About a year ago, I moved into my boyfriend’s house in a new city. I’m renting out my old house for income as I look for work. I pay my partner $100 each month to cover my utility expenses. He pays his cleaning person $160 a month to clean the house twice a month. I am not convinced that the house gets cleaned well, and I have plenty of free time anyway. I offered to clean the house in lieu of the money I pay him, which would save him $60 and me $100. He refuses, claiming that it would be as if he were paying me to clean the house. Would that be so wrong? NAME WITHHELD, SANTA FE
It’s not wrong. It’s a shrewd request on your behalf. But I think you’re overlooking the real reason your boyfriend doesn’t want to do this: It would make him feel uncomfortable in his own home. It’s strange to pay someone you’re romantically involved with to do work for you, even if the compensation is somewhat indirect. Furthermore, giving you this responsibility would place him in an awkward position should you end up doing a subpar job — he can fire a cleaning person, but he can’t fire his girlfriend.
This is an ethics column, so — ethically — I’m on your side. But ethics can’t be the only consideration in a dispute that combines the personal with the professional. This really has nothing to do with morality. Your boyfriend simply doesn’t want to add an unnecessary power dynamic to your relationship.
MOWING UNDER THE INFLUENCE
I’ve been using the same landscaper for a few years now. On a recent morning, he and I happened to be at the gas station at the same time. He was filling up one of his trucks. As he started the engine, I noticed that he had a Breathalyzer device attached to the ignition — similar to the kind issued to individuals who have been convicted of D.W.I. I am starting to have concerns about my safety and my property. Should I ask the landscaper about this? Is it grounds enough to dismiss him? NAME WITHHELD, WHITE PLAINS
First of all, I have no idea why you think a D.W.I. arrest would make this person unfit to tend to your garden. Are you afraid he will get loaded and overprune the petunias? Second, he seems to have the Breathalyzer device attached to the same vehicle he uses for work, so he can’t even show up unless he’s legally sober (I suppose he could theoretically bring a six-pack in his lunchbox and get drunk while he worked — but then he wouldn’t be able to start the truck and drive home). If you want to ask him about his arrest record, that is your right as a person. And if you both had signed a contract when he was hired, and its language included some kind of morality clause, you would be legally justified in firing him. But I see no reason that you would fire a man you’ve employed “for a few years” over a crime that has no relationship to what you’ve hired him to do and only surfaced because you were peeping inside the cab of his vehicle.