We let Jennifer go :-(

It's one of the hardest things I've ever done.

When we first moved here and hired Jennifer on a referral by a woman who was leaving Bangalore, her cheerful personality was so wonderful to have around the house. She was always sparkling. I'd see households around with maids with sour looks on their faces and hardly spoke a word of English and I thought, "I would never want that. Why would you want a total stranger in your home, just some entity that you pass in the hallway but never get to know." Well, now I know why.

Making Jennifer a member of our family was my mistake. She's 19 and we loved her youthful vigor and accepted that she wasn't the best maid but we could help her by giving her a job in a fun, safe environment. But then the work started slipping and when you'd ask her to pick up the slack it would be like asking your own 19 yr old to do more chores.

So today I told her it isn't working out. I'll do the housework until we leave on our vacation and once we're gone Erik won't need much help.

She asked to borrow my phone to call her Auntie. She came back saying her Auntie needs me to pay her Rps. 10,000 for the short notice of letting Jennifer go. So I said, "Why would I pay when the work not getting done is the reason we're letting you go?" So she asked why do we think the work is bad, so I looked at her and said "Do you think you've been doing a good job??" And she dropped her head...

She blamed a lot of it on Angel. That Angel creates too many vessels to wash and that her Auntie had been telling her to ask me for more money due to the extra work Angel creates. I said I pay for 6 hours every day and that's more than enough time to straighten the house, put two load of wash in the washer, and wash a some vessels. Plus Angel is only here Mon, Weds, Friday... so what about Tues, Thurs?

I have to say, now that it's over, I feel a nice calming sense of relief. Not about the confrontation but about the drama being gone from the house... We really like Jennifer and we hope her all the best.

UPDATE:
Angel told me Jennifer was let go from her Palm Meadows job last week. I'm glad I didn't know that because it would have made it more difficult for me. She worked there longer than she worked for me.

UPDATE Tuesday:
This afternoon my doorbell rang. At the door was a woman I didn't recognize. She told me she has employed Jennifer's sister Sheela for the last three weeks and is having trouble getting her to work. She was at my home to kindly ask me to keep my maid from constantly going to her house to talk with Sheela. Ah hahhhhh... So I explained that I let Jennifer go yesterday and the problem was that nothing seemed to get done. Well, I guess as soon as I'd leave she'd head off to socialize with Sheela.
By the time our chat was over the lady pretty much decided she's going to let Sheela go too. Too bad because Sheela has been looking for work for a long time.

Again, we wish her the best. I hope she gets a great job with a great family. Best scenario would be to do it in another town - far, far away from Auntie.