Domestic Help - From a Male Perspective

Now that the ladies have bounced this around albeit with certain males butting in where they were not invited, my thoughts on the situation. Since the conversations have been pretty much restricted to how to deal with a maid, I cannot personally believe all of the drama! I was raised in Asia where the norm was live in full time servants and depending on country, this involved butlers (or whatever local name they were given), sometimes an assistant butler, a cook, a laundry lady, a chauffeur, a gardener and in the case of India a part time bathroom cleaner from a caste that allowed him to clean toilets. Whether one has one, two or even five or six servants, you are basically a small business employer. Face facts, people who work by the hour be it NOB or SOB often tend to lack motivation and are simply putting in their time. In a former life, I had as many as 150 hourly or piece work employees working under me. My rules were: 1) don't ever let me catch you bragging or whining about what you were being paid to others, and 2) you will be paid commensurate with the effort put forth without without anything more than minimal guarantees. Money is a tremendous motivator if used properly!

Taking it to the discussion about maid service: 1) it makes little or no difference what anyone else is paying, 2) you are the employer and it is the value you place on having this luxury, 3) a relationship with a maid or for that matter, a gardener, isn't an emotional attachment, 4) structured the correct way, you can motivate either employee to do the very best job they are capable of. What is wrong with paying an acceptable wage and then dangling the "carrot" for a job well done? For those that show initiative and a willingness to attempt to do a better job - how about a monthly or quarterly bonus in cash and under the table? Once they get used to that extra cash, it can become the norm but they know that a bit of extra effort produces a result.

If such behavior on your part, mucks up the marketplace for others, so be it! You are getting what you want and that is the object of the lesson!

before i even finish reading this, Neil, had to say, you're a hoot!

I live my life to be a HOOT!

I started this gal out low end. She told my friend that pay didn't matter, she needs work. I will pay her bus fare and made it clear to give me her best and after her probation period would not be opposed to giving her a raise.

I grew up around my parents' employees. We didn't have servants, we did have a housekeeper & yard boy etc. If you grew up with that many people in the house, it would certainly seem normal to you. For the rest of us, I wouldn't care for that many eyes or ears lurking around. Do you know how hard it is to go skinny dipping with employees hanging around all of the time? No privacy whatsoever! Even for a 9 year old!

Naturally, each country had a differing idea as to how to segregate the domestic help but in almost every case, the servant's quarters were off the kitchen and once they retired to there, there was no interaction unless we rang the "bell". However, in Japan the "soaking tub" was off the servants quarters:
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Then again, the Japanese had no problem with nudity!

neil, many people on this site will not get what you are saying. this kind of service & relationship is usually expected by the upper class mexicans, or a small % of americans. very few americans could ever relate. ajijic is not a high service place, & in general dosnot attract retirees who even understand class differences. i lived a few years in beverly hills when i was college age & after. my relatives had a full time maid cook & butler/driver. then they had a full time maid who cooked, then became a personal assistant. 2 other maids worked under her. when growing up east coast (even w/a lower middle & middle class family) we occasionally had a maid for the day (day worker). she wore a white uniform & a hair net, called my mother mrs. when i was first married, i had a maid once a week. she had worked for my husbands family since he was a child. she wore white as well. (i have had personal conversations w/my relatives mexican housekeeper via phone as its been 40 yrs). i did my own cleaning for a good part of my life, & only had someone come in every 2-3 months for a big job. some people on this forum understand what we are saying. seem to agree w/me. in general most people who move to ajijic are peasants themselves. OR into a weird liberal guilt mode, which is worse! this is really twisted as you can see. liberalism is a mental disorder, these people get all bent out of shape if they see someone a bit darker than them. flustered & uneasy, &like to be punished. they cannot change, this is the way most contemporary americans are. the local help know this &everyones happy! someone like me is told to "dig a grave". anyway im sure ill be kicked off the forum for saying these things, but it is what it is. (no offense intended to anyone). donot waste your time neil. your comments are not from a "mans" perspective, they are also my perspective as well.

what the hell do you want a maid for... why did you get married?

Grew up with a weekly maid, continued trend living on my own and even had a limo and driver which was super fun.

Here labor is so cheap many have hired help, not just the rich, in other latin american countries many have a "muchacha" who prepares meals, cleans the house and washed the clothes.

My perspective is that the locals in Ajijic think they are worth the most. Most demand 40 to 50 pesos an hour and bus fare, from their 3 or 4 clients daily. Others from the outlying areas are happy with 25 to 30 pesos an hour.

Married? I didn't marry a maid but also don't want a pig for a wife. Wifie gotta have smoother hands than me, not an easy chore.

I love it. Susan, the punctuation-challenged, is calling others peasants.

How's that lawsuit going, by the way?

Here is susan giving instructions to her gardener.

Okay Neil, you just got to keep it going, unbelievable that one could get 7 pages of posts on such a topic. LOL

Neil, I agree with you. It's a very personal issue, how one treats people, what expectations people have of their workers/employees. The differences between how people treat their employees varies as much as the bosses you get throughout your working career. Some are great and others are assholes. You just deal with them differently.

As someone said, if you want perfection you better do it yourself.

Some housekeepers are good, and others can be lazy. Got a lazy one, get rid of her and find a new one. Got a good one, treat her with respect and pay what you feel is reasonable. Forget about what others pay, pay what you think is reasonable. If the person wants more and you don't think she's worth it, then you get another.

Probably the best advice written was don't get emotionally involved in their lives. It's a work thing, keep it that way.

especially agree with your last comment... over the years, I found if you let relationships get to personal at the workplace it can cause unreasonable and unecessary expectations... best to keep it friendly ( competitive ) and about the job...

I still sponsor the bowling & the ball teams :)

If you hire someone to work for you and you treat them other than as an employee...
They will, in their minds, cease to be... an employee.

In my opinion you are doing both yourself and your "employee" a disservice.

You are cheating yourself of the money you pay out... and you are cheating them out of learning to be a good and valuable employee.
In effect you are teaching this person that you do not know what you want and you don't care if they do a half-assed job.

You are also inflicting another work-ethically challenged job-seeker on the community.
People will always push the envelope, sooner or later. It is hard-wired into our brains.
Save yourself a lot of grief and teach the maid exactly what you want and insist that she do it.
Treat her as a valued employee... when she becomes one.

Do not treat her like your friend... you are really NOT doing her any favors that way. Lizzy

bobnliz wrote:If you hire someone to work for you and you treat them other than as an employee...
They will, in their minds, cease to be... an employee.

In my opinion you are doing both yourself and your "employee" a disservice.

You are cheating yourself of the money you pay the her... and you are cheating them out of learning to be a good and valuable employee.
In effect you are teaching them that you do not know what you want and you don't care if they do a half-assed job.

You are also inflicting another work-ethically challenged job-seeker on the community.
People will always push the envelope... sooner or later, and as far as they can.
Save yourself a lot of grief and teach the maid exactly what you want and insist that she do it.
Treat her as a valued employee... when she becomes one.

Do not treat her like your friend... you are really NOT doing her any favors that way. Lizzy

That had better be Bob... this is the guy's side ya know!

in general most people who move to ajijic are peasants themselves.

Chapalagringa will proudly represent the peasant population! Calloused fingers, broken back and all!

When I first spotted the topic titled: "For the ladies................., I took it to mean exactly that For The Ladies! With a few glaring exceptions, most of the male forum members respected the stated qualifier. When it became apparent, that the concentric circles were reducing the size of the participation, I thought it would be an interesting study to hear thoughts from a Male Perspective and I included categories other than maids for discussion.

Interesting that a number of the females from the original topic that dominated the original "For Ladies"topic are now trying to interject into the male perspective.

I would be willing to speculate that verbal interactions within their homes are much the same! Keep talking until one gets the last word in on anything and everything. And they say men are from Mars and Women from Venus!

Here's my take........I never had a maid growing up, don't have a maid now and quite frankly don't want one in Mexico. I actually like cleaning up after myself. Maybe CG could forget the gym and just do some housework as exercise??????LOL What the heck do you people do all day????

I actually tried to cut out the maid on my upcoming rental house however since it is for only 6 months (then we have to find a long term rental) the owner insisted I keep her employed. My sweetie seems happy enough to be getting one however............

I didn't think cleaning would have such a male audience or participation. I sit corrected and appologize for excluding you CG. Nor did i mind the male comments nor all the bickering in between.

Thrilled your family has the means and i hope you've had a great adventurous life so far :) Enjoy reading or hearing about people's lives and background. This has been refreshing actually.

Believe me, DH has the last word. He's choleric!

I'm going to try it CB, did it for 22 years, only had a year off. Joined the gym last week. Has the back deal i need plus swimming now. Maybe that's why i was able to clean today. So far so good but maybe you men could recommend a good hand softening regimine or quick repair???

Best thing for a bad back is to never lift anything too heavy, use proper bending/lifting techniques and above all keep moving. Believe me as I also have a very bad back. I actually had a S1 discectomy due to a herniated disc about 15 years ago and am subject to upper back spasms whenever I over do it.........

For hand softening use Palmolive.........????

Nooo palmolive...way beyond soap! LoL

Don't. Forget we don't buy processed food. Homemade everything in our house. Haven't cooked yet today..busy now goofing off or multi tasking. Maybe making pizza or finding tacos para llevar despues. Depending how long i'm here. What do we do??? Good grief!! Busy all the time!

Just to set the record straight: the fact that we had servants had nothing to do with wealth or means! The expenses related to servants were covered by my parent's employer as a perk related to the job along with our living quarters. The same was also true for private boarding schools for us kids and college expenses.

Given that history, I would tend to agree with CanuckBob with one caveat: services that might be performed by domestic help should be equally shared within a household and I would include food/meal preparation.

We have had maids at our previous short term rentals and believe it or not, I am one of those idiots that actually cleans the house before the maid gets there and has to help her once she arrives if I am there. I can not sit there and watch someone else work without feeling terribly guilty........

So CanuckBob, what is your modus operandi when you stay at a hotel or motel? Or is it just too easy to disassociate because they are not in your direct employ?

I am never in the room when they clean it and yes I do tidy up before I leave the room...........I know I am a freak.