I never really believed my mom when she said that maids are tricky to handle. Figured she was just exaggerating and making a mountain out of a molehill. Well I found out the hard way that the mountain is truly real!
Parti has been working for me for the last 1.5 months. She started out really enthusiastic, has a realy glib tongue and can be a real crowd pleaser when she wants to. I hired her as my housekeeper, mostly to clean the house and do my laundry and ironing. I don't have kids, and I don't require her to cook dinners so life is relatively easy breezy for her. Plus I told her it was okay for her to leave once she's done with her housework. Yes I know. My mistake because she was leaving at 2:30pm every day. And I was thinking to myself, hey, this lady is super efficient. Well, that is until I took a walk into the other rooms and realised that she hasn't been cleaning them. (I usually only hang out in the living areas and my bedrooms. That's more than enough space for me so I don't go peeking into the rest of the rooms.)
I pointed this out to her and loe and behold, she started crying. She started crying even more when I told her that I can't loan her the money that she asked for because she's not doing a good job at all. (Oh yes. She wanted to take a loan from me. And I told her it's all dependent on her work performance.) She thought about it and then decided to resign! FWAH! I get mad just thinking about it. It really irks me that she caused me to lose a little faith in my household staff. I sent her packing right away and had to scramble to hire a replacement.
All this happened when I had guests over. My poor cousin was a little overwhelmed I'm sure. I eventually found a replacement, Narti. She comes with glowing references but then again, so did Parti. The house is a lot cleaner now and Narti seems more genuine as well. But because my bad experience, I'm also a lot stricter with Narti. Well, hopefully she will work out a lot better than the previous one. Fingers crossed.
4 comments:
Ya man. Managing maids is a SKILL. Wait till you have to manage maids AND your mother. *faint*
to be honest, i was really quite upset when parti wanted to leave. i think i treat my maids pretty well. my mom and aunts will say therein lies the problem because i'm too nice. so now, i no longer tell my maid that she can leave whenever she's done. i check to make sure everything gets done. i also keep her to 5-6pm before I let her go for the day. sigh. sometimes they don't do themselves any favors.
Same same. I am told my my mum and even my friends that I am too nice to Marlene. During our conversations, I'm asked "har? Why you cook!? Ask the maid to cook la!" or.. "why you go down and buy this yourself, ask the maid la". I do need to learn how to manage the new maid better too.
Hi, Huicheng! How are you? I got the same probs with my maid now. All she has to do is clean, do laundry and ironing, and cook for 4 people, and all of us are mostly away during the day. I can tell she gets really bored at home sometimes when all her work is "done" yet I see so many other things she could have done, like clean my room better or plan our meals better. I get so irritated with her now that I don't even talk to her unless to ask her to do something, and that is in monosyllables, e.g "Tea!" :-P
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