Managing a Cook When You Travel

Travelling regularly and employing someone at home is a combination full of small unspoken questions. Most of the friction comes from never having agreed the answers in advance.

Do you pay for the time you are away?#

Yes, for short absences. A week or two away is normal and paying in full is the convention. She has held the slot for you and turned down other work to do it.

For longer, it is a conversation. A month or more, and most arrangements settle on partial pay — half is common — on the understanding that the job is there when you return. Whatever you agree, agree it before you leave rather than negotiating from another city.

The reasoning worth understanding: a cook's income is the sum of three or four houses. Yours going quiet for a month is a quarter of her income disappearing with no notice. Partial pay is what keeps the arrangement alive rather than her taking a replacement house that then becomes permanent.

Keys and access#

Three common arrangements, in rough order of how comfortable people find them:

1. She holds a key. Simplest, most common in long arrangements, and worth being deliberate about — it is a real trust step, and it belongs after the trial period, not during.
2. Building security holds a spare and issues it. Common in gated complexes and the tidiest option.
3. You are always home. Not compatible with travelling.

Whichever you choose, make sure the building has your travel dates. Most complexes will not let anyone up otherwise.

The empty-fridge problem#

Coming back at 11 PM to nothing in the house is the most predictable annoyance of travelling, and the fix is boring: message before you land. A day's notice is enough for groceries and a cooked meal on arrival, and it is a genuinely nice thing to come home to.

What happens to the food while you are away#

Nothing, ideally. Groceries you bought before leaving will not survive two weeks, so buy short before a trip and restock after. This sounds obvious and is the second most common source of waste after cooking for a household that turns out not to be eating at home.

If you travel more than you are home#

At some point the arrangement stops making sense. Paying a cook a full salary to work ten days a month is expensive, and she will eventually take a steadier house.

Options that work better for heavy travellers:

• Reduce to one meal, so the job is smaller and the pay is proportionate.
• Move the meal you are least often home for onto something that pauses cleanly. A subscription that refunds skipped days does not care that you are in Bangalore this week; a salaried person does.
• Split the arrangement — a cook for the weeks you are home, something else for the rest.

That last one is what a lot of consultants and frequent travellers in the corridor end up doing, and it is worth considering before the third time you have the pay-while-away conversation.

Short version#

Pay in full for short trips, agree a rule for long ones before you leave, decide the key arrangement after the trial period rather than during, and message before you land. If you are away more than you are home, change the shape of the arrangement rather than repeatedly renegotiating it.