maids. can’t live with them, can’t live without them.
June 18th, 2005 by boon
This is in retrospect to an earlier post about maids.
My neighbors’ one just ran away.
Funny thing is, I kind of saw part of how it took place. Three men were outside my neighbors’ gate. One was in a taxi. Another one was getting out. The third was already at the gate. I saw this as I was driving into my parking compound.
I also saw my maid hanging around these men. What exactly she was doing, I am not sure. But I don’t exactly feel very comfortable.
I think these men noticed that I was driving into the house, so told the taxi to go away and come back later. I assume they didn’t want to arouse suspicion. They kind of looked like Pakistanis. Or Indian. I dunno. They didn’t look Indonesian, like our maids.
Anyway… I don’t know. I keep hearing stories about Indonesian maids. A couple I had dinner with a few weeks ago has gone through 11 maids. And this isn’t due to a bad host or anything.
Our previous Indonesian maid had some dealings with a mamak, as in mamak shop teh-ais roti canai mamak. Dealings as in someone found condoms. As in weird mamak guy sneaking into the compound in the middle of the night.
Like I said, as far as I can help it, I won’t buy into the maid mentality. Over dinner once, I’ve heard two husbands brag about how they don’t care whether or not they hire maids, as long as they don’t do the housework. So, maybe that’s one part of the problem.
The other part of the problem seems to be about the maids. Why in the world do they sometimes bring more harm than good? Do we have to coach them about basic professionalism? Is it our responsibility as a host? Will they improve if we pay them better salaries? Doesn’t seem to help much.
At RM300 a month (at the very least), I would prefer to have that extra money go into buying a nicer car. Or travel. I dunno. Build a nest egg.
I hope you folks who are reading this aren’t forced to take a gamble over maids. This isn’t a do-or-die situation. I’m sure there are other alternatives. And I’m not saying gamble as in take a risk to have one. It’s to take a risk to have a maid that has a higher tendency to create problems.
Unless, of course, this is something we’re willing to bear with for the long run. Or maybe that’s what everyone seems to be doing here.