Complaint Review: Fish Window Cleaning Tallahassee

I just came across this website while reminiscing our nightmare with FWC.  My husband and I were the original owners of the Tallahassee FWC.  My husband gave it his all for 3 years. He played by the rules, he did everything in his power to make a go of it, but after three years of continuously being in the red, we made the decision to give it up.  We did not try to sell the franchise because we felt that it would be morally wrong to sell someone something when we new they would fail, also.  We just took the loss. (huge loss that is).  Since he was then unemployed, he decided to start a business offering many services.  His background is in the nursery business, so his plans were to get into lawn care and landscaping once we could get enough money for the equipment.   He was doing mostly pressure washing, gutter cleaning and yes, some window cleaning. Noone from Fish was there to service his prior customers, so we felt that there would be no problem with the non-compete clause in the UFOC.  Corporate didn't take over the Tallahassee territory until after they filed their lawsuit against us.  And that's a loooong story for another day.  We did WIN the lawsuit, but we still came out on the bad side.  We only added tremendous attorney fees to our already unimaginable debts. We sent our financial statements in to the home office every month and they showed what bad shape we were in. We obviously didn't give up the franchise, so we could make all of the profit - there just wasn't enough profit there.  I am very disappointed in the Merricks and FWC. 

hey.. sorry about that.. I thought since the thread started about Tallahassee.. you were referring to the same location.

I AM really sorry for your experience. Whoever was running that franchise was NOT following the corporate guidelines for pay, etc.  FISH employees get paid every paycheck for mileage and would NEVER have jobs that were that far apart unless you were making some serious BANK to drive out and do them. (like $20-$30/hr).  The only time I had guys working on Sat./Sun. was if it was a residence and the cleaner wanted to do it then.  We always charged more too.

Again, even though I know longer work for FISH and never will again ( i am a professional musician)  you got exposed to someone that really did it the wrong way!

Peace.

First of all genius I never said I worked for the Tallahassee company.  I worked in South Florida at a company that I will not disclose.  The reason is I'm terrified of this company.  Lawyers etc.

So what is wrong with making $7.25 and hour training?  Absolutely nothing if you working for some place like say Walmart were you job is in the same place everyday.  I had jobs that were 2 counties over.  43 miles! then I would have to drive back to the shop at the end of the day.  Did you read there was no compensation for gas?  I was told to save my receipts and mail them to to government at the end of the year. 

So, let's do some math here.  7.25 and hour 40 hours comes to 290 a week.

85 miles average a day with a car that get 24 miles to a gallon.  Gas was $2.83.

But that was only 2 weeks.

Then you would get paid by how many windows you did.  If I was lucky I got paid maybe $7 for a window I did costing $25.  You can be fast as Superman but don't forget you still have to  drive to the next job with "your Vehicle" and "No compensation" for gas!  So how many jobs would you have to do to
break even?  10? 12?  Kind of hard to do when yo have to keep driving all over the place!

Here was the best part!  The ad online says "We do not work weekends because we believe in spending time with our families".  I worked every Saturday and occasionally Sundays too!

My point is, is that I spent more time traveling to a job and more money for gas than I was taking in.

It is strange that this report was submitted in December of 2009 when Fish Tallahassee closed their doors Sept. 29 2009.  I know because I was the GM there for the previous year.  I noticed that the person didn't mention whether or not they were an ex-employee.  Obviously when you work a performance based job, if you can't perform at a minimum standard, your pay will be sub par.  However, during the year I worked there I consistently had employees making $500+ per week part time!  I even had a girl at one point making good money.  None of the route work required driving 60+ miles and gas WAS reimbursed at .40 per mile (i think it was forty cents).  The only person I ever fired from the job refused to adhere to company policies regarding equipment, dress code, etc.  As a manager, I rarely cleaned so I was pretty slow but on the days I did clean I think my lowest pay was $9-$10 per hour.  Fish is one of the best companies I have ever worked for in terms of integrity.  I also noticed that the other "plaintiff" here never actually took the job and had a problem with PAID TRAINING at minimum wage.  What's wrong with that?  You obviously didn't take the job (or was it even offered to you?).  You might have made good money.  One day some of my cleaners were getting harassed by some local government workers until the cleaners told them their average hourly wage.....end of laughter by gov't employees. Finally, I CAN give you names of employees who were happy and had good paychecks.  As a matter of fact, one of them started his own business after Fish closed and is doing quite well.

I went down to work for this place and they told me that it would take a 2 weeks to train me.  I would have to work for $7.25 and hour and drive to each job site and there was no compensation for gas.  And we are talking driving perhaps 60 miles from the office every day.  That wasn't all.

Once I was trained in.  (still no compensation for gas) I would receive 30% of what I had done.  I would later find out that I would have to drive to each job and most jobs were like 20 dollars.  I would spend more in gas driving to these jobs and home each day than what I was taking in.

There add on line says 10 to 12 dollars and hour.  Yeah right!  Great job if your Superman and can fly to each job!