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Friday, October 19, 2007

Am I being judged?

I recruited a new cook-cum-babysitter on Oct 1. She lasted less than a week, and though I thought my world was falling apart, I survived the next 10 days, till I found another.
Now, my worry is -- Am I being judged?
Madam No 2, stomps into my house, starts clearing out and cleaning up my kitchen cupboards, gets all the dry goods into boxes, throws out expired foodstuff, folds every last piece of clothing in the laundry bag, arranges my daughter's cupboard...
I can live with all this (though I wonder what's the big deal about 4 week old laundry not finding its way from basket to cupboard, and so what if I have empty bottles and dry goods in the original packaging, and does it really matter if my daughter's home use, underwear and party wear are all together?)...
Though I can tolerate her attempts to organise my home, I refuse to be judged for coming home and charging right to bed for a nap, and then potter around doing nothing for an hour, after which I force myself to the gym...
When she comes back to work next week, I am not going to make excuses for taking a nap ("I wake up at 5.30 am I am tired"), not clearing up stuff ("I have a bad back"), and for leaving my child behind with her to go the gym ("the doctor insists")...
I will not make any of the above stated and the dozen other easily mouthed excuses.
What if I had been super organised, very energised, and totally not lazy? Whose loss would it have been? Hers of course!
So she can go about cleaning, and organising and papering my shelves, but I am not going to let her get to me.
PS: I have had a cleaner -- B -- for 6 years, who does a great enough job without making me feel small. He even leaves visible dust spots and uncleared garbage to make me feel better about myself. So what is her problem, huh?

1 comment:

Teesu (very very Indian, very very good) said...

I say you are hiring her and it's your home and so do what you want; think about yourself, not the hired help and THEIR opinions...I mean sure, I also feel these thoughts flitting in and out but ...I suppose we should not let anything bother us as long as we know we are 'Ok'. AHEM!;)