Our happy family with a reliable caretaker was struck with a catastrophe recently. After being around for close to seven years our caretaker, Raju, moved on. We are happy for him and I am assuming that we are being of some help to him as he works towards building his future. Post Raju, we are struggling to get someone as good as him. Well this post is not about Raju, I am sure Keebo will write about him in his diary !
The profile of a servant in India has changed a lot and in Bangalore the servants now have online profiles, they have their work experience listed and they do have recommendations/testimonials from their previous masters, etc etc. I am not against this, it is actually a great thing but it does come as a surprise to me. The transition from Ramu Kaka days to independent contractors seems to have happened in a jiffy or maybe I missed the transition period !
With change being the only constant in this world, we also started scouting for profiles online. I registered with some of the startups who help with maid services (earlier they were called Agencies but with Mr. Modi’s yet another initiative “Startup India Standup India”, everyone calls themselves Startup). Anyways, we realized there is a waiting list for Maids as well. The waiting period is high as 6 months and in some cases the request was not even registered.. saying – “we have enough backlog to support new requests !!”.. Looks like this particular service sector has no recession !
In the last few months, we managed to get few profiles through friends/relatives. Not a big surprise but the fact is apart from their salary these folks come up with their own job description, leave policy, work timings, and also decide their bonus numbers. Some of the interviews were interesting, posting one of them below
Wife: have you taken care of kids before ?
Maid: What does your husband do ?
Wife: Well.. that is unrelated. You tell me .. if have you taken care of kids before ?
Maid : I don’t work at places with Home maker husbands. It is not safe !
Wife: Ok no worries. My husband works, he is not a home maker
Maid : Does he have work from home option ?
Wife (in her mind) - Damn ! i am already doubting my spouse ….
Maid Rejected
After enough search we got a caretaker whose previous job was to take care of a dog while the dog’s master was away. This person was selected based on some strong referral but she quit, maybe we barked more than the pet dog ;-). Now, we have a caretaker who has kept us on probation for 2 weeks (note - we are on probation not the caretaker) and he has agreed to join if he likes the job and us…..it can't get better than this :-).
Well I am hoping our caretaker or maid issues soon gets settled and for this we are considering to get our abode vaastu certified or check with some parrot outside Meenakshi temple or maybe get some “maid-shanti” pooja done, you never know what the root cause is ;-)
The profile of a servant in India has changed a lot and in Bangalore the servants now have online profiles, they have their work experience listed and they do have recommendations/testimonials from their previous masters, etc etc. I am not against this, it is actually a great thing but it does come as a surprise to me. The transition from Ramu Kaka days to independent contractors seems to have happened in a jiffy or maybe I missed the transition period !
With change being the only constant in this world, we also started scouting for profiles online. I registered with some of the startups who help with maid services (earlier they were called Agencies but with Mr. Modi’s yet another initiative “Startup India Standup India”, everyone calls themselves Startup). Anyways, we realized there is a waiting list for Maids as well. The waiting period is high as 6 months and in some cases the request was not even registered.. saying – “we have enough backlog to support new requests !!”.. Looks like this particular service sector has no recession !
In the last few months, we managed to get few profiles through friends/relatives. Not a big surprise but the fact is apart from their salary these folks come up with their own job description, leave policy, work timings, and also decide their bonus numbers. Some of the interviews were interesting, posting one of them below
Wife: have you taken care of kids before ?
Maid: What does your husband do ?
Wife: Well.. that is unrelated. You tell me .. if have you taken care of kids before ?
Maid : I don’t work at places with Home maker husbands. It is not safe !
Wife: Ok no worries. My husband works, he is not a home maker
Maid : Does he have work from home option ?
Wife (in her mind) - Damn ! i am already doubting my spouse ….
Maid Rejected
After enough search we got a caretaker whose previous job was to take care of a dog while the dog’s master was away. This person was selected based on some strong referral but she quit, maybe we barked more than the pet dog ;-). Now, we have a caretaker who has kept us on probation for 2 weeks (note - we are on probation not the caretaker) and he has agreed to join if he likes the job and us…..it can't get better than this :-).
Well I am hoping our caretaker or maid issues soon gets settled and for this we are considering to get our abode vaastu certified or check with some parrot outside Meenakshi temple or maybe get some “maid-shanti” pooja done, you never know what the root cause is ;-)
