Pay. People. Fairly.

If you've been following me for any length of time you know I like to call it how I see it. And I saw something the other day that didn't sit right with me.

As a professional organizer, I often serve as the project manager for other vendors, like closet installers, handymen, and cleaners. I've built great relationships with professionals in these businesses, and I'm happy to coordinate their services so that my clients get the best outcomes possible!

We have a lot in common, we home and garden pros. We do physical work, which is rewarding and also taxing. We have a service mindset: our utmost priority is a happy client. We are better with each additional week, month, and year of experience. We spend time developing our knowledge and expertise in our fields. We have near-insane attention to detail. And we are small business owners, responsible not just for delivering the service, but for running the business itself.

What I’m trying to say is that high quality home and garden work from a true professional is worth paying for.

The other day, I requested a bid from a cleaning service for a project I'm working on. The business owner, who is a trusted member of my network, came out to do the estimate himself. We have great rapport and his company does stellar work. And yet… when I phoned the client's assistant to give her the estimate, she immediately claimed it was too high and asked him to reduce it by half.

Doing back of the envelope math, accounting for the number of people and time required to do the job, plus needing margin for this business owner to cover his costs and make a profit, my client’s assistant was suggesting that we pay high quality professionals less than $25 an hour.

Keep in mind that I’m in San Francisco.

Also keep in mind that’s less than 1/4 of my hourly rate, which the client was happily paying.

What, in this assistant’s mind, was the difference between me and this cleaning service? Is it that cleaning is less valuable than organizing? Is it that the other business owner happens to have a last name tied to a specific ethnicity? Is it that people who work cleaning jobs in our area tend to be BIPOC people without college educations? And did all of that enter into her calculations of what the price of this service should be, without her even realizing that’s why she felt it should be cheaper?

I pushed back, gently, remembering the words of the great Ruth Bader Ginsburg: “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” I told the assistant that I believe the results will be worth the estimated price, and that I trust the business owner. I did also mention that my rate is much higher and the client has no problem with it (the assistant doesn’t know what the client is paying me, and I also don’t know what the client is paying her).

What do you know, it worked! The assistant agreed that the price would probably be worth it, and ended up giving me advice on how to pitch it to the client. I did so, and the client was perfectly happy to pay.

It is so important that we pay our service professionals a fair wage. Just because you CAN get a service for dirt cheap, doesn’t mean you SHOULD. Think about what it would take to raise a family on $25/hour in the Bay Area. Yeah, it’s higher than minimum wage… but if it’s still not what you expect of your own earning power after many years in your profession, why would you think it’s acceptable for other members of your community?

And guys, the service sector is not going away. It’s not ethical to say that we should just stop using underpriced and undervalued services because people are underpaid. Rather, we should truly value the services of the people who excel in their fields, and reward them for their hard work and expertise! There is so much structural inequity in our society that many professionals cannot ask for higher rates because people need work and will undercut their pricing. So the onus is on consumers to do the right thing.

If you employ anyone: house cleaner, gardener, babysitter, nanny… take a look at the functional hourly rate you pay them. Think about how much value they add to your life. And then consider: are those two things congruent? And why?

LMW