When Stephen M.R. Covey told the story of a business student sitting her final examination, the punch line was the last question of that business degree exam: "What is the name of the person who cleans your dorm?"

What a question! This sort of question made the student want to pull her hair out. Crestfallen, she asked the professor if the question really counted on their final grade. "Indeed it does!" he replied. "A good leader takes nothing for granted and recognizes the contributions made by everyone on the team."

Obviously I am not a leader. Yet, I'm lucky to have someone clean my house. With my baby on the way to landing, we hire a domestic maid. The hardest rite of passage to go through before our maid's arrival is how to live with a newcomer. Well, adults and kids have a common affliction: stranger anxiety. I worried and moaned.

I used the past tense in the last sentence because my maid has arrived and we're having a good time living under the same roof. Several friends of mine sent me their recipes. No, they aren't talking about the recipes for cooking, but the rules to lay down for the domestic maids. An example of the rules is "to pay more attention to taking care of the baby rather than preparing the meal." That sounds reasonable to me. Next the rule states that "No kissing baby." Is there not something amiss when a maid must love our baby but not kiss her? We can only say, "It doesn't work for us."

Our baby hasn't arrived. We don't make particular rules in black and white, but seem to be doing well. She cooks dinner for us, and we treated her to a good seafood dinner at Sai Kung. My friends are stupefied to learn that we're even sharing the laptop (and broadband access) with the maid. But surely the time has come to ask: Why not?