Today I just reprimanded one of our maids. She’s new. When I interviewed her the first time, I also explained some household rules that she should follow. One of these rules is never to get from our food. I give each household helper Php 2000 a month (4 weeks) or php 500 a week for their food.
That’s more than enough if you know how to budget well. I never had any problem with past maids. I always had two: one all-around and one yaya. Their ‘diskarte’ was to combine budgets so that they would have more than enough for each of them. Very good idea, actually (you can leverage on buying more or in bulk when you want to bring down the cost).
With this new maid, she requested for her budget to really be separate because she wants to buy her own food. Okay, fine by me. It really is her money anyway. She even said that I shouldn’t worry because she won’t get from our food.
Anyway, last night, I had a get together at my place and bought food for the guests. Obviously, there were a lot of leftovers. One of which was Baby Z’s brownies. I keep food well since we eat it for the succeeding days. It’s a way also in which we try to save. Going grocery shopping is such an expensive necessity!
Baby Z baking brownies!
This new maid got two huge slices of the brownies behind my back and ate from the barbeque and even wanted to get from the spaghetti. I found out about it when my yaya told me about it.
And to think all she needed to do was ask me. If you know me, as an ‘amo’ and household manager, i’m not really strict. They can actually ask me and i’ll agree to almost anything, for as long as it’s not illegal. So, if she just asked me for a slice or even the whole plate, I would have given it to her.
So I confronted her and told her that what was broken was trust. I told her too that I don’t want Baby Z to see this kind of behavior from them.
O well… How about you? What food rules do you have at home. How do you do it with your helpers? Is there a better way to do it?
Love lots,
Mommy Ginger
