Maid #6
BySome of you have been complaining that I’m not sharing Maid stories any more, and the truth is I don’t have many to share. We figured things out with Maids #1-5 and so now we have a fabulous young woman and we just don’t have those kinds of stories to share.
Well, until a few weeks ago. Maid #6 has been on time every day and hadn’t missed a day of work. In the middle of the day she took a phone call and got very animated on the phone. Apparently one of her two children had been taken to the hospital earlier in the day and the medicine the Doctor prescribed was going to be 300Q.
Our Maid is one of the better paid maids in town, but even at 1600Q a month they obviously don’t have any emergency savings. She asked to borrow the 300Q and said we could take it out of her paycheck. She also asked to leave right away. The Wife gave her the 300Q and told her to go to see her baby.
The next day she arrived on time and asked if she would be able to make up her hours at some point. We said no problem, and took the 300Q out of her next paycheck.
About two weeks later, she came to me with a long story involving lots of ‘fijese’ and obviously wanted some money. I told her to go talk to The Wife for two reasons; first, I want the Maid to understand she works for The Wife, even if she knows I am giving The Wife the money. (Don’t you FemiNazis think I control all the money; The Wife and I own everything jointly, it’s just that the job of hitting the ATM every other day falls to me). The second reason is that I couldn’t quite figure out what she was asking the money for and don’t really need any more drama in my life.
It turns out the Maid got a new floor for her house and needed 600Q to pay for it. I didn’t get all of the details from The Wife, but apparently the Maid’s husband’s friend had installed it for them and done the job cheaply as a favor but they really needed to get him some money. Now, perhaps this floor was an emergency of some sort and we didn’t get the details, but I was a little reluctant to loan the money when it was a household improvement and not a life or death hospital situation.
However, The Wife really likes the Maid and pointed out that the 600Q was less than two weeks pay and that she had effectively already earned half that and so she gave her the money. I really have no complaints about Maid #6, except I’m worried that the lending could become a habit; let’s face it, when you make 1800Q a month you’re always going to need money, and when you know that your Patron gives you money whenever you ask for it, it’s a temptation.
Last week Maid #6 got a phone call from her mother saying that one of her children had been taken to the hospital. She didn’t share many details but asked to leave and ran out of the house in a hurry. I suspect she would have asked for money but hasn’t paid off the 600Q for the new floor.
The next morning she didn’t show up for work, instead, her older sister showed up about 8:30am and offered to work that day in her sister’s place. On the one hand I was irritated Maid #6 didn’t bother to spend the 1Q to call me (or even try GuateCalling), but instead sent her sister to the house, with the explanation that she was at the hospital with her baby. On the other hand I was impressed as could be that she sent the sister and the sister actually showed up.
Of course, I want her to take care of her baby. I know how often my schedule is disrupted by unpredictable children, and Maid #6 has so far made up any hours and repaid any money she’s borrowed. However, after six months I’m starting to get the feeling that we’re slowly, gradually, slipping. Santiago tells me you simply can’t give an inch or you’re going to be dealing with new requests and changing rules all the time, and that the Maid wouldn’t treat a Chapin Patron this way.
What do you veterans think?
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14 Comments
February 1st, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Well, I had a maid who was pregnant and said she had to go to the doctor every 2 or 3 days. After 2 "appointments" I fired her.
How come her sister or mother couldn´t take care of the sick child? I´d be wary of the whole situation.
February 1st, 2010 at 10:44 pm
If you make it very clear that you NEVER lend any money but maybe you just pay her each day what she has earned these borrow problems may end.
February 2nd, 2010 at 12:56 am
As I have said for over a year, don't hire any females. Men can clean as well as any woman, can cook as well, can do heavier work, and I have never heard of a man taking even one minute off for a sick child. A man will do just as well helping to rear your children as any woman with only 10% of the problems ( men don't use telenovelas as a life model ). To help you wrap your mind around this idea, just think about hospital orderlies and janitors. Few people take this advice, but it is working extremely well for us.
Next, let everyone know that you neither borrow or lend anything. This applies to not only your hired help, but your neighbors and friends as well. This is difficult to do the first few times you must tell someone no, but after a while people quit asking ( they know you are serious ) and you avoid so many problems and ruined friendships. This applies not only to money, but tools as well.
February 2nd, 2010 at 1:30 am
"Next, let everyone know that you neither borrow or lend anything."
Glad I don't live next to you, pal.
February 2nd, 2010 at 1:59 am
That makes two of us.
February 2nd, 2010 at 5:11 am
HI, I read your story and I am happy you guys show compassion towards her but, you got to be firm, Fair is fair. Tell her this is a job and you cant abuse the priveleges you get. You might tell her you will make an emergency fund for her and discount as much as you think reasonable to put into "the fund" from her pay and just dig into that when need be.
February 3rd, 2010 at 12:20 am
NO WOMEN, NO PROBLEMS, Period!
February 3rd, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Never, ever lend help money. You are teaching them that you are an easy Mark (sorry for the pun). Announce it when you hire them….ignore ANY and ALL requests for money. Almost always the first request will seem hardhearted to refuse (baby needs milk; mother fell down the stairs). Once it starts, it never ends. No advances, period. After all, how did they handle "emergencies" before they met you? And how are maids 1-5 handling their emergencies now? Somehow…… We never have employees ask us for advances for any reason. We announced when we hired them no advances for any reason and the ones who have been here longest explain to the newer ones, we aren't kidding.
Ben Franklin said it best , "neither a borrower nor a lender be…." Doubly true in Guatemala and double that with one's help.
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Hmm…my husband works at a bike shop here in the U.S. He likes expensive bikes. He will sometimes buy an expensive bike and have the payments for the bike taken out of his paycheck. So, I'm kind of sympathetic to the idea of borrowing from one's boss.
If this happened to me: First, I would find out what is wrong with your maid's child or children. Your wife should try and do this, overcoming the language barrier as best as she can. It's important for her to do this in a mom-to-mom way, both out of her genuine concern for the well-being of your maid's children, and to find out what is wrong because it may be something that requires more doctor's visits in the future. And if it requires more doctor's visits in the future, this will give her an opportunity to ask that they be scheduled in advance.
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:24 pm
continued from above….
Second, if I were suspicious, I would bring some food over to her house on a Sunday and check things out. I mean, if this were someone in my town I would bring some food over to friend's house because she can't deal with cooking and taking care of her sick kid. I don't think that this is a "custom" in Guatemala but I do know that food is always appreciated wherever you go. And it's not like your maid will start to demand food from you on the weekends if you do this once.
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:25 pm
continued, again (you have a short comment limit!):
Third, I would express my concern that this is becoming a habit. Go ahead, frame it in terms of cultural differences. Here's how I would say it. "Estoy preocupada por usted y por su familia, y quiero que esten bien. Ademas, estoy muy contenta con el trabajo que usted hace para mi familia y quiero que se quede con nosotros. Pero no estoy acostumbrada a pagar el sueldo antes de la fecha correcta. En mi pais no es comun pedir el sueldo antes de la fecha. Le pido que tratara de ahorrar un poco de hoy en adelante para tener algo para las emergencias, porque ya no le voy a prestar dinero."
I'm pretty sure that if Maid #6 is a reasonable person, she will look to other people for loans in the future.
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Also, just a point: If this had happened in the states the maid would most likely have a credit card that she could use to buy the medicines or take an advance on the floor. Credit cards are very few and far between in guate so people depend on others to cover their emergency payments. You are not the only one who is super dependent on others! It is a tangled web of interdependency.
February 4th, 2010 at 6:47 am
Sonia, you sound like a kind person, the type the world needs. More power to you. It's just not done, what you recommend. The wall between employer and employee must be preserved. Juntos pero no revueltos. Mark is kind too (despite his far-right carapace) and he needs to find the uneasy balance between being an understanding boss and and a sucker. He needs to think of quetzales in terms of rice, beans and tortillas and not dollars.
February 5th, 2010 at 4:23 am
El gordo, I think that one can be a benevolent dictator without trying to be “friends” with ones employees.
Somehow Mark and his wife have to figure out what their maid's situation is, but they can’t use gossip like most Guatemalans can. My in-laws in Guatemala are have a "señora" who comes to do childcare in the afternoons. They are nice to her, but my sister-in-law still hides away the cash and the valuables so the señora is not “tempted”. Also, they know what is going on in the señora’s personal life, even without asking her. It's simply a fact of life that everyone knows each other in the Antigua area: they go to the same church, or have common acquaintances, or were in catechism class together when they were young. So, my in-laws can better assess whether the señora is to be believed when she asks for money in an emergency.
Also, I think that Mark mostly sees his "foreign-ness" as a liability in Guate. He needs to understand that being a foreigner is an asset. It gives him some freedom to do things differently. He still needs to be hyper-aware of how his actions are interpreted by Guatemalans though. Oh, and Guatemalans are super-sensitive. <Sigh.> It’s a fine line.