at my wits' end!

hi all, i am new here. i have a helper who i really like. but she does whatever she feels like. overall, her work is good enough, just. she does not have a lot of work. we pay her above the required. she is 53. however, i repeatedly give her instructions, and if she feels like it, she does sthg else.


example: i asked her not to cook an entire bag of pasta at once. (it is just my husband and i and we are getting way too fat). a week later, she does it again. then this week she cooks up an entire bag of red beans for a recipe we had been over and called for 1 cup of red beans. not an atractive idea for the week's dinners...


example: i ask her to make certain recipes and have verified that she can read just fine. i go through them with her. then, she just does her own thing.


example: i have asked repeated her to hang up and put away my clothes in the closet, but she puts them inside the bed covers, or she hangs the on the knobs of the closet.


example: we have worked out a master list for shopping, and she is supposed to shop on mondays. but she doesn't check and then wants to go shopping again. i wouldn't mind, but we are outside tai po, and i suspect she just enjoys getting into town. i can understand, but i want also to be efficient.


example: i asked her to make banana bread with some rather scruffy bananas and she didn't, two days later she chucked them out.


i have been reminding her and reminding her. then i started asking her to write it down, so we can work out a weekly roster of duties and make it clear. i am sympathetic - one gets a bit forgetful as one gets older, and no-one can remember everything in the modern world, which is exactly how i put it to her. it has been a month i have been trying to get her to do this. finally i got mad, and pointed at the paper and said, write it down NOW. and she wouldn't. she just stood there and looked at the paper, then went into her room, and cried.


she spends a lot of time on the phone. her phone bill is higher than mine. when im on the phone she comes to the door and says, i'm just going out, and even if i say no, she just goes.


i think i probably made a mistake by being too much of a friend at the start, then i went away for 2 months. my dear husband is an absent-minded professor - he could forget the WORLD on the bus. she did what she liked. now, when i get annoyed and say no she cannot have more money, she is now going to him to ask.


i am at my wit's end. i like her and don't want to fire her, i have warned her about this and given her 2 weeks probation, but it's not really improving much.


friends here say i should shout at her. jeez, i don't even shout at my dog, who can be very annoying.


advice requested, and thanks,


elana

fire her

I won't shout at her. I'd give her an official warning, sit down and discuss the work list and expectations again and then if things doesn't improve, I'd let her go.

how can you still like her? fire her.

I agree, fire her. Your DH should be a help not a hindrance. Over time it will cause you too much stress and wear you down.

elana,

You have a choice...put up with your DH's nonsense or just give up & fire her.

I would do the latter. The next DH you hire...set the rules down straight. Tell her not to make you keep repeating yourself. Tell her if she starts ignoring you, you will not put up with it.

You dont have to be horrible, just lay down your rules in the beginning.

Always better to be formal at first & then later you can always ease up, get the barriers down & let let life takes iots course. But if you start being too friendly at the begining, it is not easy to be firm then later.

All the best.

Way too many great helpers out there to put up with this type of attitude.

Elena, you are too kind. And I think your DH is abusing that. She probably can tell that you like her and think that you will not fire her even if she ignores her. I agree with the rest that you should be kinder to yourself. Fire her. If you really want to give her one last chance, give her an ultimatum- a performance improvement plan. Spell out the consequence of termination. And make her sign on it. In that way, she knows you mean business. And you will have to stick to firing her if she does not meet standard. Her age is not an excuse. Come on, you deserve much better than that! I struggled to change my previous DH when she stole our things. But my 9 year old daughter liked her so much. I almost wanted to give her a chance. In the end, I still fired her. My present DH turn out to be a bigger blessing. I'm glad that I made the touch decision. I feel happier now.

that's right...you either fire her or you stop complaining


it may seem like a tough decision now, but in hindsight it will be very evident that it was the easy decision

From what I read you've tried hard to change her to no avail. She's paid to give you customer service, she is not delivering, so time for bye-bye...


Good luck!

Elana, fire her. Are you absolutely certain she can read and write? Even if she can't, that doesn't excuse a lot of her behaviour, but it's the bit about her crying when you asked her to write something down that makes me wonder.

I am not quite sure what the problem is, because all the things you mention seem to be very trivial. However, if this really is a problem for you i'd agree with the others and suggest to terminate her employment as soon as possible.

Trivial? its the seemingly trivial things that drive you nuts day by day. You need to trust that when you tell someone something they will do it. If you bothered to take the time and think about things and issue instructions, its not trivial. Its hours off your life and if someone disrespects that they've got to go.

I really think age is not the issue, our first helper we had from 55-60 years old and she was AMAZING!!! Our second was in her early 40's and a nightmare, now we have a decent one in her late 20s and are waiting for our mid-30s to arrive...


So if she was 20 or 60, the above described situation is not good, and you really need to start interviewing and terminate her. You can start with more clear guidelines for the next one and set out the ground rules at day one.