We have an interesting relationship because I have only see her a total of 3 times. She is only available to clean on a week day when I'm at work, so besides our initial meeting and a couple times she has still been finishing up when I get home, we communicate only through sparse notes and me leaving her pay on the table. I have her phone number but have never felt comfortable calling her. We also have a small language barrier, which always feels much more insurmountable over the phone than in person.
There are small things I don't like - she could perhaps be a little more aggressive with the grout lines, and I occasionally see spots she's missed, but really, it's much better than I have ever done. The most annoying thing is that despite our efforts to declutter the night and morning before she comes, she always finds things to "put away" and then we scramble to figure out where she put them. It's almost like a scavenger hunt, though, and my toddler actually finds it funny. (Oh, and also, we've blamed some things on her, like when the cleaning lady "apparently" dismantled the toddler's cluttered lego structure when it was really us. She makes a very useful scapegoat.)
Today though, I came home to discover that our silk table runner had gotten bleached:
So what to do? We certainly don't expect her to pay for it, especially since it's not about the money. Do we ignore it completely? Do we mention it in two weeks in a small note of "please be more careful next time"? Do we actually take the plunge and call her to mention it? We are leaning towards a note, but do a few lines on a post-it risk more confusion than a call or just ignoring that it happened?
First world problems, I know. But having never really hired regular help, I'm left completely clueless as to how this works.
2 comments:
When I lived in California I had a regularly cleaner, every week. Once she broke a porcelain antique rabbit, one of the few things I inherited from my grandmother. In front of me. But I did not say anything. It was heartbroken, it tore me up inside, but she was an overall good worker and I just did not want to make an issue of a trinket that had really only emotional value, especially as she had worked there for a long time. So I just sobbed for half an hour after she left and moved on. So I would probably let it go.
The times when I haven't completely failed at communicating about such things with roommates, the message I've tried to send was, accidents happen, but please let me know next time so I'm not surprised when I discover it on my own. What I don't say is that the biggest reason I want to hear it from them is that way I can remember that they're human and know that they're sorry whereas when I find it on my own it's easy for my mind to leap to Evil Person Who Doesn't Care About Anyone Except Herself (or whatever).
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