Under the Pressure

4:33 am

I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I still have a hard time coming here.

When the original OD closed it’s doors, I was angry. I went into a deep depression, like a friend died. I know, it’s silly, isn’t it? I felt betrayed, y’know? I know I’m not the only one that felt that way. I just go waaaay overboard with feelings of any kind. Part of life with bipolar. eh.

My life has been rather boring. My little cleaning gig has turned into an LLC. I have… gads let me count again because I swear I have dementia (that’s a whole different story)… 20 clients. It sometimes fluctuates I fired one client because they kept canceling, and another very strange elderly couple dropped me. I found replacements in no time.

Even though I have a decent, sometimes heavy client load (some houses are obviously worse than others), and I have someone working for me cleaning for two clients, I feel like I don’t have enough. It’s the Capricorn in me. Yeah, yeah, I’m sure most of you think that’s a bunch of hooey, but if you look up the traits, it basically describes me.

Because I feel that my business isn’t big enough, I put a thing in a couple of the local groups on fb, and got a hit immediately from another BnB. They’re not officially a client. I haven’t even met the woman face to face, but I’m cleaning a room (or two? Three?) tomorrow, and she’s booked several more days with me. I’m not sure if she has a regular housekeeper that’s out, or if she’s been doing it herself (it’s only three rooms) and it’s getting to be too much on top of all the goodies that come with the stay, like free breakfast. Not just like, the kind you get at a Holiday inn, but freshly made quiche and stuff like that. I’ll find out what’s going on tomorrow.

Yes, I do feel stressed, and I worry about my physical and mental health taking on so much, but… I mean, owning a cleaning service isn’t what I expected to do with my life. It never even entered my head until word of mouth got me more clients. So I gave myself a name, printed out business cards, put up fliers, and suddenly I needed to find help.

Money is decent, but I don’t charge enough. I under charge the competition by a couple of bucks. Several clients are due for contract renewals, so a letter is going out with it to inform them that the rates are going to increase by 50 cents. Not a lot, but it does add up over time. I don’t want to scare the clients away, right? Right.

So work is my life, now. I come home physically hurting, and that stresses me out. With the fibro you just never know when you’re going to flare, and I absolutely hate canceling on a client.

Speaking of clients, I need to see if one of them wants an extra cleaning on the 22nd. Trust me, she needs it. Actually I should teach the family how to not to throw their dirty socks all over the house. I found a pair in the kitchen this week. No one in that house knows how to clean. I find it frustrating as hell. I love them as people, but as clients I shake my head every time I walk in the house.

hm That just gave me an idea. I wonder if I could find someone that is awesome at organizing.  That would be a great service to offer.

hmm…