Where's My Towel?

When you stay in a hotel, the carts come around each day with the clean linen. The staff go into the rooms, one by one, collect the sheets, towels etc, drop them in the bin on the cart and then put the fresh ones out.

In most hotels in my experience, the people who do these jobs are female.

The system works well.

But, I have to ask myself, why is it that when a man is living with a woman, and the woman takes it on herself to deal with the linen changes, the old is taken away but not at the same time replaced with the new.

So the bloke comes out of the shower to discover there is no towel in the bathroom.

He should have checked first? Don't be silly. That would mean, for a bloke, him checking each and every single time. You can't expect a bloke to know what else is going on at the same time.

Of course the difference could be that the people working in the hotels are employed. The woman in the relationship is not. She is her own boss and as such is perfectly entitled to do the self-appointed, albeit unpaid, task her own way in her own time. Fair enough.

Aha! So while employed, the staff are acting under the instructions from someone else - the manager, the boss, the hotel standard protocol.

In my experience, the usual workplace gender imbalance applies and the jobs of this sort are mostly filled by men.

So, guys, if you have a problem with this the answer is simple.

Get yourself a paid housekeeper. This has several advantages:

• You will always have fresh towels, tea-towels, pillow cases, sheets, etc as and when you need them
• Your partner will not have to do that work and have more free time for herself
• You have created employment
• The employee's pay will be spent on things and benefit the economy

You have the chance to turn a whining complaint into a benefit for all.

Oh, one more thing. Keep your relationship with your employee professional only.