This thread is so funny. It's now obvious why so many of you fit in so well here in the DR.
You can't realistically expect someone who has never had something to know how to use it properly. I have kids and in NA, my kids did all the same things you all are complaining about. A mouthful of milk left in the open carton so it must be time to open another - two side by side in the fridge. Half consumed can of something left on the counter, grocery day, all the good stuff is sampled one after another before dinner. It became necessary to create the rule, "don't take the last of something without asking."
I don't know how many times I came across someone tightening a screw with a butter knife instead of a screwdriver of which I have over 100 in various sizes and configurations. How many times someone took something and when finished didn't put it back where it belonged? I could never find anything as it was never where I left it.
I don't live with any Dominicans full time. In fact I don't have any Dominicans living with me at all. Yet, I can't possibly expect locals working in and around my house to know how things they have never seen before work or even in some cases what these things do. My maid is pretty good, but she won't generally ask how something works. She would happily use the hand held vacuum until the battery was dead and then leave it without plugging it in to recharge. Once I showed her where to plug the cord into, she can now recharge the device herself. The maid has her own cupboard where she can keep the materials she needs to do her job. I've told her that putting empty bottles back in the cupboard is a good way to ensure that I don't buy more. She now leaves them on the kitchen counter where I will see them and add them to the shopping list.
Practically, the majority of the problems rests with us. We invited these people into our homes, a place many of these people will never be able to afford. Surrounded by stuff they have never seen and again will never be able to afford. Stuff they do not know how to use and probably can't figure out what it is used for. It is our fault for expecting the impossible.
Of course my maid saw nothing wrong with spraying the vented top of my $1000 Harman Kardin receiver with liberal amounts of Lysol before she dusted it. She had absolutely no idea what this box was, or that liquid, electricity and circuity don't mix. Of course she needed instruction on how to use my Kuhn Rikon side opening can opener. I assume that at her house she doesn't use fabric softener as in the beginning, anyone downwind of me knew I was coming minutes before I arrived. Showing her how to half fill the bottle cap prevented a 1/2 litre of the stuff being used per load. Accidents happen. Now that she knows I won't shoot her if something gets broken, she comes and tells when when this happens rather than trying to reassemble the item and place it back hoping g that no one will notice.
Both the maid and the gardener are supplied by the management company. They are not paid well, they are not university graduates and at least in the case of the gardener, they don't last long. Every new gardener spends the first 30 minutes standing in my shed looking in wonder at the various tools. It must be like Disney World to them. These guys are used to a machete, a file to sharpen said machete, a leaf rake, maybe a shovel if they are lucky and some hedge clippers. They don't know the difference between a shove and a spade, a leaf rake and a grass rake, a ball-peen hammer and a claw hammer of various sizes and weights. Most try for an hour to figure out how to start my non-mechanized multi blade reel push mower - there is no motor, just push it.
Don't get me started on engines - whadda ya mean it needs oil, ?nicamente gasolina, no?
Yes, my kids drove me nuts. So does my wife from time to time. It was always my fault. I failed to teach, I failed to test and I failed to reinforce. It is exactly the same here in the DR as it was at home. If I hand someone 4 different types of cloths, 6 different cleaning solutions, 3 types of brooms, two different types of mops and a partridge in a pear tree, then turn around to drink beer the whole time they are here without instruction, I should not be surprised to find that the partridge is dead from being dunked in ammonia and then used to dust the Rembrandt.
One of my gardeners was 5 feet nothing tall. I had gorgeous hibiscus hedges on all four sides of my property - 8 feet tall, affording great privacy. I left to go to the store, had a beer then came home to find that the hedge on two sides of my property was now five feet tall and the third side was well on its way to joining the previous two. It never occurred to me to show the guy how to take the ladder off the wall in the shed and more importantly to tell the guy that I like the current height of the hedge.
Whether we are talking about family members, domestic help or strangers borrowing stuff, you cannot assume that they know what they are doing, know what you expect them to do and how to do it. If you leave it up to them to decide, you get exactly what you deserve. If you fail to explain your expectations and the rules (be it opening another carton of milk before the old one is completely empty, using too much fabric softener or inappropriate tool section, use and care) you have no one to blame but yourself.
As important as teaching, is supervising and following up (checking) with feedback. If the maid fails to sweep under the bed week after week and you say nothing their actions will not magically change. If you do speak up and then don't check for the next three weeks of course it will not get done. If you ask your wife to make some gravy for the fire tire chicken you are bringing home and she is not an experienced cook with previous gravy experience you should not be surprised when what you get is not what you expected. The moral of the story is you need to teach, explain, supervise, correct and then lose your marbles and punish when appropriate. If you do all these things for about six months, then you can take a six pack to the terrace most days and let people get on with their jobs, spot checking here and there to see if remediation is required.
With family, if you're kids (Dominican teenagers or not) don't do what you have told them to, then there needs to be consequences. At least here in the DR there is no children's aid society breathing down your neck when you send a child off to bed without supper for failing to meet the expected standard. Can't put a tool back where it belongs or can't be bothered to ask what the appropriate tool is for the job if not sure, then you don't get to use tools anymore. I don't care if you forgot the combination to your bicycle lock - you shouldn't have used my wood saw to try and cut it off leaving the saw and all its teeth on the lawn for me to trip over when taking out the garbage, which by the way is your job. No more freaking tools and no more bicycle, "Go take out the garbage!" I don't care that it's not garbage day, you need the practice!
We have to make allowances for our wives as they sometimes have to do for us - but I swear if she asks me one more time which button to press on the remote to turn on the boxee box (which only has three buttons to choose from) I'm going to throw it in the pool and then the answer to the question will be really easy to remember. That's called a consequence, probably not a very appropriate one but it will provide for a memorable teaching moment that won't soon be forgotten, like the answer to the same question I have provided 100's of times over the past five years.
One final story. A gardener was cutting the grass with a gas powered mower. He had his ipod on and didn't have a care in the world. He was probably stoned too. I had this three and half foot tall welded iron stork sitting in plain sight among the bushes surrounding my pool. This bozo, not watching what he was doing and where he was going ran over it with the mower - statue and mower blade pieces everywhere and one dead mower. I of course heard the crunching and upon investigating found him standing there trying to figure which piece of metal belonged to the mower and which to the statue. I fired him on the spot. That level of incompetence, in attention and stupidity may be addressable, but not by me. Sometimes, it's better to cut your losses and start again. I wanted to do this with my kids on many occasions, but was never able to find anyone who would take them. So I continued to teach them, supervise them and reinforce with them. Employees are much easier to make go away than family.
In the end, if annoying behaviours in and around the home continue, it's because you are not being successful in changing those behaviours. Change your approach. Anyone can learn. Some take longer than others. If there is no evidence of an effort being made or you get the feeling you are being ignored, it's ok to show your displeasure and throw that person in the pool and then refuse to pay for the next hairdressing appointment. That's what certainty of consequences is all about. Caveat: Make sure your wife/family member can swim, otherwise it may be construed as attempted murder and that's not good.
Just like when teaching a puppy not to pee on the furniture, if you allow the errant behaviour to continue, you have no one to blame but yourself when it does continue. Me pulling up on the a riding mower to tell the gardener that he missed a spot when he is 6 hours into mowing my large property with the push mower reinforces the need to check the fluid levels before starting it and not to drive the John Deere over the rock garden on the way to the back 40.
No one likes to be constantly watched when they work and I don't like having to do that, but I must make the effort if I expect to change the result. We watch our kids brush their teeth when we are teaching them how to do that. Thereafter occasionally we check to make sure they are still doing it properly. Why should we expect anything different in other domestic situations?
