Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework Part 3

It remains for women of the leisure cla.s.s, and to this cla.s.s belong all those who can afford to pay to have their housework done for them, to adopt a similar plan in their homes.

EXTRA PAY FOR OVERTIME

When the plan for limiting housework to eight hours a day is discussed for the first time, the following question invariably arises: What is to be done when anything unusual happens to break the routine of the regular work, as for instance, when sickness occurs, when friends arrive unexpectedly, when a dinner party is given?

Sickness, of course, is unavoidable, but as a rule a trained nurse or an extra household a.s.sistant is called in to help. Many times, however, this is not absolutely necessary, or perhaps the family can not afford to have outside help, and the extra work caused by sickness usually falls upon the domestic employee whose hours of labor are more or less prolonged in consequence. What ought to be done in such an event?

There is but one answer: Work that can not be accomplished within the regular working hours already agreed upon should be paid for as "overtime."

When it is a question of work being prolonged beyond the eight hours a day by the entertaining of friends, one can only say that this ought not to happen if the housewife planned her working schedule carefully. She alone is responsible for her social engagements; she alone can make a schedule that will enable her to have her friends come to luncheon or dinner without prolonging the day's work beyond the hours agreed upon between herself and her employees.

When friends arrive unexpectedly, however, or when a dinner party or a big social function takes place in the home, an eight hour schedule may be the cause of great inconvenience, unless a previous agreement has been made to meet just such occasions. It is certain that some compensation is due to all domestic employees for the extra long hours of work caused by unusual events in the home life of their employers, and many ways have been devised already to remunerate them.

In modern social life a custom of long standing still exists which makes it almost compulsory for this remuneration to come out of the pocket, not of the hostess, but of her guests. The unfortunate custom of giving "tips" is not generally criticised very openly, but when viewed in the light of reason and justice, it seems to be a very poor way of trying to remove one of the present hards.h.i.+ps connected with domestic labor. Why should the housewife depend upon the generosity of her guests to help her pay her household employees? She never demurs at the extra expense entailed in giving luncheons and dinners in her friends' honor, nor in taking them to places of interest and amus.e.m.e.nt. Why then should she object to giving a little more money to her household employees upon whose work the success of her hospitality so largely depends?

There are many women who entertain extensively, but they never recompense a household employee for any extra work that may be demanded from her on that account. They consider themselves fully justified in exacting extra long hours of work because of the high wages they pay, especially as it frequently happens that while the work is more on some days, it is less on others, and they think in consequence that their employees have no cause for complaint.

It is a mistake, however, to think that an employee who is obliged to be on duty and has little or nothing to do on one day, is really compensated for the extra hours of work she has been compelled to give on other days. A saleswoman who on certain days has no customers or only a few, is just as much "on duty" as if her work filled all her time, and it is the same with a domestic employee. Indeed it is generally conceded to be more irksome to remain idle at one's post than to be actively engaged in work.

But on the other hand, there are many housewives who feel that they ought to give their employees more pay for extra work especially when it is connected with the entertaining of friends, and the following ways of rewarding them have been tried with more or less success.

One plan that gained favor with several families was to give ten cents to the cook and ten cents to the waitress every time a guest was invited to a meal: ten cents for each guest. At the end of a month the ten cent pieces had amounted to quite a sum of money.

Another plan that was tried in a small family was to give fifty cents to the cook and fifty cents to each of the two waitresses for every dinner party that took place, regardless of the number of guests. Still another plan was to give at the end of the month, a two dollar, five dollar, or ten dollar bill to an employee who had given many extra hours of satisfactory work to her employer.

All these plans are good in a certain sense, inasmuch as they show that women are awakening to the realization that some compensation is due to household employees for the extra long hours of work frequently unavoidable in family life. But unfortunately these plans lack stability, for they depend altogether upon the generosity and kindness of different employers, instead of upon a just and firmly established business principle.

And now comes the question: What method of payment for overtime will produce a permanently satisfactory result?

The only one that appears just and is applicable to all cases is to pay each employee one and a half times as much per hour for extra work as for regular work. In this way each employee is paid for overtime in just proportion to the value of her regular services. For instance, when a household employee receives $20, $30, or $40 per month, that is to say $5, $7.50, or $10 per week, for working eight hours a day and six days a week, she is receiving approximately 10, 15, or 20 cents per hour for her regular work. By giving her one and one half times as much for extra work, she ought to receive 15, 22-1/2, or 30 cents per hour for every hour she works for her employer after the completion of her regular eight hours' work.

This plan has never failed to bring satisfaction, and it has the advantage of placing the employer and the employee on an equally delightful footing of independence. The performance of extra work is no longer regarded as a matter of obligation on one side, and of concession on the other, but as a purely business transaction.

Some housewives fear that the regular work would be intentionally prolonged beyond all measure if it became an established rule to pay extra for work performed overtime. This could be easily checked, however, by paying extra only for work that was necessitated by unusual events in the family life.

In families where only one employee is kept, naturally the occasions for asking her to work overtime arise more frequently than in families where there are two or more employees, especially if there be small children in the family. Yet these occasions need not come very often, if the housewife bears in mind that even with only one employee, she has eight hours every day at her own disposal; she ought to plan her outside engagements accordingly. Her liberty from household cares during these eight hours can only be gained though by having efficient and trustworthy a.s.sistants in her home, and she can never obtain these unless she abandons her old fas.h.i.+oned methods of housekeeping. She must grant to household employees the same rights and privileges given to business employees; she must apply business principles to housework.

A great power lies in the hands of the modern housewife, a power as yet only suspected by a few, which, if properly wielded, can raise housework from its present undignified position to the place it ought to occupy, and that is in the foremost rank of manual labor for women.

PART III

EIGHT HOUR SCHEDULES IN THE HOME

Eight hour schedules for one employee.

Eight hour schedules for two employees.

Eight hour schedules for three employees.

EIGHT HOUR SCHEDULES FOR ONE EMPLOYEE

The schedules given in the following pages have been in actual practice for a sufficient length of time to prove that they can be relied on to produce satisfactory results, although no doubt many housewives will find that some of them must be modified to meet special requirements in their homes.

Two very important points must always be borne in mind in order to obtain the greatest advantage from an eight hour schedule, especially in families where only one employee is engaged to do the housework.

The first point is this: the housewife ought only to make her working schedule _after_ she has carefully studied her own comfort and convenience in regard to the hours she considers the most important of the day for her to have help in her housework.

The second point is for the housewife to reserve for herself the entire freedom of the eight hours during which her employee is on duty, for then she can place, or she ought to be able to, the full responsibility of the housekeeping upon her employee.

By adhering strictly to these two points, the housewife will soon perceive that she can dispense with the services of her employee for the remaining hours of the day without much inconvenience to herself or her family. She may even find it more pleasant than otherwise to be relieved from the sight and sound of household work, for at least a few hours a day, when she is in her own home.

Possibly the housewife who has but one employee will not accept with alacrity the proposition of allowing her to be off duty for an entire day once a week, for unless she be willing to do the necessary work herself on that day, she must engage a special person to take the place of her regular employee. But many families engage a woman to come once a week to help with the was.h.i.+ng and house-cleaning, especially when they have only one household employee. If this woman came on the day the regular employee was away, she could relieve the housewife of all the housework that could not be postponed until the next day.

SCHEDULE NO. I

When only one employee is engaged in a private home, her services are needed more at meal time than at any other time of the day, especially if small children are in the family. As the hours for the three princ.i.p.al meals are about the same everywhere, the following schedule is a very useful one.

From 7 A.M. to 10 A.M. 3 hours From 12 M. to 3 P.M. 3 hours From 6 P.M. to 8 P.M. 2 hours ------- 8 hours

In the morning from seven to ten o'clock, the employee had ample time to prepare and serve breakfast and wash up the dishes afterwards, and do the chamberwork. The three hours from noon until three o'clock were filled with duties that varied considerably each day. Luncheon was served at one o'clock; it was but a light meal easy to cook and easy to serve, therefore the time from two to three o'clock was usually devoted to ironing, or mending, or cleaning silver, or polis.h.i.+ng bra.s.ses, or preparing some of the dishes in advance either for dinner that evening or for luncheon the next day. Two hours were sufficient to cook and serve dinner and wash up the dishes afterwards. A woman came once a week, on the day the employee was off duty, to do the family was.h.i.+ng and a.s.sist with the general housework. She also did some of the ironing; the rest of the ironing was done the next day by the regular employee.

This schedule has been tested, not merely once for a few months, but several times, and not with the same employee, but with different employees, and it has always been most satisfactory.

It may seem doubtful to those who have never had their housework done on schedule time that the work can be completed in the time stated, but the greatest incentive that an employee can have to work quickly and well, is to know that her position is as good as any she can find elsewhere, and that when her work is over she is free to do exactly as she pleases with the remainder of her time.

SCHEDULE NO. II

The following schedule is very different from the preceding one, inasmuch as the housewife did not consider it necessary for her employee to be on duty in the middle of the day. There were no children in this family and as the housewife was alone in the day time, she very frequently went out for luncheon. She concluded therefore that it was the best time of the day for her to dispense with the services of her employee, whose working hours were arranged thus:

From 7:30 A.M. to 11:30 A.M. 4 hours From 4:30 P.M. to 8:30 P.M. 4 hours ------- 8 hours

By half past eleven in the morning, all the usual housework was finished, and the employee went home; she returned at half past four in the afternoon, in time to attend to five o'clock tea and dinner. Once a week, on alternate Sat.u.r.days and Sundays, she had a "day of rest." On these days the housewife got breakfast ready herself, after which she did as much or as little of the regular work as she chose. It is not difficult to reduce housework to a minimum on special occasions. The family, which was a small one, consisting of three adults, usually went out to dinner on these alternate Sat.u.r.days and Sundays.

SCHEDULE NO. III

In this schedule, the employee's work is divided into two periods, with one hour for rest between. The family consisted of a man and his wife, who lived in an apartment. The hours of work were as follows:

From 12 M. to 3 P.M. 3 hours From 4 P.M. to 9 P.M. 5 hours ------- 8 hours

The housewife was very fond of entertaining, and she chose an employee who was an excellent cook and a very good waitress. In consequence she was able to place the entire responsibility of luncheons and dinners on her, and on days when no guests were present all the house-cleaning was done. As the employee did not report on duty before noon, the housewife was obliged to get breakfast herself. However this was a very simple matter, for her employee always set the table for breakfast the night before. The next morning it was very easy for the housewife, with the aid of an electric heater on the breakfast table, to heat the cereal, boil the water for the coffee, and broil the bacon or scramble the eggs, or indeed to prepare any of the usual breakfast dishes.

The employee did all the was.h.i.+ng, ironing and mending each week, and although she came to her work only at noon, she accomplished as much work during her eight hours as if she began earlier in the day.