Lazy or not so sharp?
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Anonymous
| Our au pair has been with us 6 weeks. One of her duties is to empty the dishwasher in the mornings during the week so that the rest of the day it can be loaded with breakfast dishes, her lunch dishes, lunch boxes, and dinner dishes. This has always worked out great...we have a tidy kitchen almost all the time (which I can't say the same for the rest of the house!!) For some reason this au pair doesn't seem to understand...or is so lazy that she leaves multiple things on the countertops. And I'm not talking some weird kitchen implement or a gravy boat. She'll leave clean bowls, colanders, wine glasses, coffee cups, etc. When I ask her she either says "I didn't know where that went" or "the cupboard was full". The "I don't know where that went" makes ZERO sense after 6 weeks....our kitchen is organized in a pretty standard way. Coffee cups go on the coffee cup shelf, etc. The "cupboard is full" thing usually means that the tupperware/food storage things or pots and pans need to be stacked differently in order to make room. So it might take an extra 3 minutes to put something away because you have to shift around other stuff in the cupboard. We have room for everything that we own in the kitchen!! Has anyone else had this? I nudge her about it every single day! "Hey, can you please put away those clean glasses so I can use the counterspace to prep dinner"? "Oh, I didn't know where they went". Is she dim or is she lazy? |
Anonymous
| Seems like a simple enough task to be messing up so royally, but she may be trying to passive aggressively remind your that she is not responsible for general household chores. You can ask her to load and unload (or hand wash) her own dishes and the children's dishes, but technically you're not supposed to ask her to do any other household chores |
Anonymous
| The AP can absolutely empty the dishwasher in the morning. It's not so hard to put away dishes.Ours never seems to have had an issue with it. |
Anonymous
| How is she with other tasks? |
Anonymous
Just because it's not a difficult task doesn't make it her responsibility. Have her start 5 min earlier each morning and unload it yourself. I have a 15 min overlap each morning with the au pair so I can do some odds and ends around before I leave. Our au pair does chores around the house on her own (mostly sweeping and wiping down the kitchen counters/stovetop, taking out trash, plus all her own and the baby's dishes) but per the very explicit rules about the kind of tasks you are allowed to assign them, we don't ask her to do anything not directly child-related. |
Anonymous
She absolutely can unload the dishwasher 5 days per week as part of the family. This has worked great for us with over 10 years of hosting. Au Pair doesn't cook dinner (unless she wants to...some have and some have not), she doesn't clean up after dinner (the kids clear the table and load the dishwasher, husband or I do the pots and pans or other handwashing), at this age my kids load the dishwasher themselves after breakfast and after school (and so do my husband and I with our coffee cups in the morning). Unloading is doing a share of the adult work in the house around food and eating....and it's less than 1/3 of the adult work around these tasks. Should I refuse to pour her a cup of coffee when I've made it because technically I don't owe her coffee?? Or if I'm making pancakes I hand her the spatula and tell her to make her own (I have to provide her food, I don't have to cook it!) NO! That's ridiculous. Household tasks as part of the family are absolutely reasonable in the program. My kids are expected to do a reasonable share of the work too. We don't expect her to wait on us but we aren't going to wait on her either. |
Anonymous
She supervises the kids doing their laundry (we are training them for life without an au pair!) and seems to do ok with that. She sets timers on her phone to remember when to pick up the kids at the bus, etc. and so that's been fine. She makes lunches in the morning if it's something that the kids can't do on their own or they need help with. She cuts up fruit and cheese for lunch and snacks, etc. and puts things away when she's done with them. All seems fine. I would say she's less proactive about helping the kids tidy up after a messy activity than we'd like (like we come home and there is still stuff everywhere and she peaces out to her room while we get the kids to clean it up and make dinner)..we've asked her to get the kids to clean stuff up at least 15 minutes before we arrive home so we will see how that goes in the future. |
Anonymous
That is BS. AP is part of the family and can absolutely be asked to help out with family chores. My AP empties the dishwasher. And you know what, I clean her bathroom. She also takes out the trash while my husband and I handle the recycling and taking bins up and down the driveway. |
Anonymous
| I’m not saying that the dishwasher crosses a boundary, but am curious about other tasks. General cleaning was always part of the family chores at my house; dusting, vacuuming, bathrooms, etc. Is it okay to add AP to the list of household chores and ask her to vacuum the living room? |
Anonymous
+1. My previous AP emptied the dishwasher every morning with no issue. Current AP just take the trash cans back in on Mondays. So yeah she should definitely have a chore. Maybe she trying to send you a message? I will have a conversation with her and ask her why that part is not going well. |
Anonymous
+1. We see her as an adult in the house capable of doing her share of the housework. She can take out the trash, empty the dishwasher, vacuum common spaces-- she just shouldn't be the only one doing those things and shouldn't do more than her "share". Some families just do an assigned AP task, like the dishwasher, and do the rest themselves. We always do the "share" method. But she is not a guest in our house. She's a family member. That brings the same responsibilities as the rest of us, all of whom do chores. |
Anonymous
While your specific agency might have very explicit rules some don't and I don't think I remember there are explicit rules about tasks that can be assigned in the law (there are very few explicit rules in there anyhow). You can ask her to pitch in as a room mate, even if it's not child-related. When it comes to a chore being directly child-related... would you ask her to please unload everything that the kids and her used? Would be kids related. Would not make sense though. Unloading the dishwasher (so that she and the kids can eat during the day) is totally allright. It's also great if you as a family decide not to ask her to and instead ask her to do more child-related chores. It's also great if you don't ask her to do any housework at all. Good for her, good for you.
Everybody who lives in a certain space gets that space dirty so everybody can help with chores. Yes, you are not supposed to ask your AP to do the gardening or wash the windows or clean the master bath but you can very well ask her to pitch in with general (light) housework such as loading and unloading the dishwasher, sweeping the kitchen or vacuuming the living room. It's a home, not a hotel.
OP, I think it sounds like a mixture of both being lazy and not being super sharp. Not knowing where it goes may be okay for weird things, not knowing how to restack the tupperware to make it fit is somewhat both (it's lazy not to try and not too sharp not to manage if you try) but it may also be an issue of her not feeling responsible for it (cf. PPs). I agree with the PP who said to have a conversation with her and ask her why that part is not going well. Unloading a dish washer should really be a non-issue. (While asking her to wash all of yesterday night's pots and pans by hand if she is not having dinner with you would be more of an issue - I have had friends in Asian families where all meals of the day were hot meals and AP was supposed to wash all pots and pans by hand five days a week that quickly became an issue on both sides.) |
Anonymous
She is lazy. My husband used to do that shit (take things out and puts them on the kitchen counter). Who needs help removing items from the dishwasher? We need items removed from the dishwasher and putThankfully he puts items away now. Tell her unloading the dishwasher included: removing items from the dishwasher and putting them away. It you think that's bad I asked my AP to put the kids clothes in the washing machine. She puts the clothes in the washer and did not add detergent and press the start button. Clothes sat in there for 3 days until I noticed 
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Anonymous
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Try motivating her with incentives. Oh well, you don't know where these glasses go after 6 weeks? Well, I'm afraid to let you use the car because you may not be able to find your way home or won't park in the garage correctly because you don't seem to be paying attention to where things go.
You have a reluctant, lazy teenager instead of a mature, grown up AP. Treat her appropriately to her behavior. |
Anonymous
| Omg ours does this too. She says she’s too short to reach things. Odd she can get them down but not put them away. |