woman. That's business I guess.

from Austin might be the one on a "high". Whether he is in the Rocky Mountains or not! Not one thing he wrote is understandable. Thinking that maybe "Joe" has nothing to do with this entire string of comments for consumers.

HAD IT EVER OCCURRED TO YOU THAT THESE ALLEGED CLEANING PEOPLE JUST MIGHT GET "A MILE HIGH" BEFORE THEY START CLEANING?

YOU KNOW, THEY SAY THAT YOU LOSE TRACK OF TIME WITH THAT ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH....

AND IT IS BOO FOR WHO AND ANOTHER REEFER TOO..

JUST LIKE THE JANITORS IN MY OLD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL BESIDE THE DUMPSTER, MAN

We accepted a job with Shannon Dixon after replying to an ad on Craigslist. No personal interview, or anything. Just hired via email exchanges. No paperwork was given and we were told we would be "independent contractors". The pay rate was $12.00 an hour. Went to the first home to clean and spent four hours. There were two of us. When it came time for pay day, our checks were considerably short! Like half the pay we were to recieve. Ms. Dixon explained this to us, "some jobs are by the hour and some are salary." What????? This was the first time we heard this. Ms. Dixon went on to offer this explanation, "the house you and your partner spent four hours cleaning is a salary job, which means you only make 24.00 each off of it." Think about this for a second. My partner and I invested a total of 8 hours on this home...her four hours and mine. YET, Ms. Dixon pays us 24.00 each! What is wrong with this picture? All of a sudden, every short in our paychecks were because the job were "salary jobs"!!! Just imagine the profit on Ms. Dixon's end! This is nothing short of slave labor. WHen you estimate our profit on on four hour cleaning job for 24.00, that is 6.00 an hour! Below miniumum wage!

We tried to speak with Ms. Dixon on it, but she would not budge. Only threatened us to return her materials or she would deduct 25.00 a day from our final checks! It did not matter what wrongs she had committed, like shorting us on every paycheck given by her. Another peculiar practice she started with us from the start, was asking us to deposit her checks that client's gave us. She did not know us at all! Let alone well enough to trust us with checks and business accounts!

One of the last homes we did for her was a "salary" based client. The one that took us four hours the first time. We finished her home in two hours the next time. Ms. Dixon suggested in the future, that we hang out for the entire four hours..."do blinds or something until the time has passed!" REALLY? What about telling the client that it only takes two hours now...and reducing her rate?

Steer clear, you have been warned. Both from an employee standpoint, and as someone who comes in to clean. She cheats people...left and right! Just ask her how long her employees have been with her. This is a business that needs to be closed.