Go back there and tell them remove everything and rewrite the contract for the price they quoted you minus the add ons. If they don't you call FTC and tell them the entire story and that you have an audio recording to back that up. Unless they're crooks they won't want that.

I use tea tree oil soap every single day and it's amazing. But yeah don't ever put an essential oil in a private place.

And I think he should have warned her. At least say you might want to leave those be. Although now that I think about it I'm not sure why he just left them there. I would have immediately pushed them well down into the dirty clothes hamper exactly to avoid any potential embarrassing questions.

I don't disagree with that but I'm sure people do creepy stuff to maids. She's maybe overreacting.

Yes I'm with you. She should have left them alone.

This seems a bit extreme on her part but I bet guys do creepy stuff like that.

Wow, that would drive me insane. I thought reliability was one of the most important things.

Depends on the employee and how busy, but for me if it's someone experienced, I trusted that person to make the call and maybe I can get them some help or the next shift person to come in early. I generally hired compassionate people so in the case of something major I could get someone a lot of the time. If necessary I would cover it myself, but working 50 or 60 hours a week gets really old really fast. Usually my policy was as long as we get 24 hours notice or it is actually an emergency, that wouldn't be reflected on a person's record. Short notice or not showing up was considered an inexcused absence and there's still no consequence unless you rack up 3 of them in a year, at which point we would call the person and and talk about what we can do. I tried to be nice, so if it's like a scheduling problem or something we can resolve then we will do that. But it's not fair to the other employees to just let it go.

Right. I agree with all of that. All of my employees knew how to contact me and that if it was important it could be at any time. This whole thing only really started for me because of all the people saying 5 hours is enough. Those people gave never managed a store full of 21 year Olds who just need enough money to party.

Yes, I understand and if she's aware that happens every month, I at least, would have been willing to make arrangements. My only point was that 5 hours, without even direct contact will not be enough time to find a replacement, especially if she hasn't talked to the manager directly. I do agree that the manager not providing employees with direct contact means is a big part of the issue. I always made sure everyone had my number and I was like call anytime for any kind of an emergency.

This is the real issue. Most people here don't understand how hectic retail management is, but regardless every employee should know how to contact the manager at any time. That's absolutely a big failing.

As a former manager, I do have to say, this is every managers nightmare. With enough notice I can either find someone to cover, or maybe rework the schedule to at least cover some of the shift, but I do need you to make sure I know, and 5 hours is pushing it. Managers are often so busy that checking all the apps several times a day isn't realistic. On the other hand I always made myself available pretty much 24/7. Everyone had my number or knew where it was. I think there's fault on both sides here. And I'm not sure menstrual cramps would count as an excused absence unless you told me ahead of time that it was a recurring problem and you couldn't work that couple of days.