Dear Mary…
Q. My wife and I are actors, and therefore we are at home most of the day. We have a Brazilian cleaning man who comes for three hours at a time three days a week. Our problem is that for a full half-hour of each of these sessions he occupies the downstairs loo. Since we are paying him £10 an hour, we feel it’s a bit off to have to pay £5 for him to stink the house out. Can you tell us: 1) is it a Brazilian custom to go to the loo for half an hour at a time? 2) how we can tactfully tell him that we would appreciate his doing his business in his own home before coming to us?
Name withheld, London NW1
A. I am no expert on the time-and-motion (so to speak) query that you raise with regard to the Brazilian race in general. However, it is a mistake to ask dailies to come in for more than two hours at a time. All dailies assume an entitlement of a 30-minute tea break for every three hours worked. Perhaps you don’t offer this refreshment, and the daily is sulkily taking his break anyway? Change his hours to four days a week at two hours at a time, and the problem will resolve itself.
Q. I wonder if you can help. I have been summoned to attend a general diocesan synod meeting. These gatherings of more than 800 clergy and laity are dull in the extreme. Such issues as ‘The report of the Strategic Planning Task team on human relations’ and ‘The official policy on fairness, simplicity and transparency within the Cape Town diocese’ will all be featured.
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