8 Slices of Pizza: Different Perspectives
Rahul to his Wife Renu...we are using disposable cutlery for lunch today. What's going on?
Renu: The maid is not coming for two days so I found a way to lighten the load..
Rahul: Oh that's very smart of you...but why is she not coming?
Reena: Her leaves are due, and her daughter's family is visiting. I have also given her Rs 500 based on the fact that she really helped clean up the mess at home after the party last week.
Rahul: Oh, I see. We pay her well. We could have used this as nice Christmas bonus.
Reena: A poor woman, she’s a domestic help and works whole day. I thought she’d be able to spend time with her daughter, granddaughter, and son-in-law if she had this.
Rahul: Looks like you are doing little more than needed. Watch it
Reena: Hey its okay, don’t worry about the money, let’s cancel our plan for pizza for dinner tonight. What’s the point wasting money over eight slices of stale bread.
Rahul: ha ha ha… So now we have to give up on our pizza night so the house maid can get a tip…
Tow days later, when the maid is back at work, Rahul asked
Rahul: Mangal, how was your chutti?
Maid Mangal: It was super sir. Madam had given me Rs 500, My daughter and family were around and we spent the entire money in just two days.
Rahul: Oh..What did you buy with that money?
Maid Mangal: I bought my granddaughter a dress for Rs. 150 and a doll for Rs. 40, sweets for my daughter and to offer at the Mahalakshami temple for Rs. 50, each, spent Rs. 60 on the
sewing machine rent, bought my daughter bangles for Rs. 25, and a nice belt for my son in law for Rs. 50. We spent the rest of the money buying notebooks and stationery for my granddaughter.
Rahul: All that for Rs. 500?
Rahul was shocked to hear what a Rs 500 could mean to her and each slice of pizza started honking in his head.
He started imagining each piece of the pizza as different things she bought for her family like kids dress, sweets, rent, the bangles she bought, the belt she bought for her son in law, the books and pencil she bought.
He had only imagined the delicious part of the pizza, he had never thought of the other plain and dry part of it and today because of his maid he could understand the other part of the coin or the pizza.
A simple 8 pieced pizza taught some reality of life.
​​
We Indians haggle over the small increments in wages of domestic helpers such as housemaids, nannies, babysitters, elderly caretakers, personal drivers etc. or tip them as a way of showing our appreciation for their support.
Making sure that you get that "x+2" out of that "x" that you pay is possibly part of our DNA. In this "+2" trade-off we overlook the fact that the domestic staff and the household prosper together. It is a symbiosis of the new age society, where the household and domestic help depend on each other. Both of them are miserable without the other.
Than why keep haggling for the slight increments when they are just at the cost of one or two pizzas while they mean a whole lot of world for the domestic staff.
The best thing that we do at Staffurs is that we, give our customers full flexibility to define the terms of work with their candidate of choice. With our experience, we are happy to share here that, the most successful and sustainable hiring are those where our customers are empathic and pay the domestic staff as per market rate and proportional to the load of work.
After all a sustainable hiring is the real hiring..
It’s a “Symbiosis”.
The maid and the madam prosper together…
Check out our amazing and super affordable domestic staff hiring plans here
