Civility

I hired a woman to clean my house a couple of times per month.  I’ve been budgeting for this luxury for about the last 12 years or so.   Having grown up dirt-ass poor, this is something I don’t take lightly and is one of the reasons I work as hard as I do.  

I have been very fortunate that I have found really good, trustworthy, people to do this.  After all, these are people who get unrestricted access to my home.  I prefer to hire individuals as opposed to big cleaning companies (like Merry Maids or the like).  They are still licensed and insured, but you can really get to know the person providing the service since they are the only one who comes in.  After a time, they have all become part of my life.  The woman I hired here in Northern Virginia, Mirna, is no different.   She is wonderful, sweet, efficient, and I trust her completely in my home when I’m not there. 

Today we were talking about her schedule and making a few adjustments, and I pretty much told her that I didn't have a set preference for which days she comes by.  She knows how often I want her to come, and all I asked was that she send me a text the day before so I can leave her a check.   She was, what I thought, to be oddly grateful for the freedom to run her own schedule.  Then she thanked me for my “civility”.  I wish I could tell you that I was shocked.  But sadly, I wasn’t.  I just felt badly for her.

I have always been appalled by people who lack civility.  You know the type…it’s the person who can’t even manage to eek out a smile to the person taking the toll on the Turnpike.   My father’s last girlfriend was like that.  She would never say so much as a “thank you” to the waiter/waitress who refilled her water, or a simple “hello” the cashier at Target, even when one was initiated by them.  It used to make me nuts.  I would end up saying it for her.  A waitress would fill up her water glass and she would just give them an exasperated look.  I would say to the waitress “What she meant to say was, THANK YOU”.  For those who know me, I’m sure they are able to hear my tone.

My mother was a wonderful woman who imparted a very simple rule addressing this very thing.  She would say “Ilisa, a person who is nice to you but not nice to the waitress is not a nice person”.  She was so right.

I wish I could go to my wonderful Mirna’s other clients and tell them that they should be ashamed of themselves.   Tell them that their momma’s obviously didn't raise them right.  But I can’t.  It probably wouldn’t do any good anyway.   Still…shame on them.