An Irishman's Diary

A sign of the times, extracted from an ad in the current issue of Dublin's Northside People. "Housewife needed in Beaumont: an opportunity exists for a person to carry out domestic chores for busy professional family. 4 hours per week - on any day (10am - 2pm) Monday to Friday. Pay rate €15 an hour."

Fair enough, thus far. When a position pays twice the minimum wage, you're entitled to call it an "opportunity" rather than a measly "part-time job". So long as you leave it at that. But no. As if seeking a new chief executive for a State agency, the ad comes with sub-headings.

"The role. The role involves the following core duties: *ironing *hoovering * dusting *cleaning.

"Additional duties (extra hours) from time to time will include: child-minding; dropping/collecting child to/from school, dancing, etc

"The person + the skills. You will have a proactive approach in executing your duties to exacting standards. You will take pride in your work. Excellent ironing skills are essential. Attention to detail is essential. Reliability is essential. Flexibility is required. A friendly personality with good communications skills is desirable."

The item concludes by inviting nothing so common as "applications". Instead, prospective housewives are urged to "pursue your interest in this role" by e-mail or phone-call to the employer. This is a slight let-down, in fact. It comes as a disappointment to find that the family does not have a human resources department.

One of the striking things about the ad is the sliding scale of priorities in the last paragraph.

Ironing skills are non-negotiable. Flexibility, by contrast, is flexible. And as for a pleasant personality or being able to speak, well, those traits are clearly considered an optional extra in the sort of dynamic go-getter that the employers are targeting.

Then, of course, there is the requirement for the housewife to have a "proactive" approach. Not that there's any point complaining about this word which, annoying as it is, seems to be here to stay.

It used to be a staple in the game of "Jargon Bingo", along with other examples of management-speak including "empowerment", "going forward", "ducks in a row", "client-oriented", and "strategic fit". You could download the cards from the internet.

And the idea was that you brought them to a company meeting, ticked off the buzzwords as they occurred and, when you completed a line, shouted "Bingo!" (shortly before getting fired).

But "proactive" seems to have made it into the mainstream now, and we might as well get used to it. The question is: what does it mean? A traditional objection to the term was that it seemed an unnecessary addition to the word "active". Which, with a dictionary definition of "acting; in actual operation, given to action; brisk, busy; nimble; practical (opp. to speculative); effective; (of a volcano) liable to erupt; not extinct; (of bacteria, etc) potent; etc" seemed to be doing a perfectly good job already.

Defenders of the new word countered that, rather than being merely an enhanced version of "active", it was intended to be the opposite of "reactive". A proactive person does not wait for things to happen. S/he anticipates the facts and acts accordingly: an essential skill in an evermore competitive world.

All right. But let us consider this in the context of the advertised job's core activities: for example "dusting". How do you deal proactively with dust? Are you a failure as a housewife if you wait for it to settle on the mantelpiece before wiping it off? Should you attack while it's still in the air, catching the dust off-guard? Or should you act before it even forms?

Ironing presents an even bigger challenge. The only obvious opportunity for being proactive here is the bit where you plug the iron in (what management experts call "empowerment") beforehand. Then you can practice your skills "going forward" (and "backward", and "in and out around the buttons").

On the other hand, a truly proactive approach to ironing might be to throw out all your employers' shirts and replace them with ones made from wrinkle-free materials (making sure, of course, that the new garments are a "strategic fit").

Unfortunately, the employers might not thank you for that.

I note from the ad that children are listed under "additional duties". Presumably this means they will not be at home during the house-keeping opportunity. Even so, they could not be exempted from any proactive approach to cleaning. In my experience, you could pre-empt a lot of such work by minimising their contact with the house.

One good method would be to drop them off to "school/dancing etc" as early as possible, and collect them late, if at all. Again, however, this might not be "client-oriented" enough for your employers. And even if it was, there will still inevitably be child-related cleaning work, such as tidying away bath-toys (getting "ducks in a row"), etc.

All in all, this doesn't sound like a job for the faint-hearted. But then, nothing is these days.

Workplaces everywhere are more pressurised than they used to be, and the message of this ad is even the domestic sphere is no exception. Lunch is for wimps. Nice guys finish last. If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.