top tier: people who are polite/respectful and put CASH in my hand when I come to their house because they understand that most of what they paid goes to my boss, not to me, and that handing me actual cash is the only way the job is actually worth my while. This is like 10% of clients or less.
2nd best: people who are polite/respectful and maybe offer me water or a cup of coffee, are willing to think about how they can make it easier for us, seem to have a genuine recognition of what a favor is being done for them by a real person. yes they paid for it but also it's being done by a person. i'm willing to believe that some of these people don't tip because maybe they don't have the extra cash or aren't prepared to, but the attitude of respect still is worth something to me. This is about 30% of clients.
3rd tier: people who are not home and I never interact with them except via my boss, but they keep their house reasonably climate controlled. This is about 30% of clients.
4th tier: people who are not home but leave piles of dirty dishes for me (not part of what they paid for) and/or a problem pet is made to be my problem (also seems crazy to leave your high strung pet with a stranger idk). or people who turn OFF their climate control when they know workers are coming over. This is like 10% of clients.
5th tier: people who are home, lurking but not in a nice way, acting like the cleaners are doing something sketchy (it's fair to feel like you don't want people in your space but then WHY hire us to come over! this was your decision!) plus do 4th tier annoying things. Also 10% of clients.
bottom tier: people who lurk, are rude, act like we're doing something sketchy and invasive by doing the job you hired us to do, nitpick and act passive aggressive, and then complain about bullshit to my boss after we leave. complaints include things like: “the floor was wet after you mopped it,” “our son used the toilet after you cleaned it and you didn't go back and re-clean it,” “you took too long even though we added a bunch of tasks last-minute,” “you used an extra trash bag and that's bad for the environment,” “you left a single streak on our opulent glass shower door,” and other craziness like this. i think it takes a special type of psycho to HIRE people to come to your house and then use it as an excuse to power trip like this. Also 10% of clients. I want to tell these people how rare and abnormal this behavior is.
Please don't spam me with “omg wheres ur self respect get a better job”, for the time being this is literally the only job i can have that allows me to manage all the family obligations i'm also doing. i have a full life outside of work and plenty of other commitments and sources of meaning and i keep hard boundaries with this shit and make it work for me for the time i need it.
but man, people can be all kinds of ways…