There is an invisible employee operating in many households. Let’s call them head of Domestic Operations. Usually its a she who has a full-time job or not, earns a salary or at-least is trying to, attends meetings, raises children in most households, solves complicated world problems, takes care of her parents and her in laws and is considered remarkably competent by people who don’t live with her. Then comes her home, where her most important professional qualification appears to be that she is female and occasionally can show up as being free or not pretending to be busy or often found travelling for work.

Standing.. literally “on your feet” in this role is particularly dangerous. The moment the Domestic Operations person leaves their chair, opportunities emerge. “Since you’re up, can you get me some water?” “Since you’re going that way…” “Can you just quickly make a cup of tea or refill my water bottle…?” There should really be a household warning label: Standing may result in immediate allocation of duties.

The fascinating part is that one may organise holidays, order groceries, pay bills, remember birthdays, arrange appointments, deal with repairs, manage deliveries, replace mysteriously disappearing household supplies, pay salaries on time and make approximately 847 tiny decisions that prevent family life from becoming a badly produced reality show. Yet because they may not perform enough traditional cooking and cleaning, someone will eventually ask the magnificent question: “But what do you actually do for the home?”

Fair point. Presumably the house looks immaculate because the house has excellent project-management skills. Events and travel organise themselves. Toilet paper, toothpaste, the fancy skincare everyone uses reproduces naturally in cupboards. And the household help salaries simply appear in their accounts through divine intervention.

Gratitude works similarly. Nobody expects applause for every glass of water, but an occasional thank you would be charming. Unfortunately, household gratitude is a little like an airline upgrade: technically available, rarely offered. And if one ever mentions this, the system activates its premium feature: “Nobody asked you to do this” or even better ” I have never seen you do it”

Brilliant. Depend on the labour, don’t acknowledge the labour, and then explain that the labour was apparently ones personal hobby. If they object, simply ask why they making such a big deal about everything. Create the problem, deny the problem, then diagnose the person who noticed it as the problem!

Perhaps the solution is a small experiment. For one week, the said role should do exactly what everyone apparently believes they do: nothing. No anticipating, reminding, organising or replacing. No magically knowing what is about to run out. And absolutely no fetching anything because they made the tactical error of standing.

Think of it less as a strike and more as scheduled maintenance.

Then, when someone inevitably asks, “Why hasn’t this been done?”, one can smile sweetly and say: “Oh. I thought I didn’t do anything.”

And sit back down.

Quickly.

Before somebody sees them standing.