To wish she would be the same with us?

A friend of ours is a Nanny (Norland) and lives in and goes away with the family, who also have other staff, she can’t wait to get to her own home on her time off, she is friendly but professional and I don’t think she would stay with a family who wanted her as a friend as well.
You can’t buy friendship by employing people. That’s just weird, boundaries have to be put in place.
Why did your last Housekeeper leave?

How I used to hate PTA ‘social events’. It was the parents social life, but for me it was just another (unpaid) work obligation.

And having to say yes to the Head of Departments get-togethers.

Always an off feeling if you said no. I mean, isn’t the OP feeling a bit off with her employee right now?

(I don’t care if Topsy is a bit fake, it’s an interesting topic, socialisation in the work place)

Callistemon

I'm sorry you're having problems with your staff, TopsyAndTim; wasn't it the other day you were having problems with the person who takes your children swimming?

Perhaps they are not certain exactly where they stand with you, as you said you normally took her to your house but now she's upset because you dropped her at the end of the road and didn't let her in the house.

Now you want the housekeeper to be your friend but she wants to keep it on a professional footing.

I think you need to clarify your expectations in your own mind and set out the terms of the contracts so that everyone knows what is or is not expected of them.

Oh dear - TopsyandTim - you seem to treat your friends like staff (the swimming debacle) and yet want your staff to be your friends.
Can you see a pattern here?

Personally, I would keep it professional. You don’t know each other very well and getting too friendly can lead to difficulties. You pay her to do her job, for me that is where is starts and ends, no problem as long as you are happy with her work.

How many staff do you employ TopsyandTim?

Sago

This is exactly why our butler got the heave ho!

?

This is surely a wind up!

Do you want a friend or a cleaner? It’s never a good idea to mix the two because there will be awkward situations when things go wrong.

I expect she just wants an employer employee relationship....nowt wrong with that...is normal actually. I wouldn't push it. She might leave if you do.

Sago

This is exactly why our butler got the heave ho!

Same situation with our chauffeur.

It’s never reasonable to expect employees to be your friend. True friendship not only takes time to develop but when there’s an unequal power dynamic it’s rare for real friendships to develop. Truth is you won’t find out until friendship is not dependent on what one party can give to another. I know when I worked as a nanny it used to make me cringe but I had to pretend to be a friend rather than the employee.
And in the circumstances I’m astonished you’d even expect it. Your housekeeper not only lost someone she cared about but also her employment at the same time - she may have, wisely, decided never to put herself in that position again. If you can’t respect her private life you’d be better to tell her it’s not working out.

Our old neighbours used to call their cleaner the "housekeeper". Just a bit pretentious? We had many cleaners, au pairs and mother's helps over the years, but never did we call any of them "housekeeper"

Boundaries are very important when it comes to relationships with people who you pay for services, or vice versa. This doesn't mean that you can't be civil and pleasant in such relationships but going out and socialising is quite out of the question if the correct relationship is to be preserved. As far as your current housekeeper is concerned, yes she may be grieving the loss of her previous employer but that's not your business. You have employed her to do x, y and z and are paying for that, and nothing more.

I’m sure this is a joke but just in case.
Staff are not friends.
Staff are paid and work for you.
You pay them by the hour, therefore if she comes for meals etc. outside her contracted time, she would get paid.
This is not a friend. If you pay someone to attend a social gathering, that’s called an escort.
Let the cleaner do her allotted hours without burdening her to socialise with you.
She may work for you but may not like you. You can’t force friendship. She’s not working with the title of Friend. She’s a Cleaner with the title Housekeeper not Friend.
Keep to the boundaries of Upstairs and Downstairs, they’re very different lifestyles.
Sorry to be so blunt.

You hired her to do a job. Her free time is precious. You shouldn't try and encroach on that.

Having read other posts I wonder if you are in the US where cleaners are called housekeepers?

How the other half live!

You pay her to clean and look after your home, not to be your companion. If she wants to be friends with her ex employers family it's her choice. You seem to expect a lot of "your staff"....

Maybe it's just that she likes to keep her job and home life separate ?
She has only been working for you - notice I said "for you" and not "with you" so certainly would not be expecting to be taken out to dinner etc
Have you sat down with her over a coffee and explain that though she is employed by you, you like to think that she is a friend, hence the invitations that are obviously making her feel uncomfortable being refused.
Friendship takes time, sometimes years, not months.

I was 15 with 3 younger sisters when our mother died suddenly. Dad “employed” a number of young “housekeepers” for a while but we children never understood why they would sleep in his bed when they had their own!!

Have you ever thought maybe she doesn’t like you enough to want to be with you outside of her working hours
Just because you pay her to do a job doesn’t entitle you to her friendship

Just a thought, maybe she would go out with you if it’s included in her contract and she got paid for it?

Interesting topic.

I’ve never had a housekeeper and rarely been able to afford a cleaner, but I have employed au pairs and although I got on very well with them there’s a limit to what sort of friendship can be maintained when they leave and return to their home countries. One of my au pairs is now a senior European lawyer and married to a judge, but continues to keep in very regular contact and is always begging us to go and stay with him (we have actually had several holidays with them). Most of the others are now simply in touch through an occasional letter or a Christmas card.

One of my teacher colleagues had my son in her class. She kept me at arm's length although I made it clear I wanted to be pals.

Years later, we became close friends. She explained that she hadn't been comfortable with the concept of socialising with the parent of one of her students. Subsequently, for the duration of his time in her class, she turned away from a potential friendship.

Perhaps your maidy-person will be your friend when she leaves your employ?

More comedians on Gransnet than I thought. Now where's my fur coat and deerstalker, just off to find me a very old millionaire!?.