Since she started working for us, I’ve already told her that whenever she wants to call home, to let me know & I’ll dial the number for her using my mobile phone as my mobile package allows me to call a few countries (Indonesia included) at local rates.
I was already asleep at 11pm a few weeks back when I suddenly received a call on my mobile. I looked at my mobile & saw that it was my home number calling my mobile phone. Imagine my suprise.
I got out of my bedroom to look for the house phone (it’s a cordless) and couldn’t seem to find it. In my mind, I suspect that the house phone could be with the maid. As I couldn’t find it & I’ve searched everywhere, I decided to go back to sleep.
As I was about to doze off, I heard the sound of a door opening. I got out of bed again to see what was going on and guess what, the house phone (the cordless) was on the dining table & it wasn’t there earlier when I was looking for it a few minutes ago. My suspicions were confirmed. It has to be the work of the maid. I took the cordless & checked the last redialed number & came across a phone number that I was not familiar with. When I tried calling that number, it was unreachable. At this point in time, my Hubby was pretty mad to be awaken by all the commotion. He wanted to call the maid and ask her about what she’s been up to but I told Hubby to take up the matter with her the following morning as it was already past midnight.
The next morning, my Hubby gave her a piece of his mind, basically telling her how we’ve not been happy with her work, with the way she’s been behaving lately, etc. After I came back from sending my Hubby to the office, she came to me, crying and apologizing for the way she’s been lately.
My Hubby and I have pretty much decided that we were going to let her go by the end of the month. We are spending about SGD615 monthly on her. (SGD340-her salary, another SGD275 on government levy, which is payable monthly) But me , being the softie, after the maid came crying to me and asking for forgiveness, I don’t have the heart to tell her that we no longer require her services. Maybe we should give her another chance.
My 24 years old maid - "Patimah"
We’ve noticed some changes in her lately. Good changes. She’s back to her old ways, the way she was when she first started working for us. Still can’t let go of the TV though, but at least she’s not glued to the TV as much as before.
I guess the lesson I learnt from the recent ordeal with our maid, is that you can never be too nice to them. You must be able to draw a line when it’s necessary. My biggest mistake was to treat the maid as part of the family. Doing that, the maid really thought she was part of the family and forgot that she was after all a paid employee in our household.
To Zaza and Nita, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on the maid issue in my previous entry.
No comments:
Post a Comment