YOU HAVE COMPANY

If I don’t come on time, MY CHOICE
If I take too many offs, MY CHOICE
If I don’t sweep under the bed, MY CHOICE
If I use the same dirty water to mop all the rooms, MY CHOICE
If I threaten to leave my job, MY CHOICE
I can do all these because I know you have NO CHOICE.
                                                                                Anonymous
I saw on Instagram, a video posted by a lady, of her maid offering her variety of foods she had cooked in her absence. I could hear her voice in the background jokingly saying her maid wants to kill her with food, even when she knew she was trying to lose weight. And then, in her caption of the video, she jokingly put her up for “adoption” saying the lady needs a new home. I quickly went to the comments to have a good laugh. Trust me when I say I wasn’t disappointed. Every single person who commented wanted to have her. Someone even asked that she doesn’t mind just borrowing her for one day to cook all those meals. Another appreciated that the lady had a great relationship with her maid and hoped others would learn from her.
While I didn’t go back to read other comments, I wouldn’t be surprised if  someone had asked that she send her maid over for her to learn a thing or two from that lady’s maid.
Have you ever felt that you have always being dealt the wrong card every time you have hired a maid? You go visit a friend and you wonder how her maid is so composed, knows what to do, even does more than what she’s asked to sometimes. Maybe you’ve even sent your maid over to learn a thing or two and nothing seems to have changed. So you have settled. You have concluded that you can’t have a better maid. “The good ones are scarce, let’s manage the one we have.” You keep saying to yourself. Even though you are paying her a fortune already. Well, you’re right! Really good maids are scarce.
The first thing I would say to you is that you are not alone. That should encourage you. The number of women just “managing” is alarming. Do they have a choice?….errmm, maybe not. There’s work, kids, housekeeping that needs to be taken care of. Having someone to assist (or has a desire to assist.) has become a necessity. So you are in great company.
Another thing that might encourage you is that your friend who has a great maid may not be doing something extra special. She might just have been blessed with a good maid…that’s all. So you don’t have to carry that feeling of inadequacy every where you go. That feeling that tells you maybe if you buy your maid more clothes, or introduce her to your guests as your child, she might act better. These things are good in themselves but, a maid that doesn’t want to work or doesn’t know how to do a good job, just doesn’t know. Not even a gift of a car would change that. Sorry.
In my asking questions, I came to a conclusion that there are two kinds of maids. I would classify them into what I call

1. The NATURAL
2. The CIRCUMSTANTIAL

These classifications are purely mine, but i’m sure from the names you already have an idea of who they are. Now that you are a little bit encouraged, I’ll be shedding more light in my next post about these two types of maids. Who they are, how they work, their character, how they should be interacted with and so on.
These classifications will help you understand your maid. It should also help you know who to look out for when hiring or how to maximize your already hired maid.
See you in my next post.