Cleaning lady threw out my cake

MiracleMama

Tue, Apr 09 2013, 5:13 pm

I'm so surprised she threw it out. I don't know where your lady is from or her background, but every housekeeper I have had has been from a poor country and of little means and is the absolute opposite, taking so much care NOT to throw out what they deem good food, that they will sometimes wrap up what is (to me) clearly garbage (say a tiny bit of toast or scrambled eggs left on a plate by a child) and put it away in the fridge for me.

Well, mystery solved.

causemommysaid

Tue, Apr 09 2013, 8:14 pm

Barbara wrote:

skinny wrote:

garbage shmarbage she either took it home or ate the whole thing on spot

Yeah. And your husband stole that money. That's right. He's a thief. He belongs in jail.

No, I have no evidence. But I say it. And I want everyone to know it. Better yet, I'm going somewhere online that you're not on, and going to tell the world about it. I'm going to be nasty and mean about you. And you'll never have a chance to defend yourself.

So there.

You should be ashamed of yourself. You should all be ashamed of yourself. We're supposed to be all DLZ when a Jew pleads guilty to stealing tens of thousands of dollars. But when a cleaning woman sees food lying on a table, and thinks it must be trash, she's an object of ridicule.

You make me sick. All of you.

calm down. its just a funny story. the only sick one here is the cleaning lady who ate a whole cake in one sitting. (eating a whole cake can make anyone sick.... Very Happy

)

Barbara

Tue, Apr 09 2013, 8:29 pm

ysmommy wrote:

Barbara wrote:

skinny wrote:

garbage shmarbage she either took it home or ate the whole thing on spot

calm down. its just a funny story. the only sick one here is the cleaning lady who ate a whole cake in one sitting. (eating a whole cake can make anyone sick.... Very Happy

)

Okay, here's a funnier story. The OP thought that the cake was good looking. Actually, it was disgusting. Lopsided. And when the cleaning lady lifted the dome, it smelled like rotten eggs. And she noticed that a cockroach was baked in it. So she decided to save this poor child, and threw it out.

That OP. She's an idiot. Can't even bake. Ha ha ha. Let's all have a good laugh at her expense.

What, you don't think that's funny?

Why on earth do you think its a good idea to laugh at someone else, anyone else. Throwing out a cake was a bad story for the OP. Ridiculing this poor woman over and over is just plain nasty and cruel.

DrMom

Tue, Apr 09 2013, 8:52 pm

I assume that she accidentally ruined/dropped it in the course of cleaning. She couldn't very well leave a ruined cake on the counter, so she panicked and threw it out. Her ludicrous "I thought that any food on the counter -- even a whole freshly baked and frosted cake -- is garbage" excuse is a cover-up because she is embarassed to admit to her new employer that she messed up.

Either that or she is indeed a real-life Amelia Bedilia.

The question is: Are you still going to employ her? In the former case, she shows a lack of honesty, and in the latter, she lacks all common sense. I would not trust someone with either of these qualities to work in my home.

etky

Tue, Apr 09 2013, 10:25 pm

DrMom wrote:

As I mentioned before I've BTDT regarding a cleaning lady.
The last person who I had work for me, about 1.5 years ago, would also do strange, unreasonable things. The problem with this type of person, as someone said, is that you can't predict what she will do and thus caution her not to do it: things like leaving used, dirty floor rags on the clean kitchen counter, using bathroom cleaner on a wood table (though, realizing her penchant to use it all over the house I had told her repeatedly to use it only in the bathroom) using same cleaner on a brand new TV screen, deciding to clean all the interior doors and closet doors in the house (who cleans doors??) with some inappropriate cleaning material that left awful streaks (to this very day I can't get them off) while leaving the horizontal surfaces that were obviously dusty like night tables and dressers dirty, cleaning the entire bathroom but leaving inside the toilet bowl very obviously uncleaned (do you actually have to tell the cleaning lady to clean the toilet bowl every time or is that sort of understood??)etc. She wasn't dishonest in any way, as it seems OP's cleaner might have been - she just lacked some form of common sense and competence. I would dread the days that she would come (twice a month). After several months I finally realized it wasn't worth the agony, and fired her despite the unpleasantness of having to do so. I have not hired anyone since, I am still so relieved not to have her in my home. I should have done it much sooner.

etky

Wed, Apr 10 2013, 12:29 am

amother wrote:

etky, you don't clean your doors? Doors get sticky and dirty, especially around the door handle. They also get dusty, especially in Israel. I regularly clean my doors or my cleaning woman does them sometimes for me.

No, I don't. They are not at all dusty or sticky and I have no idea what possessed her to start up with them. She was doing them top to bottom and not around the handles at all (that I could at least begin to understand). I now have broad streaks all over which I can't get off of my previously perfectly clean doors. Exploding anger

Also, when you have cleaning help for 4 hours every 2 weeks you have to prioritize - that was certainly not on my list Rolling Eyes

. What really got me though was that she left the things that obviously needed dusting undusted.
Other amother- all she was ever asked to do in the kitchen was the floor. I also don't like anyone touching kitchen surfaces.
The truth is that after a string of cleaning people sporadically over the years, I have realized that I much prefer doing it myself (even though I'm not as young as I used to be and it's getting harder.....). And now the kids do their own rooms (sort of) and aren't quite as piggy as when they were really little, so it's a bit more manageable.

DrMom

Wed, Apr 10 2013, 1:37 am

etky wrote:

amother wrote:

Also, when you have cleaning help for 4 hours every 2 weeks you have to prioritize - that was certainly not on my list Rolling Eyes

. What really got me though was that she left the things that obviously needed dusting undusted.

Doors are easy. Large, smooth surfaces that require minimal bending down to clean. One can look very busy cleaning them and avoid doing more difficult tasks.

We had a cleaning lady who spent a full hour cleaning doors every week and completely avoided washing toothpaste splattered bathroom mirrors. "Oh sorry -- I didn't get to it because I was too busy cleaning the doors."

I started giving her prioritized lists of things that need to be done each week. It has been working out much better for both parties involved since I started doing this.

spinkles

Wed, Apr 10 2013, 4:05 am

What I learned when I used to clean houses is that families can be really uptight about their own way of doing things. Everybody thinks their own way of doing things is normal, and they get upset if you don't do things the way they would. (Cleaning houses is really stressful because people don't talk to you like they would talk to most other people--the filters come off.) I wonder if she works regularly for a family that wants her to throw out any food that's left out. Maybe somebody has even screamed at her in the past for not doing so.

Isramom8

Wed, Apr 10 2013, 4:18 am

Cleaners deserve to be respected. I hope the OP isn't taking the "fire her" advice seriously before trying to find out what happened. Cleaners aren't mind readers. They need to be told (nicely) how YOU want things done.

If it's not being taken seriously, then this thread is lighthearted, since we are commiserating with the OP's loss of her perfectly home-baked birthday cake.

Anyone can make mistakes. The cleaner deserves a chance to learn to improve.

When you hire an outsider to clean your home, there are benefits and losses. The trick is to train your worker, accept the benefits and overlook the annoyances. You need to find someone whose help you can live with. But communicate. It's like marriage.

freidasima

Wed, Apr 10 2013, 5:58 am

Nothing beats my friends' mother in law (old school, Mizrahi) who many many many years ago saw their tape deck (remember those) and wanted to clean it for them by...immersing it in the bathtub as it was so big.

Good that our dear friend, a man now in is 50s MIL long gone to the great beyond, got there in time to stop her! She has all good intentions but had never seen a machine like that and hated dirt and dust and wanted it spotless....ah well...she was a good woman. Just uneducated.

Raisin

Wed, Apr 10 2013, 6:25 am

I am constantly amazed how ignorant my cleaning ladies are about basic food items, and toys. When she helps me put away groceries I have to specify that the butter goes in the fridge, frozen tival sausages in the freezer etc Obviously after some time she knows where (most) stuff goes. Toys as well - no matter how well I label the toy bins, things get mixed up. And if I have a kitchen implement that is bright pink, I know by now it will end up in a toy box.

Barbara

Wed, Apr 10 2013, 6:34 am

Raisin wrote:

Actually, depending upon the room temperature, butter does not need to be refrigerated. (I do refrigerate min, though.)