I'm a Wuss, and I'm Getting Taken Advantage Of.

[Lissa]

@gabriela

Lissa, could you enlist your grandmother to help in the confrontation?

Promise her iced tea and Krispy Kremes, or whatever it takes, but have her sitting there with you when the cleaning lady comes over.

Have your grandma open the confrontation, and then you move in shaky-kneed with a couple off the real list of problems that are going to end in you and the cleaning lady parting ways if they aren’t addressed. It’s a kindness to her to know.

Or let Grandma handle it all while you sit there nodding yes…

Dude, that would be* mean.* (Good idea, though!)

My grandma is the sweetest, most gentle person I have ever met, but she can *evicerate *you without ever needing to raise her lady-like voice. I’ve never seen her need to resort to rudeness-- she gets her point across, and no one ever dares argue with the gently smiling lady.

When I was a kid, she was a master of cruelty: she would look at me sadly, shake her head and say, “I’m so dissapointed in your behavior.” It had the power to reduce me to a sobbing mess. I would have rather she had beaten me, and she knew it, too! Crafty old bat.

[lisacurl]

Shoot, Lissa… ask gran for lessons!

[js_africanus]

@DooWahDiddy

Actually, I think letting your husband handle this is a bad idea. I see this as a pretty good opportunity to build some assertiveness and perhaps some self-confidence, while dealing with a subject that isn’t life-or-death important.

In that case Lissa should ask her husband to handle it while she participates as an observer. Managing people is a skill that must be at least somewhat learnable, so watching how he handles and learning from it would probably be better, since she’s learning the material before taking the test, so to speak.

@Lissa

And I have a lot of guilt over that last sentence [about the housekeeper’s perception of her own performance].

I think you should think twice before having too much guilt about that. Maybe when she first started she thought she was doing more than a “passable” job, but it’s still possible that she’s just not doing a great job and she knows it. She’s not taking advantage of you in any real cynical sense, but rather in that she may think that what she’s doing is adequate for your needs or desires. That may give another opportunity to learn from the managerial hubby.

[ShibbOleth]

@Uncommon Sense

If you don’t count travel time, gas and supplies. Plus the nominal coverage of insurances, - health, auto and liability. She might be eeking out 30 g’s per year.

Most independents don’t splurge on all of that kind of stuff. And they often work with the homeowners supplies. Plus they often don’t pay taxes and some will also claim unemployment.

Make sure you check your homeowner’s policy to see if she is covered if she’s injured while working there if she hasn’t shown you proof of insurance. Some homeowner’s policies explicity deny coverage to domestic workers. There are a lot of repetitive stress disorders in the cleaning business.

BTW, if she’s working for you once a week or every two weeks it’s possible that you’re required to file a 1099-MISC to the Federal Government, which is their way of making sure that contractors pay their taxes. (Note I am not a tax preparer/accountant, just read to many IRS sites for fun)

[Lissa]

@ShibbOleth

BTW, if she’s working for you once a week or every two weeks it’s possible that you’re required to file a 1099-MISC to the Federal Government, which is their way of making sure that contractors pay their taxes. (Note I am not a tax preparer/accountant, just read to many IRS sites for fun)

We looked into it at tax time, and her wages fell under the guidline or somesuch. (I’d have to ask Hubby, because I don’t remember. Tax law makes my eyes glaze over.)