The trouble with maids...

A week ago, I sent the maid packing. Immediately, that same day.

We already had plans to let her go and she knew that. I'd given her notice already so she had been sourcing for an employer but finally decided to go home so we'd bought a ticket for her to leave in December.

But last week, the crazy woman with more than one screw loose tried to pull one over us by pitching a 'fainting fit' when we said she could not go off that Sunday. For the record in case you're some diehard human rights activist reading this, we're not unreasonable ogres who keep our maids in chains. First, she was entitled to two days off. I had already given her THREE days off in the span of two weeks, as well as an advance on her salary. Second, she did not bother to ask us or inform us that she was going off that Sunday. I thought that was basic courtesy at the least.

So we said no. And immediately she started fake-hyperventilating loudly and then fell -  rather gracefully I might add - into a faint.

Both KH and I stared at her for a second before I started laughing. I couldn't help it. It was sheer bad acting. I was also furious that she dared pull this stunt to hold us to ransom. To take the cake, while I was laughing and telling her off, she actually opened her eyes and looked at me before closing her eyes again. Less than five minutes later, she got up, went into her room and started messaging on her phone. So much for 'fainting'. Fastest recovery ever.

Bad acting or not, it proved that she was clearly not right in the head and quite unstable. It would not be safe or wise to leave the kids with her in the house. So there and then, I told her to pack up and we shipped her off to the agent, changing her ticket to a flight that left the same day. I was so glad to be rid of her. She took with her 7 pieces of luggage including five mobile phones, and almost left her room full of garbage, waste paper, sweet wrappers, dustballs, three pairs of shoes and an unmade bed. Had I not seen all the gunk, I would have been left to clear all that. As it was, I made her do it before we took her to the agent.

Still, I thought she got off lightly. I was so angry that I wished murder was legal.

For all the trouble, the lackadaiscial quality of work she gave, I felt really short-changed as an employer. We housed her, fed her, paid her and followed all the terms of her employment contract. She started off blur for someone who claimed to have three years experience (I later found out it was three years with four employers), and eventually added insolence and entitlement into the mix. Towards the end, it became so frustrating to deal with her, to instruct her and to supervise that I'd rather just do the work myself instead of asking her to do it. She was just slothful and incompetent. All I wanted was fair work and I didn't even get that from her.

So right now, I'm quite bitter about my experiences and really not feeling very charitable to any domestic worker or even to any human rights activist who dare champion these so-called 'rights'. These people should spend time in my shoes, spending the sort of money I've had to spend on lemon maids, have them enter their homes, wreck their possessions, put their children in danger through thoughtless behavior and still try to pull off irresponsible stupid stunts like that.

Not all maids are like that, true. Neither are all employers the Simon LeGree activists seem to love to paint. Before anyone starts to champion these causes, maybe they should walk a mile in the shoes of employers first. The maids have recourse to their embassies, to the activists and shelters. To hear the activists talk, employers often look like slave-driving, sick, sadistic, power-hungry opportunists. Okay, maybe some are. But what of the majority? What recourse do employers have when their maids turn out to be nightmares? Who speaks up for the employer who got scammed into hiring someone unfit and unsuitable?

I'm not even talking about the ones who completely go off the rails, but just the ones who are incompetent or lazy or both. Has any activist tried training someone like this? Especially if you believe the bullsh*t on the CVs they give out. It's annoying and frustrating enough to give you a coronary! Activists may think that maids are given the short end of the stick here, but there are maids who come here and think it is a stepping stone to freedom, a swinging social life etc, happy to do the bare minimum and demanding more from their employers.

This is the second one I've had to change in less than a year. I'm not a demanding employer, in fact I've been accused of being blind to their faults to the point of laxity. I don't make unreasonable demands like some employers who dictate everything from hairlength to mobile phone usage. I've given previous helpers a great deal of leeway and freedom - just ask any who've worked with me. Yet even this was not enough. For the record, I changed the one before this because she was busy moonlighting as a mamasan for other maids, matching them on their off days, with men. My neighbour complained after she'd persisted in offering her services to his maid.

These horror stories are more common than activists like to think.

To ship someone off, find someone new, get used to them, train them all over again is an expensive, exhausting, painful process with no guarantee of success. Each domestic disaster just makes you angry, more wary and less trusting. Its a vicious cycle that bodes no good for anyone - employer or maid.

We all have choices to make and nothing is ever a "no choice" situation. I put up with this because I acknowledge that I am not a superwoman. I've tried juggling housework, chores, cooking with a full day at the office, attention for kids etc and I just end up exhausted at the end of a very long day that starts at 5.30am and ends at midnight. I've come to the conclusion that we just can't have it all.If I want to keep my day job and even consider to increase my work hours, I'll just have to learn to close both eyes, grit my teeth and bear it - shoddy work, poor attitude and sometimes, psycho behavior.

I'll be a fair employer and give her what is due, what we agreed on in terms of pay, off days, sufficient rest, privacy etc (note, dear activists - what WE agreed on, not what YOU think is 'fair') I just won't be someone who treats the maid as 'part of the family'. She isn't and will never be part of our 'family'. She is an employee and I am an employer. Let's be professional about this. Compassion, love, and other warm fuzzy feelings are extra and not included in the package.

Any bleeding-heart activist who gives me drivel about this can just go stuff a sock in it.

Behind that prickly exterior...

... is a girl who's a bit lost I think. But like all porcupines, its hard to get past the sharp spines. I speak of Caitlin of course.

This girl's got the face for poker. Inscrutable. Tears may fall when we talk but I never know - are they tears of sadness or anger? Is she upset with me? Upset with the situation? Upset with herself?

She never reveals her hand. Whatever is in her mind and heart remains known only to her. It's so very difficult to reach her. I never know if I am getting through. I never know if I am effective in my methods of reaching out. And I know it's only going to get harder as she grows older.

Gut feel tells me she needs help. I need to pay attention to her. She may seem like the most independent, the one who learns the fastest, and possibly the most streetsmart of the siblings. But I sense a vulnerable desperate core. It's there in her eyes, in her voice when she tells me a joke, a story, what happened at school, at gym training.

But perhaps the problem lies with me.

I feel disconnected. When she speaks, I find it hard to listen and horrible as this sounds, I feel a sense of impatience: get to the point. I tell myself that there is NO getting to the point with kids. That with kids, it is all about just listening, giving the time, the attention. No matter how repetitious, how boring, how silly, how tiresome, no matter how busy, how hungry, how distracted I get. I admire mothers who can do this - give total absolute attention to their children. Because everytime I can't, I feel less of a mother. A sham of a mother. How un-maternal it is to feel impatient.

I have to keep trying. I cannot give up. I can be angry and I can be frustrated and I can feel like talking to her is like bashing my head against a brick wall - pointless and painful. But I cannot give up. There is something there. I just need one breakthrough. I need to find that connection.

Random thoughts

Have not been actively blogging for the longest time on the Riang blog so thought I'd just check in and post some random thoughts.

Life is crazy busy these days.

Trin has stayed away from school for the past  two days, down with a persistently high fever that refused to go away since Friday. She's really all skin and bones now so I'm ditching nutrition for just weight gain which means I'm happy to offer fries, ice-cream and lots of milk if she's happy to finish those. I tried to treat her at home over the weekend but was just fighting a losing battle with the fever. The doctor listened to her lungs for an awfully long time on Monday before saying that she hears a barely audible crackle in the right lung. Could be bronchitis. Could be lung infection. I was told to bring her back by Wed if the fever persists.

It's Tuesday night now and I just gave her a dose of brufen. The fever reads as 38. Not as bad as the 39.7 reading I got on Sunday but it's not going away.

Weirdly of all the kids, she's the only one who hates the taste of meds. So each dose has to be accompanied with lots of coaxing and praise, something I never had to do with the others who would just happily slurp the meds as they would an ice-cream cone.

She's not the only kid on meds. Gillian is now wearing a brace which has to stay on for the next four weeks thanks to knee surgery she had less than a week ago. We'd put it off for as long as we could but the knee was increasingly unstable so it works for the better to get it done now. She faces intensive physio once the brace comes off and the ligament repair work more or less heals but by this time next year, she'd be walking and running with lots more confidence.

I am also grappling with maid changes. This one just is not working out and we're changing - and happy that Lolita will be returning to our household in a week or so. Good and bad. She runs the place so efficiently I don't have to step into the kitchen. But  that means I lose my domain once again, having just found my footing and confidence again in the kitchen.

The days are flying by and we're heading for the end of the year again. I mark our lives by school terms, parent-teacher meets, year-end concerts, birthday parties, family holidays.

And all too soon, it will be Christmas. Which always makes me feel pensive. Must be the schmaltzy carols. Or the kitschy Orchard Road decor - which is already up but not lit.

Or maybe its the 80s music I keep on shuffle repeat these days. My favourite du jour - Amy Grant and Vince Hill: House of Love. Happy song.