I read all the comments on the maid posting that I posted up last week. Some very frustrating, some not, some giving advise, and many others. Some even commented that I treat my maid too nice, but some say vice versa.
When I read these comments, I think back, did I mistreat my maid? I don’t think I’m in that category of abusing my maid, though I admit yes I punish her by not giving her lunch. I did whack her head slightly. Yes I admit that, because I was just too upset at that time. Apart from that, I don’t think I’ve ever treated my maid as a maid (mui chai), but better than that. If I had treated her badly, I wouldn’t have bought her McD to eat. I would have just asked her cook her own maggi mee!! And despite the fact that she ate Vyktore’s portion, the 2nd time I bought McD, I even bought her a bigger share (Big Mac) mind you!!
I’m a believer that if I treat you nice, you’ll do the same. I won’t expect that she’ll treat me McD, but at least do her work properly. That’s all I ask for. I don’t set any standard, and I don’t practice White Glove Investigation (using a white glove and wipe every corner of the house to check for dust). But to a certain extend, I’d expect what is delegated to that person, is done. It doesn’t have to be spanking clean, but at least it is done, that’s the least I’d expect. To be spanking clean, that’s a bonus really.
I still remember once a Mommy asked me, do you give your maid to eat when you go out? (That was my previous maid). In fact, I admit sometimes I bring her out, we go TGIF to eat, I’ll let her order from the menu, instead of giving her fried rice at home and let her watch us eat. Many might say I’m crazy or pampering my maid. But I feel that that’s how I appreciate her hard work, by rewarding her with some good food. She loves eating by the way (but she never dare to steal food from the fridge, etc.). It’s not that we go TGIF everyday, probably once in every 6-9 months, so I don’t see there’s an issue. How much can she eat anyway…
And also there’s a story behind, why my ex-maid gets such a good treatment. There was once, when Vyktore was still 1 yr old, we went to Penang. We were at the pool, playing water & chit chatting. Vyktore, was using the float at the baby pool as his feet couldn’t really touch the pool floor. We were all keeping an eye on the kids, but all a sudden, Vyktore kicked too hard and he went turtle (legs up, body down and stuck at the float). My ex-maid, with the speed of lighting, jumped in to the pool (with her clothes all on, that time she was only inches away from Vyktore) and grabbed him up instantly. She was so quick!! It was as though she never have 2nd thoughts, not even a single second of panic, she just jumped in.
That was a true moment which I see in my maid and I can really entrust her of taking care of my kids. If I was in that situation, I would have probably screamed or panicked.
Back to the current maid. Do I really want to scold her all the time? No. But in fact I’ve given her many chances, each time telling her how to do, but still happens. I admit I’m not an angel, sometimes I raise my voice. I’m not a saint. Even a saint can get upset or angry. I don’t think there’s anyone out there who has not raised their voice before in their life on incidents that makes them upset. Nobody is perfect. I am truly aware that my kids might take on my bad examples, but then again, you can’t be lying to yourself all the time by pretending you are not angry when you are!! But to know how to control your temper and release it at the right amount & right time is the success part of it. Not by just keeping all your anger within, I think someday you will go crazy.
Thanks for all the comments. I really appreciate that as it allows me to think back the +ve values and -ve values behind all that is happening. I’m not offended or anything by any of the comments. These are just my thoughts that I’d like to express for self consciousness.
I can’t see anything wrong with you expressing your thoughts and feelings about your maid. At least you don’t lie about what’s on your mind. Since you are giving her another chance, hopefully she will appreciate it and perform better.
i guess i would do the same as what you did. Btw, you are not torturing her. I guess minor punishment is needed especially for a lazy maid.
Jazz, we are not “ill treat†or mistreat our maid. Maid sometime cannot pamper too much. Like what I’m doing now is, if she perform well on her job, and do all her work, when we go out, I will give her a treat. What we eat she will get the share too. Last time, when we go out usually my maid will have what we had, but after I found out she become picky on her food, then I stop doing that. I will let her eat at home first then only she go out with us. Too many good food till she don’t appreciate the food that we give her, and can comment THE FOOD NOT NICE!
Hope we will have more patient towards maid (but how lei?? Can tell me ar?) hahahhaha
Jasmine, I believe you have been fair.
I too, have treated my maids well, and they turned upon me, taking me for fools. From then, every now and again, I still give them the benefit of doubt and opportunities , but again and again, they proved me unworthy of my trust.
I, too, have people asking me, have u given her food. Of course I have, cadbury so taht she won’t take my kids luxury chocs. 3-in-1 coffee (but aik cheong is never good enough for them. They got to have nescafe or England bought coffee mixes), and etc etc. Plain fruits is no good. They gotta have organic ones. In the end, we are rude and abrupt to them. and we still get blamed. “of course they do this lar, u dont treat them well, mah”
But think back? how many times and how many opportunities we gave them?
over and over and over and over again. Fatt toh yau foh, isn’t it?
I believe I have more experiences in maids than most ppl. AFter all, we have engaged maids since 1989, and me, since year 2000. Many have been in and out of my door. and I tell you, your stories rang true in every sense. cos I have been there, done that , seen that.
I hope this makes u feel better., because trust me, you are not in the minority !! and you are not the only one.
Good for you then 🙂 Being objective is always good.
U hv a reasonable expectation of ur maid. It’s true, we cannot expect too much from them. If they do much better, it’s really a big bonus. After all, if they hv vy hi IQ or EQ, they won’t be here to be a maid, rite? The thing that’s most frustrating is that we’re oni asking for their basic work, yet they can’t perform. Hope she’s doing better now.
You’re pretty lenient on your maid already, trust me. Don’t feel that you have to explain yourself to those who question how you train your maid. For us who have maids ourselves, we know… we know how sometimes they can just drive us up the wall. I’m 10 times more crazy than you when my maid really upsets me… but I am thankful that she’s proven herself to be a good worker, so I hope she stays for a few more years… for better or worse *hehehe*…
Is your own blog, you are entitle to write what you feel. Others are entitle to comments upon what they read. You need not apologies for what other feels you should do. Appreciate their comments, you do your own reflection and keep those advices (+ve and -ve).
People should try to be in your shoe, once in a while to understand frustration. At the end of the day, everyday is a learning day. Things that we do not so good, we learn and improve. Things that we do good, we polish on it to be better. With that we are one step closer to be a saint or angel. 🙂
no, you didn’t mistreat your maid, actually you’re so kind to her..at least you don’t sack her after all these happened but still give her a chance to improve herself.
errr…maybe a filipina as a maid would be better? less stress and no communication problem 🙂
opps, sorry forgot to add…nope i don’t think you have been mistreating your maid. it takes a lot to make you go mad 🙂 can’t blame you at all.
i don’t think u treat ur maid badly lo. wat is bad is like torture them, beat them or any crazy things. they are the ones tak mengenang budi.
gave them a better life than back home, work at home only le, not ask them work in foodcourt, then come back work some more. isn’t those maid, their workload more worst. x appreciate some more kan. haih 🙁
Jazzmint,
Sorry, I have to comment again after reading the responses to this post. Sometimes, others justify their own “inappropriate” (as far as I am concerned and strictly my own opinion only – no offence to those who hantam their maids) actions by encouraging you to be more like them. I tell you, it is a vicious cycle.
You do what you think is right. There is no need to feel bad or otherwise. There are many others I know (offline and online) who treat their maids like slaves and yet they think they have done the maids a favour. I have nothing to say to such people except that their turn will come one day. You decide yourself whether that is the right way to go and act accordingly. I am sure you treat your maid far better than most people. If you find someone else who treats her maid even better than you do, then perhaps try to learn from him/her.
End of the day, you reap what you sow.
If your maid in indeed crap, you can hit and hit and hit and hit and she will still be crap. You can scream till your lungs burst and nothing will change. Correct or not?
It’s either the maid is lazy or as blur as a sotong. If she’s blur, tough luck. Once blur – always blur. It’s the same with lazy ones, they hardly change.
All the best and don’t be apologetic. There’s no need to unless of course, you’ve realised that what you’ve done was wrong and you are feeling bad. If so, remedy the situation the best that you can. Don’t deprive the maid of food lah! Food is one of the basic needs of all living beings. How to wake up at 4am when one is hungry? 🙂
Send her back, that will make you a better person. Some ppl just get the worse in you.
just do what you think is good. don’t think too much, the more you think the more you will be upset!
my family also treated our maid with all those outside food, most of the time we let her order her own food when we went outings, sometimes hers were even more expensive than our orders.
It’s people mentality. Some people decide like, “don’t advise me, I am not going to change”. Some people, pretend to hear but throw out through other ear.
I know similar kind of incidents with maid(s) in some of the houses here. They shows very nicely in front of us, but bite from the back side. Ultimately, treat them with good position and place in the family and advise, that you done, I feel from the post. And that is your part. Listen and obey is their part. If they decided, not changing, we are helpless. We can only advise.
no no..you are very nice to your maid….
ya man, it’s your blog..u don’t have to feel bad or apologies…i feel what you feel as we both share the same experience. Come on, we are human beings la..we have feelings la woi! Treat them like human? Of course we did, but did they treat us like wise? I don’t think so. I mean, I’ve been to Cambodia and have seen and experienced how they live ok, so for them to come here to live in our house, it’s almost like heaven leow! But do they appreciate it? Well, I rest my case, from their work, obviously not! So don’t feel bad. That’s the reason I stopped writing about maids cos there will be one or two who thinks we employers r monsters! Shiats!
Jazzmint,
Please don’t feel bad for expressing your frustrations. Dealing with a new maid is never easy. I have had my fair share of good and bad ones.
You were lucky with your ex-maid, but less so, this time. LUCK is a major factor in hiring maids, and that it works the other way too. While employers can be unfortunate to get a lousy maid, I’m sure you’ll also agree that good maids can also be cursed with horrible employers too. Your good qualities as an employer is clearly demonstrated in how you appreciate your ex-maid’s capabilities and good behaviour with kind consideration for her feelings by allowing to order from the menu.
If a maid says she wants to leave b’cos of her inability to cope, it is HER INABILITY, and not your failure. You can choose to adopt a positive attitude and consider it a blessing that the maid has chosen to be honest about her failure. As you yourself pointed out, you don’t want to have to suffer needless stress and worries later about risks of non-performing and runaway maids. You can think “thank goodness, I found out early that it wouldn’t work, so I won’t have wasted much time training her, and it wouldn’t upset the family routine too much, if I change maids nowâ€.
We should learn from our experiences. The mark of wisdom and human goodness is how positively we deal with our problems to improve things, not how much more worse we can make our situations as per suggestions by some commenters here. Believe me, negative comments like “all they need is just a plate of riceâ€, “seriously i wish i could lay my hands on my maid’s face†(OMG!) is definitely SO NOT going to solve your problem. Resorting to such actions cannot possibly make your maid happier (thus better performing), it’ll only stir up and fuel more resentment and anger in your household, resulting in further disappointment and unhappiness for yourself. For such people perhaps, babysmooches’ suggestion of daycare or part-time helper would be a better solution.
What differentiates you from them is your honesty about losing your cool vis hitting the maid, depriving her of food etc. From your own words, I can see that it wouldn’t make YOU feel happier if you were to feed her just a plate of rice or “lay hands†on her face. It is clear that even though you “tapped her head slightly with the bento box a few timesâ€, you wouldn’t want to do it again. It’s clear to me that you KNOW that it is the wrong response and overall unproductive (in terms of a healthy relationship) as well as the negative effect of your kids witnessing their mommy losing her cool and practising violence to solve problems
Those who JUSTIFY their own negative actions without any misgivings whatsoever only provoke you to give in to anger and violence. I’m sure you’re a much better person than that. I know you wish to have a more amicable relationship with your maid for peace and harmony in your home instead of bad vibes, poisonous mistrust, and abuse.
There are employers who consistently portray themselves as so long suffering, totally faultless – dream employers it would seem! But consider how it reflects on an employer who change maids every year. What such employers don’t realize is that their record of frequently changing maids only proves their inability to manage and motivate their maids to perform. All that extensive experience reflect is a lengthy record of an inability to learn from mistakes!
I believe you are a person of conscience. Please believe that with some patience and good advice (as opposed to shit stirring), your goodness will surely pay off. Happy maid = happy and secure household = win-win situation for all
On the other hand, with impatience and bad advice, it becomes a vicious circle of —- employer illtreats maid => maid hates employer => maid abuses kid/ torment employer with lousy performance => employer stressed out, kids learn to illtreat maid => endless hatred all around. Hiring maids becomes a lose-lose game.
wahlau, i read ur post i go bananassssss
sometimes these maids, although u oledi discounted ur expectation and close one eye cuz u know they can’t perform as well, they still do badly and makes u wanna vomit blood… but i hope urs really do shows improvements arr… and that it’ll continue until her contract ends…
p/s: i think sometimes, some ppl gives advice and condemn others like they know everything that they are the best in all, but they dont’ know how it actually feels to be, trying to work with maids (indon or cambo) which makes u pull ur hair…
Don’t think I have much to contribute since I don’t employ one but I used to lived with a few which already gave me hair raising times. It is tough to control another human who already has a mind of their own unlike our kids where we can mold them the way we want.
All I can say is, just have to have faith in her and only time will tell… I really scare of all the negatives stuff that maids could do… hope to see some improvements in your maid soon…
if there are different types of employers, there are different types of maid as well. so dont blame yourself after all u have done or given to her. (I still remember u were so kind to order a beef pizza just for our maids during the gathering!)
After the food stealing incident, now i prepare the portion of my maid’s meal. I rather give her more than what she can eat than giving her the *FREEDOM* to take what she likes. After all, i am the employer and I am to DECIDE what she will be getting. She is here to work, not for vacation.
Surely our boss at work decide what benefit we shall be getting, not up to us to choose, isnt it? If we do not perform well, we kena same jugak at our performance appraisal, isnt it?
No harm in venting out in your own blog… Hope that this Cambodian maid will work out for you and your family!!!:)
If I may respond to chinnee’s comment…
You have rightly pointed out a very basic and significant fact. Everyone is different, be they employer or employed. For that matter, our own children will grow up to be quite different individuals, even if they are twins.
The point is, different strokes for different folks.
Some maids are more experienced, have better abilities and attitudes than others. Much depends on their backgrounds, training and of course, personal character. Same is true of employers – some are better at problem solving, communicating – in effect managing maids – than others. Employers also have different needs and priorities, and of course, personal traits.
Naturally, expectations – both ways – are also different. So while our focus is often only on our own expectations, we should be mindful that maids too have (differing) expectations – of how they’re treated, of workload, and effort required to earn their dues. Whether you think they have a right (to have expectations) or not, since they come from impoverished conditions, they nevertheless have expectations. Any employer who refuses to acknowledge this simple reality is, plainly, a fool.
Basically, we over-focus on the fact that we as employers choose maids, a decision in which they have no choice whatsoever. Hence we tend to think that we alone have control over the situation – be it to decide how much work she must do or what her working conditions (sleep, rest, nutritional, social, emotional etc) are. As many horror cases so clearly demonstrate, maids do have control over how happy the working relationship can be by their efforts (or lack), quality of performance and overall sincerity.
While we may have the decision over their overall welfare and wellbeing, it serves us well to remember that, human nature as it is, maids can and often do respond to what they perceive as fair or unfair treatment. Their response may not always match our expectations and sense of right or wrong, and in worst case scenarios, may potentially wreak havoc in our homes and family life.
My point here is, intelligent employers never lose sight of the realities and think that THEY alone are in control.
We as employers often have more to lose if the working relationship fails. The cost is incalculable. Beyond financial loss and potential damage to property, the disruption to family life (leading to physical and emotional stress) and in worst case scenarios, safety and safety of home and family may be compromised, sometimes with terrible outcomes.
Be that as it may, both employer and maid need to make the BEST of things for their MUTUAL BENEFIT. Or else, the employer is left with difficult, disruptive and often costly decision of changing maids. The maid, on the other hand, simply gets assigned to another employer – for better or for worse.
Bottomline, it not only makes absolute sense, it is crucial that employers realize their goal must be to strive for a MUTUALLY SATISFACTORY relationship. The only way this will happen is, when maid willingly adjusts to employer needs AND VICE VERSA.
Like it or not, any relationship is a 2 way street.
I am here to learn as I do not have a maid. It’s refreshing to see views from different angles.
*pulling Jazz shirt* psst… that story of your previous maid being a hero, you told us before. kekeke…