Paying the Cost to Be the Boss
Every day the floors need to be washed. The sweaty cumbersome clothes need to be beaten against the floor, hung on the line to dry and ironed. The vegetables have to be brought from the market, chopped up, boiled and fried. No microwave meals or fast food here. As I work during the time this work would normally be done, I have hired Sheuli to do this work for me. (Global Women would say this is me hiring a woman to do "woman's work" so I can work in a "man's world". But that's another topic for another time.) It is very nice to have a kept house. To come home to a made bed and tidy apartment is a wonderful feeling.
The flip side of this wonderful feeling is the awfulness of managing personal staff. It's uncomfortable to have someone with access to everything in my house and who knows my personal habits and idiosyncrasies like a family member, but who is mostly a stranger to me and who washes the floor while I read the paper on Saturday morning. How should I pay someone who's labor allows me to work? How should I relate to someone who is basically a servant without denying her and her family's human rights?
It came to light last week that Sheuli, my housekeeper, and Ali, my room mate, have had a misunderstanding concerning a huge amount of money that Sheuli came to expect upon Ali's leaving. Every time I've tried to sort things out with Sheuli, she says "I am so poor, and my girl is going to college next year." Ali claims not to have promised Sheuli anything, though between the two of us we had been discussing what compensation would be appropriate for the extra work Sheuli has done while Ali's been around. Each thinks the other is lying, each feels taken advantage of.
I know that compared to other Bangladeshi's, I pay Sheuli well. I pay her more than most foreigner families pay their house staff. If I give her a significant raise she would be paid more than an Office field staff. Wouldn't it be wrong to pay her more than them? They are more experienced and work much longer hours than she does.
Yet, the woman who employed Sheuli before I did gave her a raise every time she visited Sheuli's house. It feels so wrong that Sheuli lives in a meager house, and the salary I pay her keeps her there. Her one room is too small to keep both her teenage boy and her teenage daughter so her son lives in a dormitory in the city.
Yesterday when I brought it up she replied, "Please help me. I know it is so easy for you to give, so many taka make no difference to you." It astonished me when she said that. Then it started to make sense. She knows I spend as much on groceries as I do on her salary, every month. And that does not include rent, the times I eat out, or my flights out of the country. It must seem to her that I have limitless resources. I told Sheuli that it does indeed make a difference to us. That Ali is a volunteer, and I am little more than a student. But that we wanted to be fair in paying her for her extra work. I don't know if she understood the difference between paying for her work, and giving charity.
My Bangladeshi supervisor helped me come up with an answer, but it still feels so wrong. Sheuli had counted on getting the extra money, and I will only give her half that. It's a lot of money for me, as much as a weekend trip to Shrimongal. But for Sheuli it's her daughters application fees to college, or an expansion for her husbands business. Part of me feels as though Sheuli is trying to manipulate me. Another part longs to give with open hands. We as Christians are called to give freely, but really, to what extent?
Sometimes I kick myself for becoming so friendly with her as to visit her house. If our relationship was less personal, maybe I would be able to look at it more objectively. At the same time she is a person with a family. And made in the image of God, like me. Maybe it should be personal.
The flip side of this wonderful feeling is the awfulness of managing personal staff. It's uncomfortable to have someone with access to everything in my house and who knows my personal habits and idiosyncrasies like a family member, but who is mostly a stranger to me and who washes the floor while I read the paper on Saturday morning. How should I pay someone who's labor allows me to work? How should I relate to someone who is basically a servant without denying her and her family's human rights?
It came to light last week that Sheuli, my housekeeper, and Ali, my room mate, have had a misunderstanding concerning a huge amount of money that Sheuli came to expect upon Ali's leaving. Every time I've tried to sort things out with Sheuli, she says "I am so poor, and my girl is going to college next year." Ali claims not to have promised Sheuli anything, though between the two of us we had been discussing what compensation would be appropriate for the extra work Sheuli has done while Ali's been around. Each thinks the other is lying, each feels taken advantage of.
I know that compared to other Bangladeshi's, I pay Sheuli well. I pay her more than most foreigner families pay their house staff. If I give her a significant raise she would be paid more than an Office field staff. Wouldn't it be wrong to pay her more than them? They are more experienced and work much longer hours than she does.
Yet, the woman who employed Sheuli before I did gave her a raise every time she visited Sheuli's house. It feels so wrong that Sheuli lives in a meager house, and the salary I pay her keeps her there. Her one room is too small to keep both her teenage boy and her teenage daughter so her son lives in a dormitory in the city.
Yesterday when I brought it up she replied, "Please help me. I know it is so easy for you to give, so many taka make no difference to you." It astonished me when she said that. Then it started to make sense. She knows I spend as much on groceries as I do on her salary, every month. And that does not include rent, the times I eat out, or my flights out of the country. It must seem to her that I have limitless resources. I told Sheuli that it does indeed make a difference to us. That Ali is a volunteer, and I am little more than a student. But that we wanted to be fair in paying her for her extra work. I don't know if she understood the difference between paying for her work, and giving charity.
My Bangladeshi supervisor helped me come up with an answer, but it still feels so wrong. Sheuli had counted on getting the extra money, and I will only give her half that. It's a lot of money for me, as much as a weekend trip to Shrimongal. But for Sheuli it's her daughters application fees to college, or an expansion for her husbands business. Part of me feels as though Sheuli is trying to manipulate me. Another part longs to give with open hands. We as Christians are called to give freely, but really, to what extent?
Sometimes I kick myself for becoming so friendly with her as to visit her house. If our relationship was less personal, maybe I would be able to look at it more objectively. At the same time she is a person with a family. And made in the image of God, like me. Maybe it should be personal.
1 Comments:
What a prime example of how messy life can be.
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