Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework written by C. Helene Barker
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C. Helene Barker >> Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework
This schedule makes the mother stay home after half past three,
but by that time all the real housework had been done by her employee.
To give the children their supper and to put them to bed leisurely, was
much easier work than to rise early and dress them hurriedly in the
morning, and to get breakfast ready for the entire family. It was not
much trouble to get dinner herself in the evening for her husband and
herself only. The house was quiet, the children asleep, and there was
no necessity of hurrying as in the morning. When she wished to give a
dinner party, or to receive her friends, or to go to any entertainment
in the afternoon after 3:30, she asked her employee to give her extra
hours of work for which she paid extra. Once a week her employee had a
"day of rest," and on this day another woman was engaged to take her
place.
This schedule enabled the mother to have many hours each day absolutely
free from the children and household cares.
EIGHT HOUR SCHEDULES FOR TWO EMPLOYEES
It is much easier to plan an eight hour schedule for two employees than
for one, and there is no limit to the number of different ways in which
the sixteen hours of work may be divided, subdivided, and arranged to
please the individual housewife. With two employees, it is no longer
necessary for the housewife to remain at home while one is off duty,
even for an hour, for one relieves the other without any cessation of
work. Even on the seventh day, "the day of rest," the housewife can
always arrange to have her work done without doing it herself, in spite
of the absence of one of her employees.
When a schedule is finally agreed upon, however, it must be rigidly
enforced, for it is more important to keep to the hours specified when
there are two employees than when there is only one. Although the
housewife may be tempted to claim the privilege of changing her hours
very often to please herself, since she is the employer, if she value
her peace of mind, she will refrain from doing it. Only when the
inevitable, the unforeseen, occurs should she make a change in her
regular schedule. When one employee is off duty all day, the other
employee can remain on duty the entire day; naturally this plan
necessitates more than eight hours of work on that day, probably two
or three more hours, but if on the day after or the day before, the
employee be allowed to work two or three hours less than eight hours,
the average of eight hours a day and six days a week is maintained.
Another example of what the housewife can do when one of her employees
is off duty the entire day, is to make her other employee follow
schedule No. 1. This enables her to keep to eight hours a day and at the
same time the housewife does none of the housework herself.
SCHEDULE NO. V
With two employees it is a wise plan to arrange a schedule that makes
the work of one employee commence the moment the work of the other
ceases. This tends to promote punctuality without requiring special
supervision on the part of the housewife.
The following schedule is admirably adapted to the every day life of the
average family with two employees:
_First Employee_
From 7 A.M. to 11 A.M. 4 hours
From 12 M. to 4 P.M. 4 hours
-------
8 hours
_Second Employee_
From 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. 4 hours
From 4 P.M. to 8 P.M. 4 hours
-------
8 hours
All the washing, ironing, and mending of the family were done by the
two employees, and they also took care of the children when necessary.
Besides being good cooks, they were both excellent waitresses; in
consequence it made no difference which one was on duty at meal time.
One employee only was in charge of breakfast; she came at seven o'clock
in the morning, and worked steadily until eleven o'clock, when the
second employee arrived. She then went out for her lunch, returning at
twelve, and remaining on duty until four o'clock in the afternoon. She
was then free for the remainder of the day.
The second employee, as soon as she arrived at 11 A.M., went through
the house and finished any work that was not completed by the first
employee. She worked without stopping until 3 P.M., then went away for
her lunch; she returned at 4 P.M. to relieve the first employee whose
work was over at four o'clock. The second employee remained on duty
until 8 P.M.; she cooked and served dinner so quickly and efficiently
that the housewife who had always been accustomed to have two employees,
a "cook" and a "waitress," on duty for dinner every night, found to
her great surprise that one efficient household employee, working on
schedule time, accomplished in the same time the work of two of her
former "servants."
SCHEDULE NO. VI
In this schedule the housewife wanted both her employees to help her
with her two children. With this end in view, she made all the work of
the house interchange with the care of the children; in consequence when
one employee was off duty, the other could always be relied on to help
with the children. This proved to be a very successful schedule, for it
relieved the mother from being obliged to sit in the nursery as she was
compelled to do every time her former "nurse" went downstairs to her
meals, or had her "afternoon off." But when the mother wished to be with
her children, and that was very often, the employee who was in the
nursery at the time, left the room immediately to attend to other
household duties.
Both employees were on duty at 7 A.M., a most necessary arrangement
where there are small children in a family. The first employee prepared
and served breakfast for the family, while the other employee took full
charge of the children, giving them their breakfast in the nursery, and
taking them out afterwards for a walk. At 10 A.M., she returned with the
children, and she was then off duty for two hours. The mother generally
chose this time to be with her children; if however, she had any other
engagement, the first employee was on duty until noon and could be
called upon to look after them.
_First Employee_
From 7 A.M. to 12 M. 5 hours
From 5 P.M. to 8 P.M. 3 hours
-------
8 hours
_Second Employee_
From 7 A.M. to 10 A.M. 3 hours
From 12 M. to 5 P.M. 5 hours
-------
8 hours
SCHEDULE NO. VII
There are many families who may object to all the preceding schedules
on account of the early hour in the evening for household employees
to be off duty. When the housewife has never had her housework done on
schedule time by an efficient employee, she may well think it impossible
to have the dinner dishes washed up and everything put away in order by
8 P.M. However some families do not begin dinner before half past seven,
or eight o'clock, or even later, but in these families, it is not
unusual for the breakfast hour to be very late also. In consequence
nothing is easier than to make a schedule for the day's work begin late
and end late, without making any other alteration in it.
The following schedule, however, combines an early breakfast and a late
dinner, in a family where only two employees were kept:
_First Employee_
From 7 A.M. to 12 M. 5 hours
From 5 P.M. to 8 P.M. 3 hours
-------
8 hours
_Second Employee_
From 12 M. to 5 P.M. 5 hours
From 7 P.M. to 10 P.M. 3 hours
(or from 8 to 11 P.M.)
-------
8 hours
EIGHT HOUR SCHEDULES FOR THREE EMPLOYEES
The greater the number of household employees, the easier it is to make
a satisfactory working schedule. But the temptation to specialize the
work is greater, and should be carefully guarded against. It is just as
necessary with three employees as with one for the housewife to insist
that each one be capable and willing to do all kinds of work in the
home, including sewing and taking care of children.
With three employees, the housewife ought to make them take turns in
cooking and serving one of the three meals each day. This enables them
to become familiar with the dining room and with the different dishes
for each course; it also removes any feeling of embarrassment which
naturally might be felt by an employee who is rarely called upon to cook
or serve a meal.
To have an expert needlewoman in the house is a great boon to the
housewife, and when she has three employees who can sew in her home, she
ought to insist upon a great deal of sewing and mending being done by
each one of them.
It is rare that the "servant" of to-day is a good sewer; in fact the
housewife would hesitate to ask her to do even the ordinary mending, but
when one engages household employees on an eight hour schedule, and when
there are a hundred women to choose from, it is not hard to find several
who sew well.
SCHEDULE NO. VIII
It is so easy to plan the housework for three employees that one
schedule as an example seems quite sufficient, and the only thing that
the housewife must remember is to make all the work interchangeable.
_First Employee_
From 7 A.M. to 11 A.M. 4 hours
From 12 M. to 4 P.M. 4 hours
-------
8 hours
_Second Employee_
From 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. 4 hours
From 4 P.M. to 8 P.M. 4 hours
-------
8 hours
_Third Employee_
From 2 P.M. to 5 P.M. 3 hours
From 6 P.M. to 11 P.M. 5 hours
-------
8 hours
CONCLUSION
In conclusion it seems that a few words are necessary about families who
need the services of an employee at night as well as in the day time.
There are many mothers who do not wish or who are not able to take
care of their children at night, and in consequence it is absolutely
necessary to have an attendant. The present custom is to have the nurse
or maid sleep in the same room as the baby, or in a room adjoining the
children's bedroom, so as to be within call. But a woman who has worked
all day, or even eight hours a day, should not have her sleep disturbed
at night by taking care of children. No woman can be fit for her work
the next day if she has not been able to secure the average amount of
sleep necessary to health.
In many cases it has been proved that when a child does not sleep
well at night, the nurse has taken upon herself the responsibility of
giving it "soothing syrup" so as to keep it quiet. This is hardly to be
wondered at when one considers the strain under which the nurse is kept
day and night by taking care of a small child; besides the average nurse
is generally ignorant of the harm caused by so-called "soothing syrups."
If a child be sick, the mother should call in a trained nurse, that
is if she can afford it, and when she has several employees, she can
usually afford this extra expense. If the child or children be well,
and the mother desires some one to attend to them at night, she should
engage a woman who has no occupation during the day and who is willing
to work at night. She should make a point of choosing one who sews well,
so that the services of a seamstress might be combined with the duties
of a night nurse. There is always some mending to do in all families and
a woman who is clever with her needle might make herself very useful to
her employer. Thousands of women sew by artificial light in dressmaking
establishments and factories; in all probability just as many women
could be found to sew by artificial light in private homes. Perhaps at
first the novelty of working at night might deter women from taking a
position similar to the one suggested above, but a woman who was really
in need of work would not let the unusual hours prevent her from
accepting it,
Many men work at night and it is not unlikely that many women would be
willing to do it too. Women are not as timid as they were reputed to
be in former years; they would neither scream nor faint nowadays at
the sight of a little mouse scampering across the floor. Indeed quite
recently the newspapers reported that a woman whose husband had just
died had accepted the position of a night watchman, and she filled her
new role so successfully that on one occasion she managed to seize a
burglar and handed him over to a policeman.
This proposition of engaging a woman to work at night is only a
suggestion, however, offered to those who find it absolutely necessary
to have a domestic employee in their house at night. It remains to be
proved if it could be carried out successfully.
But the great changes in housekeeping described in the preceding
chapters are not mere suggestions nor theories of what might be done:
each reform has already been put into actual practice. The result has
been so extraordinary that one is impelled to believe that the only way
to solve the Servant Problem is to apply business principles to
housework in private homes.
Naturally such a revolution from methods now in vogue can not be wrought
in a day, and the transitional period may be one of some difficulty and
confusion for employer and employee alike who have spent a large portion
of their lives under the old regime. But the revolution is imperative,
and the ultimate benefit beyond calculation.