Bank Holidays

[Bruce Wallis]

Just a small niggle........

Many of us employ maids on a fulltime basis, and pay them for doing very little during the blank winter months.
Yet we come over during a Bank Holiday, and they insist on their right to take the Bank Holiday off.

In the UK service industries there is a recognition that many of us need to work bank holidays, maybe taking alternate days off in lieu.

Has this philosophy not reached Portugal?

[Stevie-C]

Bruce, I don't know the situation with maid sevices in Portugal but I am guessing that for you to keep a good maid you have to pay them for bank holidays and retain them over the winter, correct? So, if you are paying them for doing very little over the winter because they are good then letting them have the bank holidays is no big deal. If your maid is not that good let her go for the winter then re-employ her or reduce her hours according to the bank holidays she wants to take off. I don't know if that is acceptable practice or if it is easy to get any kind of maid so maybe your just stuck with what you have. And, you are right, working bank holidays in the UK is no big deal especially as the weather is likely to be rubbish anyway. It would be great to have all bank holidays in CVO.

Have A Nice Day

[Bruce Wallis]

No, I guess what I am saying is that you, should be able to expect a little bit of qid-pro-quo, when you look after them very well, but happen to go out over a Portuguese Bank Holiday.

Had the Bank Holiday been a religious one, then I would have respected that. The one in question celebrated the booting out of Salazar. (maybe some see that as being a religious thing!!)

It wasnt a case of the maid being lazy or ungrateful for the way we treat her, far from it. It was more a cultural thing. I would have been happy for her to take the entire next week off in return, for 2 hours work. No problem, but when I suggested it, it was almost as if I had suggested a heracy!

I didn't make an issue of it with her