Treat them like your own sister

It is tough if you are a working mom and no helper at home. I have no maid since 2008 when my maid decided to return to her homeland in Sumatera after working for us for three years. She was good, and my kids still asked for her. We always treat her like our own family.

When she first came, she was only 18 years old, and we trained her. She was a good maid as she listened to what we said. She's also very smart. All her salaries, she kept herself and by the time she went home, she brought quite a big amount of money back to Sumatera.

After she left, we have few maids, but we found that they didn't meet our requirement. Not that we were picky, but there were reasons why we have to let them go.

The first maid had Hepatitis B. Her medical report from her homeland showed that she was clean, but when we sent her for another test, the doctor found her with Hepatitis B. It was a risk to keep her, so we sent her back.

The next one was quite an elderly lady, and she gave us a different problem. She loved to butt into my conversation with my husband. Instead of doing her work, she would join us in our conversation.

The last one that we had, she has an attitude problem. She thought that she had worked in Saudi Arabia that she can boss me around, but she forgot who's the boss in the house. She snapped at my husband, talked back to me, and rearranged the whole house. “Ahhhhh….troublemaker!” I told my hubby. So we sent her back to her agent.

Getting a good and reliable maid is not easy, and once you get them, treat them like your own family. I believe in that. You treat them well they will give their loyalty. If you treat them badly, they will retaliate.

If the maid has an attitude problem, send her back to the agent, don’t abuse her. They are human too.

Two days ago, I read in the newspaper that a maid was abused until she died. Isn’t she human? Isn’t she deserved to be treated like one? I really don’t understand how the couple could abuse their maid until she died.

Is it because of the maid attitude itself, or it’s the nature of the person, cruel and sadists? If it is due to the maid’s attitude, sent her back to the agent. Don’t treat her like animal because if you do, it shows something about you.

Appreciate your maid. Without them, there will be no one to take care of your kids or help you in your housework. No matter how angry you are with your maid, don’t hit her or abuse her. Pause, take a deep breath, and calm yourself. Once you are calm, then only you address the problem. It will help you and your maid.

Salam.

Maid: Do we have to be at their mercy?

Oh! My dilemma with maid is never ending. In my previous post Maid oh Maid, I was singing praises for my new maid but that only lasted for 4 weeks. My maid has been threatening us about leaving and before she do that, we sent her back to the agent.

Well, maid problem in Malaysia is kind of serious, to me, because the Indonesian government is banning their people to come to Malaysia to work until both government settle on salary, day off and some other issues. To me, I'm fine to accommodate their request but how can the agent or the Indonesian government ensure us that we get what we pay for?

The past experience has made us more wary and selective of hiring the maid from Indonesia as they are know to lack the required skill and also language. So for me to pay the amount they asked, I have no problem but the maid has to be:

1) have some working experience first. There are occasion where the maid doesn't know how to light the gas stove, let alone operating the electrical appliances.

2) the maid must be able to understand some basic language of our Bahasa Malaysia. There was one maid that I had before who totally doesn't understand our language. It was like a duck talking to a chicken and the training is very exhaustive because everything has to be shown with example.

3) be truthful about their age. Since the age legal age is between 21 to 45, they have falsified their birth date to meet the requirement. My latest maid age was 47 years old, which we found out from her passport, and she told the agent and us that her age is only 37. I also have a maid, my best maid ever, who was 18years old but her passport listed her as 25 years old. To me this has shown their insincerity. Be truthful about it as we are going to trust you to take care of our kids.

4) ensure that the maid is responsible and would not disappear from the house leaving your kid at their mercy. I have read and also through some of my friends experience, there are maid who will just pack and leave, leaving your kids at home alone. These runaway maids normally has contact outside and believe me they just leave the house and stay with the construction workers.

5) they are certified to be fit - physically and mentally. There are maids who came here with some mental problem ending up they abuse the kids that they supposed to take care. Some of the employer resorted to install CCTV inside the house to monitor these abusive maid.

6) no practicing of black magic-some of the maid, ewwww they spit or add in their urine into your food or drink. Why they are doing that, only god knows but from what I heard is that they wanted the employer to listen to them and not the other way round where they are supposed to listen to the employer. They also bring with them some kind of charms where they charmed the employer. There were few cases where the husband lost interest with their wife and took the maid as his new wife. Their reason for bringing this charm with them is to make sure the employer will like them. Duh! If you are good, we will like you. No need to charm us.

So how can our government ensure that we get the right kind of maid to serve us? Do we have to be at their mercy? If they imposed conditions to us, shouldn't we have some condition too to ensure the safety of our kids and home when we are away at work?

Do you agree with me that we need some kind of assurance especially when it comes to the safety our little ones? Share with me your thoughts.

Maid Oh Maid...

After 3 years without maid, finally after months and months of waiting, my maid is here. The months of waiting is worth it as my maid is super efficient except;

• She is almost same age as me (in other words old)
• She understand arabics and little bit english and not Malay (I have to show and explain the words everytime she looks blank)

Because of the language problem, there tends to be some misunderstanding between us and her. There are times we asked for something, she will gave asked some other things. Sometimes it can be hilarious and some other time is can be very frustrating but overtime, she will overcome the language barrier.

When she first came, two weeks ago, she called me Makcik and my hubby Pakcik. At first, I let her get away with it until one day, I can't take it anymore, coz for someone her age to call me Makcik is very rude. I told her to call me "Kakak" or "Ibu"and my hubby "Bapak". She said her agent asked her to call us Makcik and Pakcik. I guess the agent must be someone who doesn't understand our culture.

Talking about the agent, I would have to say, we learnt our lesson well. We have met few agents, paid the advanced money as they requested and then dissapeared with no maid delivered. But this particular maid, she came in without agent but when she landed here, she met this lady who claimed that she can get a job for her. So what this lady did was she sold this poor maid to us for RM4000 whereas she didn't incur any $$$ at all. She made clean profit from the sale of this maid.

I was disgusted when I came to know about this few days ago (my maid told me how her money was swindled by this lady). Alas, it a lesson learned for my maid not to simply approach people for work. She was lucky that this lady didn't sold her to prostitute ring.

For me, I have to thank Allah for sending me a super efficient maid who my kids like her very much.