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I wanted HomeJoy to work and tried to use the service a few times. What the failure came down to: 1. The cleaners were not professionals. It felt like they wer

I wanted HomeJoy to work and tried to use the service a few times. What the failure came down to: 1. The cleaners were not professionals. It felt like they were just recruiting anyone who wanted a job. You could really feel this with the lack of passion from the cleaners and the severe lack of quality cleaning. Most of the people complained and were quite rude sometimes. Cleaning is very much a skill as much as it is manual labor. 2. People don't want to let just anyone into their home to clean. Especially for those that have valuables, you want someone you trust who is going to hopefully be your maid for years to come. I wouldn't want someone new every time and for that reason, I used HomeJoy only at our office but even that wasn't enough due to poor quality. Someone on this thread further explained this well, which is that HomeJoy is at a high level, a match making service. Once you find a match, why do you need HomeJoy? Connect directly with the maid and have them come on your own schedule for a fraction of the price. I used to feel the same way about Uber. If I found a good driver back in the day I would get his phone # and take him exclusively to the airport. Uber solved this with UberX and by having a wealth of seemingly skilled drivers that made it a true on demand service. Having to book an appointment like HomeJoy seems like it is not a true OnDemand service, just a nicer UI than any other maid connecting service. AirBnB I feel had a similar problem. For frequent business travelers, finding the right place at the right price is awesome and I would usually try to stay at the same place and connect with people directly. AirBnB solved this with overwhelming demand for the service (the place I like may not always be available) and with their insurance policy and scheduling tools for renters. In any event, I don't feel like HomeJoy failing is indiciative of a bubble in the On Demand economy. There were inherent principles of this business that made it destined to fail that others in the space won't have a problem with.

markonthewall 11y ago
> the lack of passion from the cleaners I doubt cleaning other people's shit is anyone's passion.
- joslin01 11y ago
  Just as much as I doubt checking me out in a check-out line is anyone's idea of "passion", but it's still rude and unprofessional to not show me courtesy. You don't get a moral blank-check just because you don't like your job.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    > You don't get a moral blank-check just because you don't like your job. Whether someone can "feel" your passion about a job isn't about morality. I can do my job well, even if I feel its the equivalent of shoveling horse shit, and have zero passion for it. Whether someone is doing their job well is never a moral question. If someone didn't do the job you agreed to, its contractual; don't pay or pay a reduced rate based on the agreement and move on.
    - enraged_camel 11y ago
      You're interpreting it too literally. "Passion" in this case simply means "actually gives a fuck and tries to do a good job" as opposed to "doing the bare minimum." So yeah, you don't have to have passion for your job, or even like it, but if you're not going to try to do it well, just quit and let someone else take over.
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > So yeah, you don't have to have passion for your job, or even like it, but if you're not going to try to do it well, just quit and let someone else take over. I don't disagree, but I'm in the privileged position of being an in-demand tech professional who could have another job the same day I quit my current one. The inherent problem with the "sharing economy" is that its built on using people (primary) who are economically disadvantaged who need the job (I concede that someone people who drive for Uber don't require the job, but do it do to the flexible schedule or extra income it provides). Its hard to always do a shitty job well, constantly.
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
- jonknee 11y ago
  People can take pride in all sorts of work.
  - x0x0 11y ago
    Yeah, but complaining their cleaner wasn't "passionate" mostly comes off as being pissy your poorly-paid short-term menial labor didn't fluff your ego enough for being so awesome to pay him or her. You can do a perfectly good job cleaning without pretending you're so passionate about cleaning you'd just love to do it for free! (I have similar complaints about development jobs, btw -- you can do a perfectly good job and be a great employee whilst not pretending it's anything but a job, and you're doing it because you get paid, and if you weren't getting paid, you'd be seeing family/friends/dog/beach/mountains/woods/recreation of choice / etc.)
    - markbnj 11y ago
      I don't think the replies meant "passionate" as in "man I am so STOKED to clean your apartment, brah!" What they meant was "cares enough to do a good job."
      - x0x0 11y ago
        Obviously not, because the OP enumerated passion and quality separately. You could really feel this with the lack of passion from the cleaners and the severe lack of quality cleaning
    - michaelt 11y ago
      A lot of jobs involve what sociologists call "emotional labor" - jobs where, to be an effective worker, you can't always show your first-choice emotions. If I'm at a table service restaurant and my waiter is visibly unhappy about having to bring us food and drinks, I don't want to be an asshole by keeping on making him do that. I'd rather cook my own food at home next time. But a table service restaurant where waiters aren't bringing customers food and drink is going to go out of business pretty soon. That's why waiters are trained to engage in emotional labor - in saying "of course sir, it's no problem" when they'd rather sigh or complain; the emotional labor is actually an important part of the job. Personally I've never hired a cleaner because I'd feel like an asshole asking some poor stranger to scrub my toilet. But if I did hire a cleaner, and they came around and left me feeling that yes, I am an asshole for hiring them to scrub my toilet, I probably wouldn't hire a cleaner again. If you're running a cleaning company, that's not good for business.
- theorique 11y ago
  One of the things you're paying for is for the service provider to "act as if".
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  I have an ex who LOVED to clean. She got a lot of satisfaction from improving peoples' living space and she was awesome at it. Anytime something was dirty, she would have a natural compulsion to clean it and you had to drag her away if she got distracted while she was supposed to be doing something else. Maid work would be a dream job for her.
- curun1r 11y ago
  You'd be surprised. My Parents use AirBnb to rent out an in-law apartment they have at one of their houses (they each had a house prior to getting together). They're retired and they now treat it like their job, despite it only bringing in around $30k/year. I've recommended that they find a local cleaning person since I think they can find someone good who's willing to do it for the cleaning fee they charge ($50), but they're finicky about it being done perfectly and value their star rating (full 5 stars). So they do it themselves before every new renter arrives. Sometimes this involves driving 1.5 hours in each direction just to go up there and clean, but they insist on doing it anyways. Similarly, I used to have a cleaning person come once a month. She was an immigrant single parent who had built up a large number of loyal, repeat clients and was making enough to send her daughter to college. Doing our dishes and vacuuming our floors probably didn't provide much enjoyment, but you can bet your ass she did it passionately because of the larger context in which she was working. You're probably right about the actual act of cleaning...almost everyone won't have a passion for that. But your comment is incredibly myopic and shows a complete lack of understanding of human motivation.
  - simoncion 11y ago
    > ...you can bet your ass she did it passionately... Hmm. I would be more comfortable with "professionally". Frankly, I think that's the far better word to use here. In your comment, you even go on to doubt that almost anyone would have a "passion" for cleaning. Professionals do an excellent job where an excellent job is required. Passion is not a factor in the quality of the work.
  - dnissley 11y ago
    You're missing the point. The apartment is their property, even if the mess isn't.
- chc 11y ago
  I knew a guy who was a window cleaner. He was really and truly passionate about it. He would go to window-cleaning competitions and come home bragging about placing first in some category or another. People can take pride in a job well-done even if they job isn't prestigious. I don't think it's reasonable to require cleaners to be that enthusiastic, but I don't really see why somebody should feel less proud about making things nicer through cleaning than I do about achieving similar ends through coding.
  - jonknee 11y ago
    I had no idea there were competitions. That must be satisfying. I looked it up and man they're fast! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8JCG-ww3Fg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8JCG-ww3Fg
- meatysnapper 11y ago
  Go to Switzerland or Japan. Especially in the former, dirt anywhere is a national disgrace. The road crews take serious pride in the condition of the roads, for example.
- Fomite 11y ago
  "Taking pride in what I do, and doing it well" is a kind of passion that transcends "Is this the best job ever?" and one I've definitely seen cleaners and other people with "bad" jobs care deeply about.
- fredsters_s 11y ago
  ...and welcome to the coastal American attitude to service. This is not acceptable. No matter what you do, be a professional and strive for excellence.
ilyagr 11y ago
I've had the opposite experience: the many different Homejoy cleaners I got were all very good or excellent. Perhaps that is because I live in the south of Chicago, where there are many people desperate for a decent job.
akshatpradhan 11y ago
>1. The cleaners were not professionals. It felt like they were just recruiting anyone who wanted a job. You could really feel this with the lack of passion from the cleaners and the severe lack of quality cleaning. Most of the people complained and were quite rude sometimes. Cleaning is very much a skill as much as it is manual labor. For me personally, it felt they had little training of how to clean. Things like dusting diligently, wiping diligently, and mopping diligently just weren't done. Sometimes they'd spend way too much time in one area. One person spent 45 mins on my bathroom floor. I couldn't understand why and when I asked him to work on other areas he said, "please don't tell me how to clean." There is definitely a skill to cleaning and unfortunately, I didn't feel they had enough training to call them skilled. >2. People don't want to let just anyone into their home to clean. Especially for those that have valuables, you want someone you trust who is going to hopefully be your maid for years to come. I wouldn't want someone new every time and for that reason, I used HomeJoy only at our office but even that wasn't enough due to poor quality. There was one guy that came into my apartment, and he was in the valuables room. Not much of a peep had gone by in 30 mins, so I checked in and I heard a drop of the jewelry box. He said he was just cleaning around and that an earring was missing and he was looking for it. I didn't say much because I was thinking in my mind what's he doing with an earring in the first place when I had just put all jewelry out of sight. I walked out the room and he said something like, "here it is, its put back". Its hard to describe in words, but the atmosphere was very uncomfortable at that point. I can't tell whether he took something or not, but that was the experience Homejoy provided.
- fweespeech 11y ago
  > This. Very much. There was one guy that came into my apartment, and he was in the valuables room. Not much of a peep had gone by in 30 mins, so I checked in and I heard a drop of the jewelry box. He said he was just cleaning around and that an earring was missing and he was looking for it. I didn't say much because I was thinking in my mind what's he doing with an earring in the first place. I walk out the room and he says something like, "here it is, its put back". Its hard to describe in words, but the atmosphere was very uncomfortable at that point. If you are letting strangers in your house, you lock up valuables they can walk out with. For someone who uses his HN profile to state he takes security seriously...you don't seem to take basic security measures. Having any kind of employee [or contractor] is as much removing the easiest and most typical temptations as it is hiring the right person. Jewelry boxes, cash, credit cards, etc. should have been locked up and out of sight.
ilyagr 11y ago
I've had the opposite experience: the many different Homejoy cleaners I got were all very good or excellent. Perhaps that is because I live in the south of Chicago, where there are many people desperate for a decent job.
enraged_camel 11y ago
>>1. The cleaners were not professionals. It felt like they were just recruiting anyone who wanted a job. You could really feel this with the lack of passion from the cleaners and the severe lack of quality cleaning. Most of the people complained and were quite rude sometimes. Cleaning is very much a skill as much as it is manual labor. Yep. That's what happens when you run a service business and you accept investor money: the constant pressure to grow leads you to sacrifice quality -- which leads to your downfall in the long run.
larrys 11y ago
"People don't want to let just anyone into their home to clean." And they want the same person each time whereas with drivers that doesn't matter, certainly not as much. So one way that cleaning companies differ, and I employ cleaners for both my home and commercial properties, is that the cleaning is predictable in nature "every week, every two weeks, 3 times per month" and so on usually at a set time. [1] The only variable is the day that you "setup" with them. Rides don't follow the same pattern. With rides (also much simpler getting someone to the airport) you don't need the same driver and the time is typically not the same and nowhere near as frequent for the average user. With cleaning companies you want the same crew even in the sense that they get to know the lay of the land at your property (home or commercial). (Helps with pets as well). A host of differences. [1] And once this time comes up it normally doesn't change and you are on autopilot.
pbreit 11y ago
Good points. I came to write 1) that they were trying to turn a match-making business into a transactional business (apparently unsuccessfully) and 2) that the labor problems sound more like an excuse for what was likely just a poorly run business.
zecho 11y ago
> 1. The cleaners were not professionals. It felt like they were just recruiting anyone who wanted a job. You could really feel this with the lack of passion from the cleaners and the severe lack of quality cleaning. Most of the people complained and were quite rude sometimes. Cleaning is very much a skill as much as it is manual labor. Maybe their passion wasn't cleaning your house for you and they just wanted some money to pursue real passions.
jaksmit 11y ago
they increased their prices more than 75% a year ago, which signaled that they didn't have a sustainable model. http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/25/homejoy-home-services/?fb_comment_id=fbc_677637705634979_677651772300239_677651772300239 http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/25/homejoy-home-services/?fb_c...

markonthewall 11y ago

> the lack of passion from the cleaners I doubt cleaning other people's shit is anyone's passion.

joslin01 11y ago
Just as much as I doubt checking me out in a check-out line is anyone's idea of "passion", but it's still rude and unprofessional to not show me courtesy. You don't get a moral blank-check just because you don't like your job.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  > You don't get a moral blank-check just because you don't like your job. Whether someone can "feel" your passion about a job isn't about morality. I can do my job well, even if I feel its the equivalent of shoveling horse shit, and have zero passion for it. Whether someone is doing their job well is never a moral question. If someone didn't do the job you agreed to, its contractual; don't pay or pay a reduced rate based on the agreement and move on.
  - enraged_camel 11y ago
    You're interpreting it too literally. "Passion" in this case simply means "actually gives a fuck and tries to do a good job" as opposed to "doing the bare minimum." So yeah, you don't have to have passion for your job, or even like it, but if you're not going to try to do it well, just quit and let someone else take over.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      > So yeah, you don't have to have passion for your job, or even like it, but if you're not going to try to do it well, just quit and let someone else take over. I don't disagree, but I'm in the privileged position of being an in-demand tech professional who could have another job the same day I quit my current one. The inherent problem with the "sharing economy" is that its built on using people (primary) who are economically disadvantaged who need the job (I concede that someone people who drive for Uber don't require the job, but do it do to the flexible schedule or extra income it provides). Its hard to always do a shitty job well, constantly.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
jonknee 11y ago
People can take pride in all sorts of work.
- x0x0 11y ago
  Yeah, but complaining their cleaner wasn't "passionate" mostly comes off as being pissy your poorly-paid short-term menial labor didn't fluff your ego enough for being so awesome to pay him or her. You can do a perfectly good job cleaning without pretending you're so passionate about cleaning you'd just love to do it for free! (I have similar complaints about development jobs, btw -- you can do a perfectly good job and be a great employee whilst not pretending it's anything but a job, and you're doing it because you get paid, and if you weren't getting paid, you'd be seeing family/friends/dog/beach/mountains/woods/recreation of choice / etc.)
  - markbnj 11y ago
    I don't think the replies meant "passionate" as in "man I am so STOKED to clean your apartment, brah!" What they meant was "cares enough to do a good job."
    - x0x0 11y ago
      Obviously not, because the OP enumerated passion and quality separately. You could really feel this with the lack of passion from the cleaners and the severe lack of quality cleaning
  - michaelt 11y ago
    A lot of jobs involve what sociologists call "emotional labor" - jobs where, to be an effective worker, you can't always show your first-choice emotions. If I'm at a table service restaurant and my waiter is visibly unhappy about having to bring us food and drinks, I don't want to be an asshole by keeping on making him do that. I'd rather cook my own food at home next time. But a table service restaurant where waiters aren't bringing customers food and drink is going to go out of business pretty soon. That's why waiters are trained to engage in emotional labor - in saying "of course sir, it's no problem" when they'd rather sigh or complain; the emotional labor is actually an important part of the job. Personally I've never hired a cleaner because I'd feel like an asshole asking some poor stranger to scrub my toilet. But if I did hire a cleaner, and they came around and left me feeling that yes, I am an asshole for hiring them to scrub my toilet, I probably wouldn't hire a cleaner again. If you're running a cleaning company, that's not good for business.
theorique 11y ago
One of the things you're paying for is for the service provider to "act as if".
cookiecaper 11y ago
I have an ex who LOVED to clean. She got a lot of satisfaction from improving peoples' living space and she was awesome at it. Anytime something was dirty, she would have a natural compulsion to clean it and you had to drag her away if she got distracted while she was supposed to be doing something else. Maid work would be a dream job for her.
curun1r 11y ago
You'd be surprised. My Parents use AirBnb to rent out an in-law apartment they have at one of their houses (they each had a house prior to getting together). They're retired and they now treat it like their job, despite it only bringing in around $30k/year. I've recommended that they find a local cleaning person since I think they can find someone good who's willing to do it for the cleaning fee they charge ($50), but they're finicky about it being done perfectly and value their star rating (full 5 stars). So they do it themselves before every new renter arrives. Sometimes this involves driving 1.5 hours in each direction just to go up there and clean, but they insist on doing it anyways. Similarly, I used to have a cleaning person come once a month. She was an immigrant single parent who had built up a large number of loyal, repeat clients and was making enough to send her daughter to college. Doing our dishes and vacuuming our floors probably didn't provide much enjoyment, but you can bet your ass she did it passionately because of the larger context in which she was working. You're probably right about the actual act of cleaning...almost everyone won't have a passion for that. But your comment is incredibly myopic and shows a complete lack of understanding of human motivation.
- simoncion 11y ago
  > ...you can bet your ass she did it passionately... Hmm. I would be more comfortable with "professionally". Frankly, I think that's the far better word to use here. In your comment, you even go on to doubt that almost anyone would have a "passion" for cleaning. Professionals do an excellent job where an excellent job is required. Passion is not a factor in the quality of the work.
- dnissley 11y ago
  You're missing the point. The apartment is their property, even if the mess isn't.
chc 11y ago
I knew a guy who was a window cleaner. He was really and truly passionate about it. He would go to window-cleaning competitions and come home bragging about placing first in some category or another. People can take pride in a job well-done even if they job isn't prestigious. I don't think it's reasonable to require cleaners to be that enthusiastic, but I don't really see why somebody should feel less proud about making things nicer through cleaning than I do about achieving similar ends through coding.
- jonknee 11y ago
  I had no idea there were competitions. That must be satisfying. I looked it up and man they're fast! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8JCG-ww3Fg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8JCG-ww3Fg
meatysnapper 11y ago
Go to Switzerland or Japan. Especially in the former, dirt anywhere is a national disgrace. The road crews take serious pride in the condition of the roads, for example.
Fomite 11y ago
"Taking pride in what I do, and doing it well" is a kind of passion that transcends "Is this the best job ever?" and one I've definitely seen cleaners and other people with "bad" jobs care deeply about.
fredsters_s 11y ago
...and welcome to the coastal American attitude to service. This is not acceptable. No matter what you do, be a professional and strive for excellence.

ilyagr 11y ago

I've had the opposite experience: the many different Homejoy cleaners I got were all very good or excellent. Perhaps that is because I live in the south of Chicago, where there are many people desperate for a decent job.

akshatpradhan 11y ago

>1. The cleaners were not professionals. It felt like they were just recruiting anyone who wanted a job. You could really feel this with the lack of passion from the cleaners and the severe lack of quality cleaning. Most of the people complained and were quite rude sometimes. Cleaning is very much a skill as much as it is manual labor. For me personally, it felt they had little training of how to clean. Things like dusting diligently, wiping diligently, and mopping diligently just weren't done. Sometimes they'd spend way too much time in one area. One person spent 45 mins on my bathroom floor. I couldn't understand why and when I asked him to work on other areas he said, "please don't tell me how to clean." There is definitely a skill to cleaning and unfortunately, I didn't feel they had enough training to call them skilled. >2. People don't want to let just anyone into their home to clean. Especially for those that have valuables, you want someone you trust who is going to hopefully be your maid for years to come. I wouldn't want someone new every time and for that reason, I used HomeJoy only at our office but even that wasn't enough due to poor quality. There was one guy that came into my apartment, and he was in the valuables room. Not much of a peep had gone by in 30 mins, so I checked in and I heard a drop of the jewelry box. He said he was just cleaning around and that an earring was missing and he was looking for it. I didn't say much because I was thinking in my mind what's he doing with an earring in the first place when I had just put all jewelry out of sight. I walked out the room and he said something like, "here it is, its put back". Its hard to describe in words, but the atmosphere was very uncomfortable at that point. I can't tell whether he took something or not, but that was the experience Homejoy provided.

fweespeech 11y ago
> This. Very much. There was one guy that came into my apartment, and he was in the valuables room. Not much of a peep had gone by in 30 mins, so I checked in and I heard a drop of the jewelry box. He said he was just cleaning around and that an earring was missing and he was looking for it. I didn't say much because I was thinking in my mind what's he doing with an earring in the first place. I walk out the room and he says something like, "here it is, its put back". Its hard to describe in words, but the atmosphere was very uncomfortable at that point. If you are letting strangers in your house, you lock up valuables they can walk out with. For someone who uses his HN profile to state he takes security seriously...you don't seem to take basic security measures. Having any kind of employee [or contractor] is as much removing the easiest and most typical temptations as it is hiring the right person. Jewelry boxes, cash, credit cards, etc. should have been locked up and out of sight.

ilyagr 11y ago

enraged_camel 11y ago

>>1. The cleaners were not professionals. It felt like they were just recruiting anyone who wanted a job. You could really feel this with the lack of passion from the cleaners and the severe lack of quality cleaning. Most of the people complained and were quite rude sometimes. Cleaning is very much a skill as much as it is manual labor. Yep. That's what happens when you run a service business and you accept investor money: the constant pressure to grow leads you to sacrifice quality -- which leads to your downfall in the long run.

larrys 11y ago

"People don't want to let just anyone into their home to clean." And they want the same person each time whereas with drivers that doesn't matter, certainly not as much. So one way that cleaning companies differ, and I employ cleaners for both my home and commercial properties, is that the cleaning is predictable in nature "every week, every two weeks, 3 times per month" and so on usually at a set time. [1] The only variable is the day that you "setup" with them. Rides don't follow the same pattern. With rides (also much simpler getting someone to the airport) you don't need the same driver and the time is typically not the same and nowhere near as frequent for the average user. With cleaning companies you want the same crew even in the sense that they get to know the lay of the land at your property (home or commercial). (Helps with pets as well). A host of differences. [1] And once this time comes up it normally doesn't change and you are on autopilot.

pbreit 11y ago

Good points. I came to write 1) that they were trying to turn a match-making business into a transactional business (apparently unsuccessfully) and 2) that the labor problems sound more like an excuse for what was likely just a poorly run business.

zecho 11y ago

jaksmit 11y ago

they increased their prices more than 75% a year ago, which signaled that they didn't have a sustainable model. http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/25/homejoy-home-services/?fb_comment_id=fbc_677637705634979_677651772300239_677651772300239 http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/25/homejoy-home-services/?fb_c...