Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Culture Clash

We have have a case of culture clash with the maids. This is exacerbated by the fact that one of them is the mom of the owner/property manager. We have been getting regular lectures about the house not being picked up/cleaned on a good enough basis causing them more work. Today "mom" showed me the few water spots inside the microwave. This made it necessary for her to take the microwave apart and polish it. Also (probably since Cyndi had not been home to do it) the upstairs had been too cluttered for them to work, causing them to take an extra hour. That would be an extra 25 euros. Also baby fingerprints everywhere. Maybe we should wash the baby's hands more.

We are more used to maids in the USA. If you say clean the house for x amount of money for x hours, they do whatever they can and give you no guff about your mess. They move it around if it is in their way and you can either pick it up better next time or lump it. But they never lecture you. Because you would just get another maid.

So Jon says this is causing him too much stress and we can have no more maids. He volunteers to clean the toilets and take the bottles to the recycle. William already does the dishes and sweeps the kitchen floor and cleans the counters, stove, and microwave. Cyndi and I can divide up the rest of the chores. She already does the garbage take out and William does the recycle. We can do a good enough job here. We are just not the Germanic type who polish everything until it glows and scrub the sidewalks.

2 comments:

robbin said...

And may they kiss your American asses.
This isn't going to be an international incident is it?
We can also clean a toilet or two when we arrive.

Mimi said...

We hope no incident. Cyndi has sent a diplomatic note to Christophe notifying him that we will no longer need the maid service. If worse comes to worse and we really want something, there are plenty of services in the goldenpages.be. I am sure some would be glad to take our money and give us no guff.