Every Working Woman
13 Apr 2008 | Filed Under: Domesticities
Despite the fact that I am the antithesis of a brazen careerist - I don’t do corporate hierarchy, and I am goal, not money, motivated - I am a long time reader of Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist. There’s something refreshing about reading someone who is even bitchier and more acerbic than I am, and while I don’t always agree with her, I appreciate her willingness to continually put well-supported but unpopular views out there. Unpalatable doesn’t always mean wrong.
Often, she writes about women and work, a topic near and dear to my heart. Today she’s revealed that in the aftermath of her divorce, she’s hired a household manager to the tune of $50,000 a year. And before you start laughing, let me tell you: if I had it, I’d do it. And I don’t even have kids.
Of all of the sage advice my mother has ever given me, some of the smartest is “Every working woman needs a wife.” I hired a housekeeper about 10 years ago when I lived in a flat that was, quite literally, a shoebox. The loo was smaller than an airplane bathroom and the shower was in the kitchen. And despite the fact that I married a kick ass guy who does both all the grocery shopping and all the ironing, we still have a housekeeper.
There is a reason these wonderful women are referred to as “household help.” They help keep the household up and running, and more importantly (for me at least) they provide the reassurance of there being a human being out there who’s actual job it is to help you.
That’s worth a tremendous amount to me. When we have eaten out of the freezer because we’ve been utterly broke, we have paid the housekeeper. When we have not bought each other holiday gifts, we have paid the housekeeper. When we have not been able to pay the light bill, we have paid the housekeeper.
There’s a lot of talk about outsourcing these days, and a lot of people who do what I do who outsource pieces of work to other people and even other countries. I’m fine with that in theory, but I’m way too attached to what I produce to do that. So while I can’t outsource graphic design or HTML, I can outsource fridge cleaning and carpet hoovering.
To be honest, I’m jealous as hell of Penelope Trunk. Because I’ve got a housekeeper, but I really need a wife.
Katherine says:
Who are you telling, I’d give my right arm for a housekeeper. There’s not even that much keeping involved really.
Monday, 14 April, 2008, 10:15 amSabrina Dent says:
I made a choice a long time ago about what “afford” means in this context. A housekeeper is cheaper than therapy, and cheaper than divorce. I can earn more money than I pay her in the hours she works, too, which is an important part of the equation for me. There are a lot of things we *don’t* do that are part of other people’s normal budgets, like run a car or eat out, so I realise we have more room for this than people who are more stretched with outgoings.
We are both far from our small families, too, and I just think having some backup makes a big difference to me and my ability to cope day to day.
Monday, 14 April, 2008, 11:10 amJo Murphy says:
Yes! Yes, Sabrina!
Just the other day I started thinking, ok, so I know I can’t afford it, but maybe it’s time that I just have to do it anyway.
How do you go about hiring someone? And how clean does your house have to be before you can get someone in? My place is a super mess heap. I think I’d have to organise for a year before a cleaner could come in and clean.
And what’s the going hourly rate?
Monday, 14 April, 2008, 8:31 pmSabrina Dent says:
Yay Jo!
I put a flyer with tear off numbers at my local grocery stores. I had no idea how much to pay her; she asked for €10 an hour and I needed her for two hours, so we pay her €25.
She is Polish and she had almost no English a year ago but I gave her a list in English of the stuff I needed, in order of priority in case she ran out of time (I hate dishes, I love cleaning toilets, go figure) and she took it away with her dictionary and made sense of it. She’s taken lessons and stuff and had some jobs and her language is really great now.
And yeah, we had to really muck the place out - it was way more *picking up* than cleaning, obviously, but she needed to be able to get to the floor to hoover it… Now I round up the dishes and my husband picks up the clothes before she comes and we’re good.
In my old place, I had to split it - I picked up the living room and kitchen before she came so she could clean them, and worked on the other bits while she was there and we worked that way for a couple of weeks. Its never been as bad as that since.
For some reason, if I’m going to be handing out house cleaner advice, I feel the need to say that my standards are not high. I want someone who will do a better job than I am not doing, which basically means doing it at all. For whatever reason, she has never cleaned the shower and I have no idea why, but I also don’t care. I clean it myself because let me tell you how **totally easy** and un-stressful that is to do when hey, it’s the ONLY thing to do.
Seriously, do it. For 24 hours, it will be Nirvana.
Monday, 14 April, 2008, 9:09 pmJo Murphy says:
Mmmmm tempting. I might take your post as a sign.
Tuesday, 15 April, 2008, 8:57 pm