Helper stained husband's shirts :(((

[joyofliving]

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.

 

[carang]

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).

 

[carang]

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!)

 

[Flack]

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.

 

[joyofliving]

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??

 

[carang]

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.

 

[lesliefu]

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!

 

[joyofliving]

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.

 

[elle]

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.

 

[Seb's Dad]

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.