Last night, I told my helper to deep fry half a packet of baby anchovies so that Tee could snack on them. She loves eating fried anchovies as they are salty and since she gets some form of calcium from them, I allow it. When I woke up this morning, there were two huge mountains of baby anchovies already deep fried, equivalent to 10 to times the amount I’d told my helper to fry.
This is an ongoing affair. For the 1st 7 months, I have been extremely nice to her (and I am still nice but I’m losing my patience a little) and told myself that she was on a steep learning curve. Her job here is easy. She needs to cook sometimes and keep the home clean. And just so you know, we have a small home. One that can be cleaned in half a day. So what does one do over 7 days? Beats me. But that is not her fault. What irks me is instructions cannot be followed, or they are forgotten. If an educated Filipino woman (she is an IT graduate from a University in her home country!!!) cannot take simple instructions like fry HALF a packet versus TEN packets, then I might as well save my money and employ a cheaper helper! She really is of no benefit to me right now and I am more than happy to get rid of her as I don’t think she is worth the money.
After getting a handphone on her 2nd month here, things have gone down hill. I don’t think she takes her work seriously if she cannot make more of an effort to remember or write down my instructions.
We had carted back all the way from Kelantan some premium fish crackers (try RM3 per cracker!) that had to be pre-ordered months before and I gave her a simple instruction. Take two packets out of the blue bag and put it in the red bag. She took two packets from my kitchen and put it in the red bag which resulted in us not having any fish crackers to ourselves. These fish crackers are like gold, ok? We have to order them 6-8 months in advance as the lady depends on when there is fresh fish caught (sometimes, there is just no fish) and we have to travel to the Thai border to collect them. They are very expensive too.
Little things like that are really irritating me. For the 1st 7 months, I would just tell her nicely to try not to make such mistakes again but hello? Is it getting any better? No. NOT AT ALL. In fact, it’s just spiraling down hill.
We give her extras all the time. We send back money for her and we don’t charge her for bank charges, postal charges, we even put in extra money (OURS) for her 2 daughters…..but why is she not making an effort to do a better job? I almost want to send her back right now! At least I won’t be so heart sick that I’m wasting money on someone who only gives me more stress!
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Ungrateful fella she is! That’s one of the reasons why my hubby doesn’t want maid, in any form! As though we have not enough of our own daily stresses….with a maid, read stranger in our home, we’ll be on guard 24/7….making sure our money, esp small change, are not left lying around, worry about the not-so-smart helpers destroying our clothes by mixing colored and white clothing in the washer, etc etc….and also have to worry what to eat, how and what to feed her…..CRAP!!!
You have been very kind to her! Perhaps give her an ultimatum?
i’d pull her hair off if her silly mistake deprives me of having my favourite keropok !!!
wow…the way u wrote makes me crave for the keropok liao. i only knew of keropok lekor and the east msia produce the best, is it those?
anyway back to maid thing, funny how come this filipino maid so char one ah?
Have you consider getting part-time local helpers? They can come in 2-3 times a week to clean the house and if you pay a little extra, they will even handle the cooking for you if you instruct them properly. There’s less stress and you don’t need to be on the lookout 24/7.
show her the MONSTER……
You and your family are obviously being taken for granted. She is almost (I repeat, almost) as good as a Cambodian maid!
“do not throw pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.”
Having just been through tremendous heartache with my helper (as you’ve already known by now), I would say to you.. it’s not worth keeping her. The longer you keep her, the longer you prolong your anguish. She’s supposed to be helping you with your domestic burden, not adding to it! The sooner you let her go, the better for everyone. Start planning now. I am so much happier these days, than I’ve ever been in a long while (back when the 9-yr maid was around!)
I’ve an Indonesian maid, but live in a community where Filipino maids roam freely. I hate generealisations, but I find Filipino maids very headstrong, and the ones in my community especially nosy! Was asking my maid to polish my car, and my husband’s car, and the Filipino maid from next door actually popped her head around and told my maid (right in front of me, mind you!) that if her employer were to ask her to polish the car, she’d leave. And my Indonesian maid was just giggling back at her! I almost lost it in my rage!!! I just told the nosy maid very nicely she was welcome to leave her employer if she so wished – it was none of my business, and told both of them that my Indonesian maid was also free to leave if she did not like the terms of employment with me. The sum I’d lose is peanuts to me, but can the both of them afford to lose the work contract? That really shut the two of them up 😛 Maybe gentle reminders like that would help you with your maid?
KAKAKA..i kinda like Rachel’s comment.
might as well, unleash the beast.
;D
maid story is never ending. Lucky i don’t have my own maid now, just the house maid, but sometime also make me “vomit blood”. Don’t take instruction and act smart, when don’t get the things right, get scold and said she don’t know. *sigh*
U better send her back as she doesnt have an oz of gratitute!
Cannot be too nice to maids one lah. Sorry lah…Sometimes just have to RAISE your voice at them. For 8 months, you so nice nice. Do wrong, also you nice. If I am the maid, I will also think “aiya. Maam won’t scold me one lah”.
Maybe in Malaysia, abit difficult to change maid. But over here, I am especially HARSH to my new maids (YEAH. EVIL EMPLOYER…but of course i don’t abuse them lah.). If do wrong, I will scold and nag like no tomorrow. so if they cannot tahan my scolding, they leave fast. Saves me time in training them to cook the stuff we normally cook.
If you don’t leave your baby alone with her, I think you can UNLEASH the monster in you. At the same time, send her for “counselling” by the agent. Agent is tough…give them good tongue lashing in their own language.
Maids! U’re stressed when you have them and stressed when you don’t. I have so many issues with my Cambodian too. She does not follow instructions, is lazy and always sleeping or day dreaming. She doesn’t seem to understand when I speak to her in English but when she wants to tell me something, all the bombastic English comes out! We’ve sent her back to the agent for councelling and they were very harsh on her. She was performing well after that … for a few weeks then back to slacking after that. Do I need to keep on sending her back to the agency every month? Maybe it’s better to just send her ass back to Cambodia.