TCA - The Cleaning Authority misleading job ad,unpaid chore duties,work double the hours you get paid for heath, Ohio

Former employee, here. The thing about the pay, is that you do lose 50 cents an hour for the entire week if you are late or call off. Well, that's advised from the start, and it's pretty lame but whatever. The b.s. part is that when someone's child has an emergency or the person is very ill, the owners have a major lack of compassion. If the doctor tells you you must be off work, and sends a written excuse for that, then there needs to be some elbow room there.

As for the employee handbook and stuff you sign upon being hired, you are not allowed to make copies or take these out of the office. Hm. Upon your exit interview, you sign papers stating that you will not request any documentation that you previously signed. I wonder why that is. They say it's to protect thier "methods of cleaning"... because it's so secretive, cleaning from upstairs to downstairs. Clever. The exit interveiw paper also states that you will be sued for $5000 if you tell anyone about the way the place is run. I don't think that would hold up in court.

You do get paid only fifteen minutes between houses. That'd be fine with me, if they didn't purposely schedule the houses 30 minutes apart. From Thornville to Blacklick, from Heath to Bexley, from Reynoldsburg then to Newark... those take only 15 minutes to travel between? With traffic lights, especially. It's a very sneaky way to word things so they sound good. You sure are "at work" a 30+ hour week, but when you get your check and it says less than 23 hours of work done. I recall one week when I recorded all of my travel time. I was paid for less than half.

Notice #5 of company response? There is no direct denial that the employees used drugs on the job. "We fingerprint and run background checks". Well, that's fantastic. But, if the person is not already a felon, then what does this do? No one had to take a drug test, urine or otherwise. I have had multiple people in training tell me that the people they rode with lit up a joint in the car, and that they were incredibly uncomfortable. They'd most likely do it on the way to homes they know the owners would be at work.

Milage reimbursment could be a little more, especially considering gas prices.

I was in a house cleaning for over an hour, when the customer decided to casually mention that all 4 family mebers in the home has had swine flu all week. I called the office. They told me, "well just make sure to wear your gloves, you'll be fine. The media is making a bigger deal out of it than it is." No compassion. Of course I wore gloves, always did, but it's the principal of the thing. I've been in homes that were beyond a health hazard. Maggots crawling out the cupboards, dog uring all over the floor, cockroaches. These are houses which the boss should deny service because of the conditions, disease and pests can be spread to other customers' homes. But, nope. Money is money.

The snow. Oh, man. The snow... Ha. There was one time that my partner's vehicle could not make it up a snow covered, gravel driveway that was (after counting steps) about 100 yards long, at around a 40 degree incline. We called the office to inform them that we couldn't drive up it. They gave the ultimatum: Walk up it carrying all the equipment or get fired.

One of the employees got a flat tire and had to put thier donut on. The mechanic told her to go home because a donut isn't safe to drive on for long, so she called the boss and he basically told her it's a lie, and that the CAR MECHANIC didn't know what he was talking about. He made her drive to another job site 10 extra miles out before coming back for the day. This was on bumpy country roads, and she was terrified.

After much research, the law states that unless an employee is paid salary, they are to be paid for every minute of travel between job sites. Just thought I'd throw that out there...

All in all, the Heath cleaning authority is full of loopholes and twisted words. They can deny all they want, and throw that "I was in the Military" around as a reason to trust them, but they're just another set of money hungry, uppity snobs. They don't care about thier employees or their customers. Plenty of employees can back all these facts up.

1. Employee states company places a misleading ad and has proof if needed: I too have proof of the ad. It firmly states "Employees average about 30 hours per week". I ran several of my payroll reports to verify that, if employees do work a full 5 days, this is in fact true. 

2. Employee has concerns about the pay structure and asked trainer about it: Employee was never mislead on pay structure. Our pay system was thoroughly explained. Moreover, it is spelled out in writting in our employee manual that is accesible to anyone at anytime. This is in addition to an employment packet the employee reads, initials and signs in numberous places thier understanding and agreement of the policies from the first day of employment. The trainer did the right thing by not engaging in a conversation with her about pay. Pay matters are confidential and should not be discussed by employees accept with management/owners.

3. Employee states she worked over 30 hours a week and got paid for 15: Very difficult to work 30 hours a week, when employee misses 5 days of work in 7 weeks of employment.

4. Employee claims to have witnessed other staff using bathroom sponges to clean kitchen sinks and countertops: Cellulose sponges are not even used in a Kitchen. We use a special tool called a Dobie (manufacturers name). This item is specific for Kitchens and allows us to avoid cross contamination as ex-employee claims.

5. Employee cleams to have witnessed marijuana usage of other staff: This is a complete falsehood. Our company performs multiple layer background checks that consists of a full FBI fingerprint background check in addition to an Ohio BCI&I fingerprint background check (used by school districts across the state as well as police dept). No other service in our area goes to this extent to vet their staff. Moreover, marijuana usage would be easily detected. Not only by myself, but from our customers as well.

6. Employee claims we make them work in homes were the customer has the swine flu: We are not aware of any customer that has had or does have swine flu. We take extra care with this subject. Each team has hand sanitizer provided. Each team has glove with them. Signs are posted in the office baths about precautions neccesary to prevent the swine flu. Our company considers the health and safety of our staff a top priority. In fact we called the teams back early one day last week because of hazardous road conditions.

7. Employee claims we make them drive all over Columbus when roads are covered in snow and slippery: This is Ohio. And yes we get snow. On the day in question, employee entered my office and said she is not doing this and she quit (This is the day after we pulled them back early and the roads were much better after ODOT plowed and salted them). No other employees that morning expressed a desire to quit. Also, there was a Level 1 smow emergency. In ohio, a Level 1 snow emergency states to use caution when traveling. Level 1 snow emergency does not state to not work that day or be off the roads (this is a Level 3 emergency).

8. Employee states we demand to make up time in houses if they fall behind: We do ask this. We do not demand this. I spent 21 years in the Quality field in the Air Force. We expect quality first. All employees know this.

9. To summarize: We are going on our 9th year in business. This is the first posting for my company on this site. If employees took the time necessary to read and understand all of the company policies, this would not be an issue.