Every household with a cook has had at least three of these. Most are fixable with one direct conversation in the right week. Two are not, and knowing which is which saves months of quiet resentment. Here they are, roughly in the order they show up.
1. Arrives late, or at a different time every day
What is behind it. Usually another home before yours that runs over, or a commute that was never realistic for the slot. Sometimes it is simply that nobody said what the time was for.
The fix. Say the time the food must be on the table, not the time to arrive, and say it with the last six days' times written down. "Lunch box at 8:15 means you need to be here by 7." If the slot is genuinely impossible for the cook's route, change the slot or change the cook; do not spend a year being twenty minutes late to work.
Conversation or ending. Conversation, once. If it does not hold by the following week, ending.
2. Too much oil, too much salt, too much chilli
What is behind it. The cook learned in a hostel mess, a restaurant or a family that eats richer food than yours. It is habit, not carelessness.
The fix. Name the amount. "One litre a month for the four of us" or "the dal should not have oil on top". Hand the oil bottle over with the month's quantity marked. Salt under, let people add at the table. Cooks reduce quickly when the request is specific; they do not when it is "a bit less, maybe".
Conversation or ending. Conversation. This is the most fixable item on the list.
3. The same three dishes on rotation
What is behind it. The cook has a repertoire of ten dishes and has found the three you did not complain about. Also, nobody gave them a menu.
The fix. A weekly menu, written by you or agreed together on Sunday. Fourteen dinners on a sheet, rotated over a fortnight, with one new dish a week that the cook learns from you or from a video. The grocery list writes itself from the menu, which is the second problem it solves.
Conversation or ending. Conversation, and a sheet of paper.
4. Misses days without a message
What is behind it. Sometimes a real emergency, once. More often a second job that clashes, a family situation at home, or a cook who has already decided to leave and is drifting.
The fix. The rule, agreed on day one: a day with a message by the previous evening is leave, a day without a message is deducted. After the first silent absence, ask what happened and restate the rule. After the second in a month, end it.
Conversation or ending. One conversation. Then ending.
5. Hygiene you have seen and did not like
What is behind it. Nobody showed them the standard of this house. Raw chicken on the vegetable board, tasting with the stirring spoon, hair loose over the dough, the phone on the counter between the onions and the rotis.
The fix. For the small things, show, do not tell: put the nail brush at the sink, hand over the hair cover, put a second board in the drawer with "non-veg" written on it. For raw meat touching anything that will not be cooked again, say it immediately and plainly, that day.
Conversation or ending. Small things, conversation. Cross-contamination repeated after being told, ending.
6. The groceries are vanishing faster than the food explains
What is behind it. Usually waste rather than theft: a cook who over-buys vegetables that rot, cooks too much and bins the rest, or uses a kilo of onions where a family of four needs half. Occasionally it is a cook who takes a share home without it ever being agreed.
The fix. A menu, a weekly list, and a weekly settlement against bills if the cook shops. Look at the fridge on Saturday: what went off, what was cooked and not eaten. If you are happy for the cook to take leftovers home, say so and make it the rule, so it is never a question.
Conversation or ending. Waste, conversation. Dishonesty you can show, ending.
7. Asks for a raise two months in
What is behind it. Often the cook took the job at a low rate to get in, and the building's other cooks have since told them what everyone else pays.
The fix. Look at the rate card. For a family of four, one meal is ₹6,500 and two meals ₹10,000 in a typical city, about 30 percent higher in a metro. If you were paying below that, the ask is fair; pay it. If you were paying at or above it, say so and say no. Agree that the next raise is at twelve months.
Conversation or ending. Conversation.
8. Will not cook something you want: non-veg, eggs, a dish from another region
What is behind it. Religion, habit, or simply never having learned it. None of these is a fault.
The fix. For non-veg in a house that eats it, this should have been settled on the phone; if it was not, settle it now, and note the non-veg add-on at ₹1,000 a month exists because it is more work. For a dish from another region, teach it once or point to a video, and be patient for a week. A cook who tries and gets it 80 percent right is worth keeping.
Conversation or ending. Conversation, unless it is a refusal of something central to how your house eats, in which case it is the wrong cook rather than a bad one.
9. The kitchen is left in a state
What is behind it. The washing-up was never agreed, and the cook assumed "nothing".
The fix. Decide and say it: counter wiped and stove clean every visit, always; used vessels rinsed and stacked, or washed, or left for the maid. If washing is added to a cook who was hired without it, it is reasonable to add a little to the month.
Conversation or ending. Conversation.
10. Leaves without notice
What is behind it. A better-paying home, a family move, a dispute that was never raised, or an employer who was late with the salary more than once.
The fix. There is none for this one; it has happened. Pay what is owed to the last day worked, ask whether they know someone, and post again. The lesson is in the cause: cooks leave quietly from homes where grievances were not heard and salaries were not on time.
For next time. Two weeks' notice agreed on day one, a bonus at the festival, the salary on the date, and a conversation in the week a problem starts. The cooks who stay for years are the ones who were listened to in month one.
What a replacement actually costs
A trial day at ₹700. A week at the monthly rate while the new cook learns the house. A fortnight of eating out, ordering in, or a one-time visit at ₹900 for the days there is nobody. And the risk that the next one has a different three problems from this list.
The rule: fix what a conversation can fix, in the week it starts. Replace only for hygiene you have seen twice, dishonesty you can show, or absence without word. Everything else on this list is cheaper to solve than to swap.
Every cook on TheHire is ID and phone verified and reviewed after each job; the reviews are where the next household reads about punctuality and hygiene, which is why it is worth writing yours honestly, good or bad.