You Can Tell Everything About a Person by How They Treat Their Cleaning Lady

I have a cleaning lady named Rosie.

I want to use her actual name here, because that's sort of the whole point of what I'm about to say - she's a person with a name, not a background character in someone's house. So. Rosie.

Rosie is wonderful. She shows up on time, every single time. She's calm. She's kind. She doesn't talk or watch anything on her phone while she works. She notices things that need extra attention without me having to point them out, and she does whatever I ask without me asking twice. She even remembers what I'm planning on cleaning from one week to another (!).

If you've ever gone through the revolving door of cleaning ladies: the ones who cancel last minute, or just don't show up, or show up but somehow leave the house looking the same, you know how rare Rosie is.

She's the kind of cleaning help you don't take for granted once you've learned, the hard way, what the alternative looks like.

I genuinely look forward to the days she comes.

So when my neighbor mentioned she was looking for a cleaning lady, I thought I was doing everyone a favor. Rosie had extra hours available. My neighbor needed help. Simple.

So I connected her with Rosie. And for a few weeks, everything seemed fine.

Then, one day, this neighbor called me. Don't worry, she wasn't calling to heap gratitude on my head. She was practically yelling. 'Rosie was moody. Rosie was doing whatever she wanted. Rosie wasn't listening. And then, and I quote:

"I'm the one paying her. If she doesn't want to do exactly as I say and be happy about it, she doesn't have to come anymore."

I stood there holding the phone, and, of course, I didn't say what I was thinking, but I was in shock. "Are we talking about the same person?"

Because this was the same Rosie who walks into my home every week with a smile. Who does careful, and thorough work. Whom I've never even once had to ask for something twice.

Yep, the same Rosie, but a completely different experience.

Rosie wasn't the variable here. My neighbor was.

The way this woman talked about Rosie, about another human being standing in her kitchen, cleaning her floors, picking up after her family, was the way you'd talk about a dishwasher that wasn't running properly. There wasn't a trace of awareness that this was a person in front of her. A person with feelings, with a life outside that house, with the ability to sense exactly how she was being regarded.

And of course Rosie responded to that. Of course, she wasn't "happy", and she was "moody." People are not happy when they're treated like appliances. I don't think I'd call that moodiness. That's a human being reacting to being made to feel bad.

It is very easy to be kind to people we need something from. We're lovely to our kids' teachers. We're warm at a relative's wedding. We smile at the pediatrician. We're gracious with the people who exist at our eye level, or above it.

But the woman who cleans your house? The one who's on her hands and knees scrubbing your bathroom tile? That's where the mask comes off, and you can truly see who someone is. Not because cleaning is beneath anyone, it's honest, hard work, but because the power dynamic is so lopsided that it reveals who you actually are. When someone is in your home in a serving role, and you know they need the income, and there's no one watching - that's the version of you that's real.

The Gemara already said it best: "אדם ניכר בכיסו בכוסו בכעסו". There's very little you can't see about a person when you give them a bit of power.

Some women talk about their cleaning lady like she's a task, not a person. She didn't do behind the couch. She missed a spot on the counter. She used the wrong sponge. And there's nothing wrong with communicating about your home, but there's a canyon between "Hey, could you make sure to get behind the couch next time?" and "She doesn't listen."

I want to be practical here, because I think most of us mean well and are, of course, not bad people. We're busy, we're distracted, and sometimes we forget that the person in our house has a whole interior life that has nothing to do with our countertops.

So here's what I'd call the bare minimum, and I say bare minimum because this should go without saying, but apparently it doesn't:

Know her name and use it. Say good morning when she walks in. Ask how she's doing, and pause long enough for her to answer.

Offer her something to drink. She is doing physical labor in your house for hours. Water. Coffee. Whatever you have. It's the most basic gesture of hospitality there is.

Pay her fairly, and pay her on time. Please discuss this beforehand. If you don't want to pay her what she's asking for, then don't ask her to clean and then pay her unfairly.

Don't leave a disaster and call it cleaning. There's a difference between a normal mess and "I left this because someone else is coming to deal with it." She's there to clean your home, not to absorb your chaos because you decided it wasn't your problem.

If something needs correcting, say it the way you'd say it to a coworker. Not the way you'd scold a child, and not the way you'd lodge a complaint. Just - directly, kindly, human to human.

Most of our cleaning ladies speak Spanish. And even a handful of words in someone's own language can shift the entire dynamic between you. It shows that you're trying.

You will watch someone's entire face change when you speak to them in their language. Even if you're botching up the words terribly, with an accent that makes them smile a little. Because what you're actually saying, underneath the words, is: I see you. You matter as a human.

You can download this card here.

I'm not going to pretend I've been perfect at this. I've been distracted when Rosie was in my home. I've rushed through instructions without asking about her weekend. I've been busy when she arrived instead of looking up and saying good morning.

Our kids are watching. They see whether we say good morning or walk past her. They see whether we offer her water or forget she's there. They notice whether we say "thank you, Rosie" or just leave the money on the counter and close the door. They are learning, right now, in our kitchens, whether all people are worthy of dignity or just the ones who look like us.

Rosie still comes to my house every week and shows up with a smile.

She stopped going to my neighbor's a while ago.

I wasn't surprised.