Helper stained husband's shirts :(((

J

joyofliving

Registered User
My Helper has stained 2 of my husband's shirts while ironing. Its some sort of oil/ grease stain and no my husband does not work as a mechanic or on a oil rig. One was last week and one today, I asked her if she had her eyes closed while she was ironing as she would have seen the shirt was getting stained and should have stopped and called me. My husband has a few favourite clothes and not like a 100 shirts, thats the way he is. What do I do deduct money? This is not the first time she has been careless. So pissed at her right now.
 
how did she manage to get oil stains on the shirt simply by ironing them? that is impossible!

a couple of possibilities:
1) hubby dropped something on his shirt while eating
2) there is a major problem with your iron

either way, not her fault.
what was her response when you asked her what happened? did you ask her nicely or were you aggressive? (from your post, it seems you were angry before she even got a chance to explain herself).
 
ps> not meant nastily. i jsut spent 15 minutes yelling at the bank manager in sai kung! (8 years later, they still have me as a signatory on a company i no longer own!.... seems a little beyond negligence on their part! can you imagine, i could go in there, withdraw all money in said accounts and walk away!)
 
Is it possible it is the washing machine motor? I've had that before. Took me ages to figure out where the stains were coming from.
 
The stains are on the back (The part that gets tucked in the trousers) and on the arms so could not have been he dropped something on them. They don't look like food stains and they are huge. If there was something wrong with the washing machine other clothes would be stained as well but they are not. Iron, maybe there is a problem but when she was ironing she should have been looking down, one shirt I did not get angry but then I cleaned the iron next day and then she put another stain today. Any opinions??
 
i just can't figure out how the iron would make a stain? i'm not saying that you're lying, just genuinely curious how it happened.

i CAN understand yoru frustration if this has happened more than once.
 
i understand your frustration, if you really want to deduct from her salary, the most is $300...i personally haven't done it before, but it is possible. do the 2 stains look similar? perhaps it has something to do with your iron - is it old? i had a shirt that had been washed numerous times, and then all of a sudden one day it the part of the white shirt was bleached light blue....like you say - don't they look down when they are ironing? guess not...i wouldn't have asked for an apology, but something to the extent like "hey it turned blue, but i'm not sure how" would have been nice - it was when i was planning to wear it that I found the surprise!
 
Yup my husband wore it one morning and found out the stain, she has to be blind not to see it while ironing. Even if the iron is faulty she would have seen it 100% instead she said its the detergent, well I've been using the same detergent for 3+ years and how none of the other clothes are stained. The stains are similar.
 
Do you use a fabric softner? It IS possible for fabric softener to leave grease-like spots on clothing if it comes into direct contact with the clothes and isn't diluted properly. We've had this problem here using concentrated fabric softners from the US - the disbursement mechanism in washing machines is different here and its easy to use too much. its pretty hard to see the spots while the fabric is wet, but obvious once it is dry.
 
this is very frustrating for you! i suggest you:
1) supervise your helper doing a load of wash
2) on her day off do a load yourself and iron ONE shirt, just to narrow down possibilities of what it could be.

i wouldn't deduct the money from her salary. it is unlikely your dh is doing this on purpose, and in any office i have ever worked in, no employee was asked to replace an item they broke, whether they were printers, computer parts or highlighters ruined because the caps were left off.

this is very irritating.
 
I agree, very frustrating. But I also wouldn't deduct $ off her salary especially since you cannot 100% rule out another cause. My helper ironed one of my silky tops too hot and melted a hole in it. I was annoyed but did not deduct $ as it was a one off and, to be honest, I could have easily done the same thing by accidentally having the iron on too hot. She now uses a hankerchief for delicate ironing and no further issues so far.
 
Likewise, I wouldn't deduct money - you don't know if it was done through carelessness or was an unavoidable accident or had nothing to do with your helper (eg, leaky iron or problem with washing machine).

Tell your helper your husband is very cross about the shirts (not you - you're the good guy!) and suggest your helper could try to find out the cause and just be really careful when doing the laundry. Stress that you don't know what happened and suggest your helper try to find out what the problem is. Give her some responsibility.

At the end of the day, we are lucky to have helpers - we don't pay them the wages of household staff in London or New York. They haven't been to 'butler school' or 'housekeeping school' or 'nanny school'. They are simply human and we all make mistakes. If a couple of ruined shirts are your biggest problem, I think you're pretty lucky. Yes, it's annoying - but it's nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Remember - don't sweat the small stuff!!!

;-)
 
Does your husband have a new belt? Sometimes a new belt can leave stains on clothing - especially if there is dye on the belt that has not sealed properly. (Just a though given that the stains are somewhat in the same place?)

I don't think it is reasonable to deduct money - imagine how we would feel about being financially penalised for a mistake where we simply did not kow where the problem had come from......??
 
I will not deduct from her salary of course but just that I need to put across to her that money does not grow on trees. She needs to feel the pinch too every time something gets broken or spoilt due to her carelessness. The problem has come from ironing for sure and she should have been watching while ironing the second time around after I told her to. None of the other clothes have stains so they could not have come from washing machine, detergent or fabric softner. She washes all the clothes, folds them and irons them and hangs in my husband's closet.
 
Is she looking after children while ironing? This may be the reason why she is not concentrating on the clothing.
 
Hi
realise this post is old.
I think the reason helpers never tell you if they break something/do something wrong (like stain /bleach a piece of clothing) is because they are afraid of the consequences.
Employers who deduct salaries etc - its not suprising, is it (on the amount of salary they get)

Lets face it, their whole monthly salary will buy only about 10 shirts, if they are not expensive shirts.


I insisted on my helper telling me if something was not working, broken, spoilt etc and explained I just prefer to know.
Now she is telling me more.:agree:
 
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