First I will say this, this may be an unfair, seemingly stuck up gripe, and if you think this is offending, then stop reading now. This is written after a very frustrating, mistake riddled morning that caused added stress to the daily routine.
Second, I am very appreciative of all the work my mai bahn does and all the stress she takes off. Mike and I went back and forth for MONTHS about if we'd hire someone to help around the house. The first thing people would say when they found out we were going to Laos was, "The help's cheap." G Thanks for that, but most Americans aren't used to having someone do their stuff for them and are uncomfortable with the thought of having someone in their house all day. It's our first post, so we're not used to it all. After seeing our house for the first time we agreed it would be best to have a helper, someone to clean and cook dinner (my least favorite time of the day as all the kids seem to be have a meltdown at that time) and be flexible enough with her hours to be able to watch the kids every so often.The whole idea was to have another right hand, what I couldn't be doing, she'd do. I still do most of the laundry and wash dishes after we use them (I hate when dishes sit in the sink.) The kids also still have their own chores.
PROS:
Someone else cleans your house, which I might add has 7 toilets. I hate cleaning toilets.
Someone else cooks dinner, during the most stressful time of the day.
Someone else is here from the hours of 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., so if you need to run an errand while kids are sleeping, someone is here.
Every couple of weeks we can have a date night.
Most of the time she has information on where to find things around the city.
She can almost help translate when workers come to the house or when at a market trying to find something specific.
When trying to learn the language it'd be helpful to practice with the mai bahn.
CONS:
Language barrier. No matter how much English she seems to know, even if she doesn't understand, she'll nod and go on with her business. Then I find cooking oil under the stove tops when making oatmeal with a pleasant fire to start my morning, the morning after I specifically ask that she clean the stove tops after cooking because the spilled cooking oil smokes...
Things get ruined, it's a fact. Like $200 pots that weren't even taken out of the box more than 4-months ago, now have burned cooking oil at the bottom, because no matter how often she's told about cleaning the outside of pots, she still doesn't do it and I get to spend a morning trying to scrape the oil off the bottom and showing her how to do it. It happens, and I understand that, but no matter how much I tell myself it happens, it's still frustrating when someone else ruins my things and not me.
I still have a hard time leaving Maggie with her she isn't sleeping or about to go to sleep. I often find that Maggie has gone into my room, even after telling both the mai bahn and Maggie, that she is NOT allowed past the office doors. I will come home to find Maggie covered in my deodorant and nail polish all over the carpet or worse, climbing the window grates while holding a steak knife and fork. Anytime I tell her to do something with Maggie, like put her on the toilet or in bed, she'll ask Maggie and when Maggie says, "no" she'll let it go; then Maggie pees on the floor. Finn and Tess seem to be just fine with her.
Mike warned me when I told him it no longer took half the day for her to tidy up the upstairs part of the house, she might get comfortable and start skipping some things...like cleaning the outside of the toilets that have a 2 1/2- year- old's food poisoning on the side, or not sweeping the floors before mopping, or leaving an entire bucket full of mop water in the cleaning closet where the 2 1/2 -year-old can and will find it then dump it all over the floor where a baby is laying.
No matter how often she's told the kids have chores, she will still try to clean up after them and then tell me Finn had a long day at school and shouldn't have to pick up his toys...why not he picks up his toys he plays with at school.
Sometimes I'll ask her to do something once, then I'll find her doing it all the time, ok. Other times I'll ask her to start doing something and she'll do it once.
Now with most of this being said, I understand that I'm the employer and I need to take a better approach to get my employee to do what it is I want. In this culture it's a bit hard, you don't want to loose face or cause someone else to loose face, so by telling her she's been doing things wrong or making mistakes, she can loose face. Now I have to find a way to politely show her the way I'd like things done, again.
