To wish she would be the same with us?

Sago

This is exactly why our butler got the heave ho!

Haha!

There is quite a bit of rudeness here. In the Caribbean, the lady who comes either every week day or three days a week is called the Housekeeper. I think the local lady who does cleaning, washing and ironing and other duties prefer to be called Housekeeper more than cleaner, because they do more than cleaning and when I am away ( as now) she supervises the gardener ( this title is very loose as he cuts the grass and chops excessive tree branches.) I am too old to run this house as it is much larger than normal which is quite common here. the heat is too much and i could not do the garden. My son works nearly an hour away from home and is extremely busy. Local people often stay for many years working for one family provided they are decently paid and well looked after. Local people do need jobs and hours fit in with their family needs. i am in touch on Whatsapp with our housekeeper about the dogs and any stuff she wants me to bring in from UK. So it is not a matter of being snobbish but just going with the flow. I never forget that i grew up in a council house in Liverpool and I am also rather Australian in my ways. I cannot stand stuck up people, so just remember it is a matter of where you live as many people have guessed.

I don't think anyone is being rude MissAdventure I think you are being rather naive!

What an enjoyable thread! Whether true or a wind-up, surely something of a first-world problem?

Totally unreasonable yes

Your housekeeper obviously knows the difference between employer/employee and although you can be friends to a degree she is there to do a job. It may be that she just does not feel the need to be over friendly.

I think some of you are being very rude.
Is there any need for it?

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

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?

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.

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

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

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!!

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.

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"....

How the other half live!

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

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

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.

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.

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"

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.

Sago

This is exactly why our butler got the heave ho!

Same situation with our chauffeur.

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.

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.