[Basic] Skill of the week: Housekeeping

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Of course it does, if you buy it as a Cinematic Option perk.

Seriously, I have allowed that to enable particular superstitions and rituals, if not this particular one, and it seems fair enough. Yeah, sometimes they can produce effects worth considerably more than a point, but since anybody can learn to do them (by purchasing the perk) and as common superstitions they by definition don't often take people completely by surprise, it seems reasonable enough.

A bit like One Task Wonder for a functional Esoteric Medicine variant.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

A bit like One Task Wonder for a functional Esoteric Medicine variant.

That's not quite what I had in mind, but is actually a neat idea. Esoteric Medicine (Granny Remedies) would make a pretty interesting companion skill for Housekeeping, and listing it as an example would help clarify what Esoteric Medicine is supposed to be about too.

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by Bruno

He did not know how to get money out of the bank, either at an ATM or at a teller - his wife always gave him a cash allowance at the beginning of the month, and his last bit of cash had run out. He did not know how to pay the bills. He did not know how to buy groceries. Not sure about cleaning.

A history course in college talked about culture in the immigrant communities working in the upstate New York mills.

It was normal for the wife to handle all finances for the family, giving the husband an allowance. A cliche for a good marriage was "been married 35 years and he's never opened his pay envelope."

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by cptbutton

A history course in college talked about culture in the immigrant communities working in the upstate New York mills.

It was normal for the wife to handle all finances for the family, giving the husband an allowance. A cliche for a good marriage was "been married 35 years and he's never opened his pay envelope."

Years ago I read a work on family sociology in the UK, which said that there were three different systems there: the whole wage system, where the wife got the husband's pay and gave him beer money and the like; the household allowance system, where the husband managed the finances and gave the wife an allowance for housekeeping (and she could try to save up money for personal expenses out of it—that's where a Housekeeping roll would come in handy!); and the separate accounts system, where ease spouse had their own money, bank account, and checkbook. These were supposed tied to different social classes, but which system went with which class wasn't explicitly stated; I suppose the author took it for granted that everyone knew this.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by whswhs

These were supposed tied to different social classes, but which system went with which class wasn't explicitly stated; I suppose the author took it for granted that everyone knew this.

Those would be working, middle and upper, respectively, although they get fuzzy near the boundaries.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Those would be working, middle and upper, respectively, although they get fuzzy near the boundaries.

And by locality, sub-culture, and individual relationships, I suspect. I've certainly seen descriptions of early twentieth century working class life where the husband definitely opened his own pay packet.

[dcarson]

There was also a practical part of the wife handling the finances. Pre computer and ATM banks kept bankers hours because they had to resolve everything by hand (and calculator). So they needed the afternoon to be ready to open the next day. If you work normal business hours you can't go to the bank without taking time off of work. Doable on a lunch break if you work in an office building but annoying, quite hard if you work in an industrial area. So the wife who normally didn't "work" has the time to go to the bank, the grocery store etc.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by dcarson

There was also a practical part of the wife handling the finances. Pre computer and ATM banks kept bankers hours because they had to resolve everything by hand (and calculator). So they needed the afternoon to be ready to open the next day. If you work normal business hours you can't go to the bank without taking time off of work. Doable on a lunch break if you work in an office building but annoying, quite hard if you work in an industrial area. So the wife who normally didn't "work" has the time to go to the bank, the grocery store etc.

Heck, today, my mom is having the darndest time getting bank stuff done that requires a person. Today's super long shifts and even working most weekends that salaried employees are assumed to do means precious little time for such things.
Double irony for this thread and post is that she's the main accountant for a moderately sized business.

[Terwin]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Well, there is the old joke about the person who frantically cleans and tidies the house just before the cleaner is due, in order to avoid having the cleaner think the worst of them. Said to occur quite regularly in reality, actually.

When I have seen this, it is mostly putting stuff away(something this person is usually pretty bad at), although there is also an element of moving things out of sight(baskets of clean or dirty clothes for example). Then again, there are also the elements of 'doing enough dishes that the cleaners can clean the sink and counters' and 'emptying the roomba and re-running it multiple times'

Originally Posted by Anders

I have failed with spaghetti.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

So have I, though only by literally falling asleep while it was cooking. Which I submit calls for no Housekeeping roll...

I did something similar when hard-boiling eggs once.
I forgot to set a timer then went to play a computer game. I remembered it when I heard a popping noise from the kitchen(by that time all the water was gone and the pan had permanent scorch marks on the inside, the noise was one of the eggs popping open to release steam)

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by dcarson

There was also a practical part of the wife handling the finances. Pre computer and ATM banks kept bankers hours because they had to resolve everything by hand (and calculator).

Banks? I don't know about the USA, but in the UK, until at least the 1950s, if you were working-class you were usually paid in cash, weekly, and having a bank account would be unusual. The clichéd way of expressing this would be that the working class ran their money on a weekly cycle, and the wife would be the one who was in when the weekly rent collector called. The middle class would be paid monthly, and have bank accounts, and the upper class already had money sufficient for months of living at a time, and might get their income quarterly or annually, from rents, dividends, or the like.

Originally Posted by Terwin

I remembered it when I heard a popping noise from the kitchen(by that time all the water was gone and the pan had permanent scorch marks on the inside, the noise was one of the eggs popping open to release steam)

A friend of mine, when a PhD student, entirely lacked Housekeeping skill and tried to make up for it with ingenuity, with variable results. He managed to destroy a pan and electric ring, by putting water on to boil and then forgetting all about it for several hours while he did maths. The pan melted and had dripped through the ring. His college, who provided cleaning service, charged him for a new ring, which he left was unfair, although nobody else did. He was also the guy who substituted sweet strawberry yogurt for sour cream in a savoury dish, which was apparently as disgusting as it sounds.