Did I lose my housekeeper?

[Pen]

4 hours ago, Night Elf said:

I don't know anything about her really. I did not get a background check on her because I never anticipated her being alone in my house. I didn't ask for references because she had a couple on the site and they were positive. I pay her in cash and don't even know her last name. I have absolutely no way to get in touch with her except her cell phone. I have texted 3 times and left one voicemail. If she lost her phone, she can contact me through care.com again. I'm not going to chase her down. I've done what I can do to get in touch with her. Now the ball is in her court. 

 

Then you should probably assume she’s not returning.  And find someone new or divvy up the tasks if not getting help outside.

[Janeway]

My understanding is one week of those 10 days you were actually out of town and out of contact. Is it possible she thought you were firing her when you gave her the date or told her not to come? Also if it’s only actually been three days and there’s a holiday at the end of this week and you’re talking about it being the week of the holiday I think I would give it at least until Monday of next week. And update us. Did you try to contact her some other way? Did you miss a notice of her being gone this week?

[Night Elf]

23 hours ago, xahm said:

Since you've hired her essentially under the table and you said she has trouble with English, I would wonder if perhaps her immigration status has caused her difficulties as it has for some other immigrants in the area.

She's worked in this country from over 30 years. At least that is what she told me. Her English isn't broken. She just has an accent. Heck, I have people in my state with such southern accents I can't understand them sometimes. But it could be as you said and maybe she's having a problem with immigration. That's a nice way of looking at it as opposed to my own personal opinion that she blew me off and is now ghosting me. I want to go on the care.com site and leave a review but I don't know how much time I should let go by. I called her again yesterday and left another voicemail. I told her if I didn't hear from her within 24 hours, I was assuming she has quit.

[Night Elf]

19 hours ago, Janeway said:

My understanding is one week of those 10 days you were actually out of town and out of contact. Is it possible she thought you were firing her when you gave her the date or told her not to come? Also if it’s only actually been three days and there’s a holiday at the end of this week and you’re talking about it being the week of the holiday I think I would give it at least until Monday of next week. And update us. Did you try to contact her some other way? Did you miss a notice of her being gone this week?

I don't see how she could interpret my vacation as me firing her. When she was here the Thursday before we left, I told her I was going out of town and wouldn't need her next week but that I would see her the week after that. She said okay and asked me to  text her Wednesday night to remind her I was not at home. So I did.

[Janeway]

4 hours ago, Night Elf said:

I don't see how she could interpret my vacation as me firing her. When she was here the Thursday before we left, I told her I was going out of town and wouldn't need her next week but that I would see her the week after that. She said okay and asked me to  text her Wednesday night to remind her I was not at home. So I did.

If her English isn’t good, then maybe.

[Laura Corin]

On 7/2/2019 at 9:08 PM, WendyAndMilo said:

I absolutely have to have clients text me or email me.  I've turned down potential clients because they only call.  I need things in writing because I don't hear things right or the words get jumbled up before I can get them on paper.

The trades people whom we use like everything to be by text, as their hands are often too busy for them to take calls.

[Night Elf]

7 hours ago, Janeway said:

If her English isn’t good, then maybe.

Her English is fine. She doesn't speak with broken English like she's having a hard time finding the right words. As I said in a previous post, it's her accent that's hard to understand. She just has a heavy European accent. Even people in different areas of our own country who speak the English language, can be hard to understand because of their accents. 

She has a 4-year college degree from her home country. Her degree is in Economics. She's not an uneducated person.

[Pen]

she’s got a degree in Econ from elsewhere and has been working in USA for over 30 years and is trying to piece together an income from $25/hour irregular jobs ?  

[Night Elf]

1 hour ago, Pen said:

she’s got a degree in Econ from elsewhere and has been working in USA for over 30 years and is trying to piece together an income from $25/hour irregular jobs ?  

She said her degree is worthless here in the states but didn't explain why. I don't know what kind of work she's done all these years but according to her profile on care.com she's been working at childcare and housework for the past 3 years. I know she has other jobs because she and I had to find a time that was workable for both our schedules. I don't know how many jobs she has though. I also think she lives with her son so she wouldn't need to make a lot to be self-supporting. I know one of her jobs is cleaning and cooking for an elderly woman and she goes in 6 days a week but she didn't tell me how many hours she worked. She was able to work for me on Thursday mornings so maybe she works in the afternoons/evenings. Not sure.

[marbel]

1 hour ago, Pen said:

she’s got a degree in Econ from elsewhere and has been working in USA for over 30 years and is trying to piece together an income from $25/hour irregular jobs ?  

 

I know more than a few people who have degrees, some advanced, from within the US and without, who are working in lousy jobs (like the call center where I work now). There are lots of reasons people are not working up to the potential indicated by a degree.  

[Pen]

Just now, marbel said:

 

I know more than a few people who have degrees, some advanced, from within the US and without, who are working in lousy jobs (like the call center where I work now). There are lots of reasons people are not working up to the potential indicated by a degree.  

 

I understand that.

However, her tolerance for client who will be on vacation one week and not need her, and only wanting her every other week etc may be low. 

[Night Elf]

53 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

I understand that.

However, her tolerance for client who will be on vacation one week and not need her, and only wanting her every other week etc may be low. 

I did not tell her I wanted to change to every other week. We mentioned it as a solution to my problem of needing to stay within my budget but she told me she couldn't maintain my house properly every other week so I agreed and told her I definitely liked the house cleaned weekly. That was all that was said. And she agreed to my $25/hr. Her acceptable range was $20 - $30/hr so I chose the middle and she had no problem with that. She also knew up front during the interview that after the deep clean, however long that might take, the job would be only two hours a week. She agreed to that and said it fit into her schedule. She also took about 12 hours total, over the course of 3 weeks, to deep clean the areas of the house that I wanted clean. She was satisfied with how it turned out and told me her next week would be maintenance only. She did maintenance for two weeks and hasn't been back. 

[Pen]

2 minutes ago, Night Elf said:

I did not tell her I wanted to change to every other week. We mentioned it as a solution to my problem of needing to stay within my budget but she told me she couldn't maintain my house properly every other week so I agreed and told her I definitely liked the house cleaned weekly. That was all that was said. And she agreed to my $25/hr. Her acceptable range was $20 - $30/hr so I chose the middle and she had no problem with that. She also knew up front during the interview that after the deep clean, however long that might take, the job would be only two hours a week. She agreed to that and said it fit into her schedule. She also took about 12 hours total, over the course of 3 weeks, to deep clean the areas of the house that I wanted clean. She was satisfied with how it turned out and told me her next week would be maintenance only. She did maintenance for two weeks and hasn't been back. 

 

?  Either some problem has befallen her or she wasn’t actually as satisfied as you think. 

[Selkie]

14 minutes ago, Pen said:

 

?  Either some problem has befallen her or she wasn’t actually as satisfied as you think. 

Or she is an unreliable person, which is not that uncommon, sadly. Finding employees who consistently show up for work is a big problem for many businesses/employers.

[Pen]

Just now, Selkie said:

Or she is an unreliable person, which is not that uncommon, sadly. Finding employees who consistently show up for work is a big problem for many businesses/employers.

 

True. I thought she’d been reliably working one of her jobs for years. But when I look back now, I don’t see that.   I probably misunderstood.