I share a love-hate relationship with my nanny/cook/housekeeper person. She's very affectionate to the children, very clean (treasured qualities in India!) and has been with us for 2 years now. But she frequently irritates the heck out of me because of her bossiness. Because of her all-in-one position she assumes she can get away with rebuking the maid, the gardener and others; and with giving me copious amounts of advice - on how to cook, keep house, drive the car, you name it - she has advice for it.
At first I thought she did this with just me. But when I saw her doling out advice to my dragon of an elderly neighbour and sundry others, I knew she's the type - you know, the expert-in-everything person who has managed to pack in 500 person-years of of life in 50 odd years? Nowadays, I just turn a deaf year to her strident tones ("Madam, please watch out for the auto before you take a U", "Madam, the seetaphal you got is no good. Let me get good ones tomorrow", and on and on and on...).
But today when she overrode my instructions to the maidservant and gave her own "expert" instructions, I just snapped. I yelled at her good, and she's sulking.
It is good to put people in their designated places once in a while - not too often, just often enough so that they know who's boss!
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