Are You Allowed to Talk About Your Salary?

[Pekka]

Why don't you pay more for the service, if you can afford it? If you're happy with the service the servants provides you, why not just empower them with something?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by aneeshm
The average middle-class household in India employs two to four servants.

...

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Flubber



The number of people overall is irrelevant. The important number is the number of people with the means and desire to compete for the comfortable properties I might want.

I wondered more about how many desirable properties there might be. Lets assume I want a house that is up to western standards of comfort and airconditioning with a quiet acre of land. While there might be many of these I would assume that some would be family properties that people would be loathe to sell .

Assume also that I would prefer to beon or near a beach. Does India still fit the bill ??

There's tremendous regional variation. I'd be willing to bet my life, however, that there is something which matches your needs perfectly, somewhere in the country. As I said, the SEXs are you friend.

EDIT: I'm going to let that great gaffe stand, but what I meant was "the SEZs are your friend(s)."

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by aneeshm
As I said, the SEXs are you friend.

Sig material?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by aneeshm
Is that so? Is it the high cost of labour?

The high cost of labour is the very reason there's a middle class in the first place.

Countries in which servants are commonplace, generally have a strong income disparity.

However, maybe we don't understand the same with the word "servant". In the west, it means people working all day long in your household. A cleaner working 3 hours a week isn't reminiscent of the word "servant" (btw until today, I've never ever heard of a student employing a cleaning lady)

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by aneeshm
As I said, the SEXs are you friend.

That's not what you said.

It's true, though

[Arrian]

@ Pekka.

Anyway...

aneeshm, yes servants would be expensive.

I wouldn't say we have any servants, but actually now that I think of it, it's arguable with respect to the woman we pay to walk our dog once per day. She doesn't cook/clean/do laundry, but she is someone we pay for a service and thus, technically, could be considered a "servant."

Wanna know what we have to pay her?

$14 per visit ($17.50 if it's a weekend or holiday). We spend $70 per week on her - more if we go away and can't bring the dog.

-Arrian

[Lord Avalon]

Originally posted by Arrian
To us, the concept of having servants does NOT jive with being "middle class." Middle class people where we come from don't have servants.

-Arrian

We used to have a cleaning lady come in once a week for a number of years when I was a kid. And we were middle class.

And what about babysitters? Both my parents worked, and before I was considered old enough to be home by myself (and look after my younger brother), we had a babysitter for a few hours a day weekdays. (More during the summer when there wasn't school or day camp.)

I think full-time servants (who live in your house/mansion) would be more upper class. When they're butlers, maids, chauffeurs.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Pekka
Why don't you pay more for the service, if you can afford it? If you're happy with the service the servants provides you, why not just empower them with something?

But we do! I personally can't afford to pay any more, because I try to balance my budget as precisely as possible, and whatever little is left over goes to buying books, and whatever little is left after that goes to charity, but there are always some good things going on for full-time people who have been employed for some time. It may be that their kids' school education is paid for by us, or that we help them out in times of need, or something, but something is always done to help them.

[Arrian]

Lord Avalon,

For my early childhood, I had a nanny (a nice Mormon girl from Utah). Later, we had a housekeeper. Later still, nobody. This was as my father transitioned from being a corporate exec to "Mr. Mom."

I would not claim that I grew up middle class, though. Upper middle, maybe.

-Arrian

[Pekka]

Arrian, you pay 70 bucks a week for someone to walk your dog? Dude, I'll walk your dog for that money. I'll walk your neighbours dog as well!

aneeshm, fine, as long as the salary is fair. It's like, you can think that you're employing a person when you go to a hooker. As if you're the good guy, you know? They need the money, so they can go to school... And who knows, they might enjoy it, because you're so good in bed anyway.

But if the salary is fair, I guess there's no problem. That is, if the salary is in the level, where they can actually move forward at some point, and not live on the edge with that salary, then it's fair. It might be enough even if it was less, so that they can provide to themselves, but if you can pay more, you should pay the level where they can do something with their lives, that is, if that extra dollar or two doesn't mean anything to you. So... I don't have a problem with service lke that, as long as the salary paid is fair.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Spiffor

The high cost of labour is the very reason there's a middle class in the first place.

Countries in which servants are commonplace, generally have a strong income disparity.

That's quite true.

Originally posted by Spiffor

However, maybe we don't understand the same with the word "servant". In the west, it means people working all day long in your household. A cleaner working 3 hours a week isn't reminiscent of the word "servant" (btw until today, I've never ever heard of a student employing a cleaning lady)

She provides a service which is traditionally provided by servants, so she's a servant. The employer-servant relationship is the same as it would be in case of a full-time person. And I pay her better than the others in the same building, because she does a good job and (very important) is trustworthy.


But lots of students employ people. Sometimes, when three students are living in an apartment, they can afford to have two servants, one as a cook and another to do the dishes and laundry.

[Pekka]

"The employer-servant relationship"

You see, we think of it as an employer-employee situation.

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Pekka
Arrian, you pay 70 bucks a week for someone to walk your dog? Dude, I'll walk your dog for that money. I'll walk your neighbours dog as well!

aneeshm, fine, as long as the salary is fair. It's like, you can think that you're employing a person when you go to a hooker. As if you're the good guy, you know? They need the money, so they can go to school... And who knows, they might enjoy it, because you're so good in bed anyway.

But if the salary is fair, I guess there's no problem. That is, if the salary is in the level, where they can actually move forward at some point, and not live on the edge with that salary, then it's fair. It might be enough even if it was less, so that they can provide to themselves, but if you can pay more, you should pay the level where they can do something with their lives, that is, if that extra dollar or two doesn't mean anything to you. So... I don't have a problem with service lke that, as long as the salary paid is fair.

I pay better than the others do. In another fifty years, the situation here will be just like the developed world - servants will be affordable only by the rich. These charities I try to support - they work towards just that - sustainable empowerment without coercion.

And education is very cheap (nearly free) in Maharashtra, so the salary which I pay, combined with what she earns at the other places she works at, is enough to get her kids through school.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by aneeshm
But lots of students employ people. Sometimes, when three students are living in an apartment, they can afford to have two servants, one as a cook and another to do the dishes and laundry.

It's cultural, I guess.

Over here, middle class people employ cleaning ladies fairly frequently (though it rarely goes beyond a few hours a week), but I've seen a cook in only one family.
BTW, in France, "domestic services" is the big talk recently, because there could be hundreds of thousands of jobs in the coming years, what with all the nurses, nannies, private teachers etc. the pop might want.

As to students, I know a fair amount of middle and upper-middle class students, but never once did I hear of them employing a domestic employee.