Posted by
Caliman
19 yrs ago
I have already told her once and she looks at me like I am smoking something exotic. I am serious. We went through a good size box of soap in a little bit over a week. She is good but certainly underworked. My wife needs to have some courage to step up to the plate and tell her (even though I am the employer). Some additional suggestions are hereby requested...
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Life
19 yrs ago
Geez, it is just soap..
What kind of soap? Dish washing soap? Laundry detergent?
Let me ask you this. If the latter, how many times a day/week is she washing clothes? Is she hand washing and using a machine? If only a machine, then show her how much soap to add and use. If she is handwashing every bloody day (which I have seen some helpers do) then let her pile up the laundry and wash once a week, and your soap consumption should go down.
The same goes with dishes. If she is washing every single time a dish hits the sink, then her soap consumption will be higher than if she washes not so frequently.
So, my suggestion is to monitor her first, and then if she is using in EXCESS then correct her.
Or sit down with her and have a nice talk, back home, soap lasted much longer, and then jokingly ask is she throwing it away, and that it is expensive. Ask her if she is giving it away to her friends (jokingly), because if she is, then you will fire her.. ask her to show you how she is doing things, because the consumption just does not make sense to you.
Is she using it to wash other things besides the what you would think she is using it for? Wash the bath tub? Mop the floors?
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You must be new in HK Caliman. It is (sadly) a common practice among many DH here to take household products (from their employer's home) and sell them on their day-off. To whom? I don't know. Popular items they take from your home are detergents, soaps, toilet papers and rice. I was shocked & furious to find when I first found out about this but now I decided to see it part of the cost of having a DH. I know it sounds outrageous at first but when you think about it, it's not any different from some people taking paper clips from their office.
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Life
19 yrs ago
Oceanview, have you ever witnessed the theft of such items? or is this an old wives tale?
Perhaps a more logical explanation would be:
Because rice is so cheap, they cook more than they need, and toss the rest away. The concept of economizing is foreign.
Visiting guests, are sh*tting bricks and wipping their asses like there is no tomorrow. Somone is using the toilet paper for kleenex! And if you have kids in the house, then most likely they are the real toilet paper culprits, and not the maid.
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Life, I never witnessed my DH taking these things. But when I mentioned excessive consumption of soaps (all kinds) by my DH to other women who have been living here for a long time, they all confirmed that this is a very common practice. Did I ever confront my DH about it? No, because I don't have physical evidence (it'd just become my words against hers) and I'm not about to stoop low and stand by the door when she leaves the house on Sunday mornings. Like I said, I see it as part of cost for having DH as I rather have larger than normal expense of soaps and things than haggle over it with my DH or live without one.
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cd
19 yrs ago
with my helper its water, why use a bucket of water for something when you can run the hose for 15 mins!
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ness
19 yrs ago
I think it is much more likely to be the earlier posters. The helpers is doing lots of small loads of washing to keep caught up and on top of it and I have often seen our helper hand wash items first before putting in the machine, and she will not put anything dirty in the dishwasher either!! Doesn't want any food to get into it. Suffice to say we have stain free clothes and the cleanest dishes ever. She also washes lots of dishes as they come into the kitchen but I can understand that as if she were to leave them all to pile up and do at once she would look like she was behind... not that I would mind but alas I am also a dreadful soap waster.
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I understand what caliman was talking about though...
I recalled that once I returned home early, and I saw on the spot that my former DH had a full tub of water (and the tap was STILL RUNNING) when she used her FEET to wash my silk singlet!!!! (and hand washing was not frequent - maybe 1 piece of garment per week)
With her the water bill averaged at HK$900 per quarter. Then I hired another DH, and the water bill dropped dramatically to around HK$250 per quarter. Same household same place, the differences is the DH, so there you go.
This former DH was also told to wash dishes twice a day (after lunch and dinner), to be economical about detergent thus environmentally friendly. Turn out she consumed 1L of dish washing detergent every 2 weeks - for a household of 3.
The best conclusion appears to be since they do not have to pay for it, they don't really care.
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If a little bit works - a lot more will work better.
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Those of you who think your DHs are stealing and selling your soap on the black market, who on earht do you think they are selling it too???
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Life
19 yrs ago
do you know this for a fact as in you have witnessed it, or somone who has a friend, who had a friend, whose friend lived in singapore told you?
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Life
19 yrs ago
figured as much... ... ...
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tly
19 yrs ago
TC, I had a laugh when I read your post about washing dishes. I grew up in the Philippines and wash dishes by rinsing first, then soap then rinse again. After marrying my aussie hubby and watching in-laws do the dishes, I kept asking my hubby how clean can the dishes be if all that soap is still on it when you take it out of the dish "bath". It was even more hilarious when my parents stayed with us for a month after I had my baby, coz my dad washed ALL the dishes again after seeing my mother-in-law wash the dishes her way. He felt the dishes CAN'T be clean if you don't rinse it after. The way I see it is if you rinse your hands after washing it with soap, why not your dishes too? An aussie friend of ours also had the same argument with his Japanese girlfriend coz she insisted he rinse the dishes after the soap "bath". He does it her way now after I joined forces with her and explained things to him. But then again, we don't go gaga with the soap usage. One squirt can go a long way. And gosh, when we move to Oz in a few years I sure am looking forward to using that dishwasher!
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tly
19 yrs ago
Ueber, are you addressing that comment to me? Hmmm... let me see. I turn the tap on, get all the dishes wet. I don't see how much water I could use up getting a few dishes wet. Then I turn the tap off. (Shocking!) I wash all the dishes, then turn the tap on to quickly rinse all the soap off. Gee, sounds like SUCH a waste of water. Convince me how washing dishes that way is a waste of water compared to a dish "bath" or using a dishwasher. Please don't make comments like that if you don't even know me or how concerned I am about the environment.
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tly
19 yrs ago
sigh... fine, comment as you wish. Too bad for me, you have already decided I'm a wasteful person.
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