Looking for a New Cleaning Lady
In this here article, some dude named Bentzion Elisha from Crown Heights tells us his very sad and woeful tale of how the Evil Spanish-Speaking Cleaning Lady robbed his family of their precious jewelry. Their items were returned to them, but it was still quite traumatic for the poor dears.
After the heart-wrenching story, Bentzion asks his readers ( Read more... )
Otherwise you'd treat this issue as any hired worker - painter, contractor, babysitter, someone that mows the lawn or cleans the snow, etc.. How is cleaning lady different? If you want to clean yourself - fine, but everyone has a right to choose how to spend their money and time, don't they? You can paint your room yourself or hire someone, you can cook dinner or go out and be served by a waiter, food that someone cooked for you, you can do your nails yourself or go to a salon. You can also wash floors yourself or hire someone. Cleaning ladies are not slaves - they get payed for their job. It is their choice to do this job and I'm sure they would rather have people interested in hiring them than not.
Btw, I work in the office and there's a cleaning person here too, just like in every other office who comes and takes out garbage and cleans every office and the hallway. That's his job, and he's hired by my company. Do you also believe this is a problem and people should clean their own office buildings after work, and profession of janitor should be abolished altogether?
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Hey, if you read my blog, you know that I am usually polite to my readers, even if I disagree. But this? This? Are you on crack? Have you met any little children who tell you they want to be a cleaning lady when they grow up?
It is as much of a choice to be a cleaning lady as it is to be a drug runner. No one does it because it their career counselor recommended it.
I don't look down on cleaning ladies. I feel bad for them. The people I look down on are the ones who have no physical ailments and have a few kids and cannot manage to keep their own crap clean so they have to pay someone to do it. It is extremely elitist to imagine that someone other person should be cleaning the mess you made. My mother taught me that I'm no better than anyone else and that if I make the mess, I clean it up.
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When I came to America I used to take any job and I remember going and washing dishes for some people and usually they also asked me to wash their cabinets for them, etc... I was thrilled to do it. It wasn't my dream job or something I was going to do for the rest of my life but at that time I needed to make a little bit of money quickly and this gave me an opportunity to do it.
You didn't answer my question about entire 'janitor' profession, do you believe it shouldn't exist at all?
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Janitors- I guess we have to have janitors b/c there are common spaces that people share and will not clean by themselves.
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But that is interesting that you met someone who wanted to be a cleaning lady when she was little. Did she end up doing that?
Professional organizers are like interior design people, almost architects & artists.
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But there is a noble goal- long term same as a nurse or many other professions. To help someone else. Be is because they can't/won't do it themselves. For me to lose the work I get during the month leading up to pessach would mean serious financial difficulties for other months. My income around pessach makes up for other months where it is very slow (like sefira, the 3 weeks, etc where business is dead). One hour in the studio buys me 4 from my cleaning help.
The only reason organizers are on a higher level in your mind is because you put them there. For me, having someone at this time of year 1) releaves my stress leels considerably 2) allows me to build an income that help support my family at other times of year and 3) allows me to go in to yom tov somewhat more relaxed and not hating the chag like I used to before I was privileged enough to afford help.
Incidentally, I also hire someone right before my mom comes to visit, before and after a move, and occasionally if I feel like it. At those times, the ability to pay someone to 1) do things I hate (relining cupboards) 2) have trouble doing (windows- I can never get the darn things back in!) 3) find I do not do to my mother's rather exacting standards (grout). I include these times in my budget, am willing to give up other luxuries to pay for them, and have someone I trust. So what is the harm.
I agree with you that seeing it is a *right* is a problem. I am not entitled to have someone's help- I choose to make it an option available to me.
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Is this my sister? LOL, that would be too funny.
I feel bad for people who have gross jobs, yes. But I feel way worse for people who have an attitude of how can they possibly clean their floors themselves and what are they going to do if the cleaning lady doesn't come today.
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If someone can afford a cleaning lady and someone else advertises her services as a cleaning lady, what is the problem exactly? Even if the person can clean herself but chooses to use her time differently.
For many people it is an issue of opportunity cost. For example, a person may choose to buy a cake from the bakery rather than baking it herself since she earns $150 per hour and the bakery cake that would take them an hour to make only costs $20. Similarly, the person can pay a cleaning lady $15 per hour to clean her house since that is a lot less expensive for her than cleaning the house herself.
Also, I would assume that most people who work as cleaning ladies would rather do so than be unemployed, which is precisely what would happen if people stopped hiring cleaning ladies.
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