Hang the minions!

Some years ago, most newspaper offices in this city declared themselves to be peon-less. While that in itself was a brilliant idea, since people should really learn to do things for themselves, aspects of functioning like deliver of books for review, pick-ups of photographs for printing, etc etc etc were left rather hanging in the air with all those concerned spending more time worrying about the logistics than actually getting any work done. This was, you must remember, before the days of courier services and inter-office deliver systems, high-capacity email and such like. And while a lot of people – especially the old school types – were fairly unhappy with this situation, setting up their own private arrangements with the ‘assistants’ (as they were called, since they were available only to the top layer of management in any branch of any media company by then) to fetch and carry, all at a small fee and undiluted bonhomie.
But India is known for its system of minions. However ‘western’ an establishment may be, under the circumstances of climate and just sheer existence, it is the norm in this country to hire people to do a lot of the ordinary, run-of-the-mill routine work that ranges from cleaning the house and its accoutrements to driving the car to doing the cooking to fetching, carrying, polishing, filing, painting, ad infinitum. In the West, too, this is becoming popular, apart from just among the local Indian population – many of the Indian friends I have in the United States, for instance, tend to hire ‘help’ at least once a week to do everything from washing the patio furniture to doing the laundry. Very white American friends and relatives have now started doing the same thing, finding the ‘help’ so useful, almost vital, that they do almost anything to keep the person – very often of Hispanic origin and sometimes of rather uncertain immigration status – happy and working on.
Over the past few months, I have had problems more than joys with my own domestic help. Of course, much of it is probably my own fault, since I do not know how to treat the ‘minions’ and tend to overdo my niceness and accommodation to suit their needs rather than my own. There is no patronage involved, just basic ineptness, my friends who do it better tell me. When I give too much, they take more and then I get into the bind of not wanting to give more, but being pushed into giving more than I am willing to by inertia rather than a spirit of generous compromise. Everyone shouts at me about it, but I never learn to fix this particular mistake that I keep making. And I get into more trouble than the service I get is worth. This time was no exception.
It started with driver problems, as it always does. The young man who chauffeurs me around – I am very comfortable with the service, even though I hate the idea, I have to say – demanded more money. He was due for a raise soon anyway and he would have got it, no questions really asked…or not too many. But he went a tad too far in his demands and compounded his felony by taking a day off when he was really needed, without permission from the people who paid him: Father and me. When he was confronted, he cited a prior appointment. It did not wash. He was in deeper trouble than he needed. Now his job with us is debateable. We are still debating it.
The same sort of thing happened with the maid. Young, aspiring and very ambitious, she worked with us more because she got my clothes and make-up rather than because she was making good money – she has another full time job for that. But after a couple of months of slacking, when I finally lost my almost-infinite patience and got rather more firm than I had previously been, she left us. Well, not as gracefully as that sounds, actually. She just never turned up. So, after a few days of fuming and tiptoeing around the house to avoid disturbing too much of the dust that was fast accumulating, we managed to find another maid, an older lady, one who had previously been with us for many years. The girl turned up for her money on the scheduled date, and found a very cold reception indeed. She had pushed her luck a little too far and hit a wall. And she knows now not to try it again if she is ever allowed into our house.
The same thing happens with more close and meaningful human relationships. Sometimes you allow it to go further than you are happy with just because the other person is in some way important to you. Until they hit the aforementioned wall. Then it is all up to everyone’s power of negotiation and compromise.