The age old saga of domestic help

Who do you think the working wives wait desperately for everyday? Its none other than our maid. The simple thought of a maid not coming on her regular time can give a mini heart attack to wives like me. And the moment I see her I feel so relaxed yes today my domestic chores will be taken care of. But is it a cake-walk? No, it is hell lot of task to hire her, retain her and make her do her work. I had so many experiences about maid, some good many bad but still I don't change her and my eyes keep looking for her daily.

Why is it so difficult to work without a maid? We have so much of dependency on maids that we simply don't device other methods to take care of our domestic tasks. And most of this domestic workers work because of their own financial problems, they don't work because they are passionate about house hold work. Same is with baby sitters, these women have the worst kind of backgrounds, husband not earning, husband is drunkard and they have so may kids to support, hence they work.

I have had a babysitter who after interviewing so many times we found that she was least interested in looking after my child. She had some affairs and the dreadful part was she used to take my son with her in her working hours while doing all these things. I had a cook who didn't know how to put tadka for daal/sabji. What am I suppose to do while hiring her ask her to cook one meal and then tell her if she is selected? And washing clothes/utensils/floor these maids do all these task in a blink of an eye. In spite of all this I always hire a maid, because it is just not possible for me to do all the chores daily.

I once had a maid who always asked for salary advance. She will start with her financial problems and slowly reach her point. I would feel bad for her and give her as much money I can afford to give. The moment I gave her advance money, she will go on a week vacation. In this way, she already had taken about 6 months advance and even after giving advance money half of the month, we had to do domestic chores ourselves.

These days there is so much demand and so less supply that every one keeps trying to woo this maids and goes to any extent to retain them. My current maid is no better. Once I politely told her to come on time, clean properly etc. There was no change so the next day I repeated the same with some anger, the third day she came to me and said please find another one, I can't work with you. So those who say that we don't treat our maids better that's not the case. Since our lives are run by these women, we have to give up sometimes and let them win. Because we need them more than they need us.

Tips while hiring a maid:

1) Do a complete background check before hiring a maid

2) Not all maids are perfect, so don't keep changing maids frequently

3) Do not keep any valuables/money in home, and if you do have to keep in home keep in safe lock

4) These days maids are not used to hear constant nagging, so even if she commits any mistake try to      talk politely

5) Once you tell her all tasks, let her do by herself, don't keep micro monitoring her work

6) Ask her to plan leave in advance, and occasionally let her take a day off (she needs a break too)

All I wish is that may you get a honest, truthful and hardworking maid.