"Life is like a box of chocolate, you'll never what you gonna get..." Recently, a neighbour's maid ran away, in fact two of of my neighbours' maids ran away in the same week - I assume in hope of better pay and better living. Hiring a maid is actually like a box of chocolate, you'll never know whether you'll get a very good one, a not-so-good one or a really bad one.
Maids are human being. Put ourselves in their shoes, we want to be treated like human being, not slaves. I treated all my maids like they are part of my family, with respect and humility. But as I said, it's like a box of chocolate.
I had my fair share of good and bad maids in the past. Luckily the current one is pretty good. She's been with our family for almost 5 years, and I hope for many more years to come. She is so good that I don't think I could function well without her around. I have had 4 maids before her. We hired our first maid in 2001 just after I had my second son. She was an illegal immigrant. We couldn't part with a few thousand ringgit of our savings at the time, hence, we decided to get an illegal one instead. She was quite good, my house was squeaky clean when she was around. However, she being an illegal, we decided to let her go about six months later.
After that we took another one through an agency. She made quite a good first impression and we like her at an instant. She said to be a mother of 2 and coming to work in Malaysia to help her husband to make ends meet and to provide better education for her children. But this is a story of deceit.
Only after 1 month of arrival, she started to ask for day off. There was once she went out on a Sunday and didn't come back as told till the next day. Imagine the trouble we had to go through with 2 kids at home and having to go to work. To teach her a lesson, we didn't allow her to take another day off in the following month. What happened next was she started to hurt herself - I know what you're thinking, psycho!! We put up with her because she was good in giving excuses in such convincing ways. You won't believe how good she was in her drama. In her third month with us, when we were getting ready to balik kampung, she asked to meet her friend on the 10th floor before we leave (we were living in a condo then) with a pretext of returning a bag she borrowed from her friend. That was the last time we saw her. She left almost sehelai sepinggang - she only took her purse with her and left everything behind.
Funny enough, during her 3 months stay with us we never received our phone bill. When we asked her about it she claimed that she has never seen it. After she dissapeared, then came the bill - and it was red in colour! Apparently, she's been keeping (or destroying) the bills for 3 months. Wanna know how much was the amount? RM1,400++!! I had a shock of my life. Then her relative called to ask for her, not knowing that she was gone a few weeks earlier. When I told him that she has left, another story unfolded. She was actually not married - no kids and no husband...
Not deterred by the experience, plus we didn't really have much choice then, we got ourselves a brand new maid. This one turned to be a pretty good one - we thank God for that. Like people said, 3 times a charm. And a charm it was indeed. However, when her contract almost ended after two years, she wasn't sure whether she wanted to continue for another year because she said she missed her young son back home. Her dilly dally attitude prompted us to hire a new one. We couldn't just sit down and waited for her to decide, as we needed to get a new one before she left. She later regretted her indecisiveness - in her own words, nasi sudah menjadi bubur.
The fourth maid was another nightmare. She told us that she's here to help her husband who worked as plantation worker in Indonesia, to make ends meet. No children yet, so there was no problem with leaving her family behind. I noticed something weird about this lady, she wasn't so good with housework, cried a lot and liked to stare at an empty wall. I thought that she was just missing her family in Indonesia and needed time to adjust being away from them. But I think God loves us and our children more. A month later, she asked us to mail a letter to her family in Indonesia. Somehow, my heart told me to read the letter before we mailed it out. I know it's invasion of privacy, but Allah had showed me the way. I was expecting my third child then.
Upon reading her letter, we realised this time we are being lied to again. Another case of deceit. She was actually here to reunite with her husband who worked at a construction site in Ampang. She has in fact spent a night with her husband at my agency's place prior to coming to our house. She mentioned in the letter that my sons (whose kids are not at that age anyway!!) are naughty and hard to handle and wasn't sure whether she could handle a baby, and that she felt like running away! As you'd guessed it, the letter was never sent and she was sent back instead. I don't understand these people, what's wrong with telling the truth?? We'd have allowed her to see her husband if she wanted to. Being a married woman myself, I surely can emphatise with her on this one. Why, why, tell me why!!!!!!!!
Well ladies and gentlemen, a box of chocolate it is indeed. Oh, I forgot to mention, the maid that ran away, called us a year later to apologise. She said she shouldn't have ran away when we treated her so well. She was lured by a better pay but was conned instead. She was working in a factory canteen in Sepang and wasn't getting her pay for months - well if you asked me I say she deserved it!! And, guess what, she asked whether she could come back and work with us!! She must have thought that we were a bunch of idiots...
What have I learned from these experiences, you may asked. I learned not to trust Indonesion maids completely no matter how good they seem. Jangan sangka tiada buaya di air tenang... I pray to God that I don't have to go through these nightmares again for the sake of my children, insya-Allah...
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