Before you hire a transfer maid from another expat employer, I would suggest that you read the following message. This was originally posted last year by a pregnant expat wife who called herself "Frustrated Employer". The title of her posting was "Would you pay your maid S$800 per month? "
1 August, 2001
I have just had a bad experience with a Filipino maid and thought I'd share this with all of you. I welcome all of your suggestions and advice about hiring maids in Singapore.
My husband & I hired Mary from an American family who gave her a glowing reference. They told us that the maid was:- 1) a great cook 2) fabulous with their 2 kids (aged 1 & 6 yrs) 3) a terrific housekeeper and 4) a devout Christian who was always honest and never gave them any trouble. We interviewed this maid 3 times before deciding to hire her. My husband was impressed with Mary because he saw how the employer's baby really bonded with her at the interview. (We actually went to her previous employer's house to interview her the second time round). The American employer also told us that the reason why they were helping Mary to get a new job was because they were getting transferred to Tokyo and couldn't take her with them.
Well, Mary came to work for my husband & I on 26 May, 2001. During the first few days with us, she was extremely polite and sweet and gave us the impression that she would be a great maid. At that time, I was 6 months pregnant and was hoping to find someone who was good with babies to help me out so that I could go back to work at the end of this year. After a few days, Mary started to ask for Friday nights off to go to prayer meetings, Saturday afternoons off so that she could go to the internet cafe in Orchard Road to send emails to her sons in the Philippines and weekday afternoons off to do her shopping and bum around Orchard Rd.
Mary thought that we would be extremely lenient employers since we currently don't
have any kids and both work full-time during the day. She assumed that she would have a really cushy job working for us over the next few months before the baby arrives and that she could do whatever she wanted whilst we were at work. We ended up paying her S$600.00 per month plus a S$200.00 food allowance because that was what her previous employer paid her. We didn't want to exploit her or underpay her and genuinely thought that if we paid her a high salary she would treat us well and do a good job around the house. I also kept thinking of the old saying "If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys!."
We really thought that Mary would work out because she had 15 years' experience
working as a maid in Hong Kong & Singapore, had a lot of experience looking after
babies and had fantastic references from 5 expat employers. Little did we know how
much trouble she would cause us. During the past 2 months, she has asked for nearly every weekend off, she has stolen some of my nice China dinner sets, and has spent more time chatting to her friends on her mobile phone than my husband & I put
together. On average, she receives at least 5 phone calls from her friends every evening whilst she is cooking dinner for us.
On top of that, her cooking is atrocious, her standard of cleanliness and hygiene is way below what we expected and she is quite lazy around the house. Every morning, she gets up and reads her bible and Christian books in the kitchen. She makes herself breakfast and then waits for me to go to work. I gave her a statement of duties & responsibilities when we first hired her but she never does what she's been asked to do. She vacuums and mops the floor when it suits her, doesn't clean and rinse the bathrooms properly and often overcooks or burns our food. She has also destroyed a few of my nice clothes by handwashing or machine washing them when the label says "dryclean only".
She wanted us to pay her a high salary but wasn't willing to do a good job around the house. Actually, she has the whole afternoon off on weekdays since we don't have any kids or pets for her to look after. On top of that, she complains about having to cook us dinner at 8.00 pm at night and not being able to go to sleep until 10.00 pm. She often compares us to her previous employer who allowed her to go to bed by 8.30 pm.
I have sat down with our maid on several occasions and told her that we expect her to improve her attitude and work standard. Last Saturday, she complained to me that I was the first employer in 15 years to give her negative feedback about her work. I told her that her cooking and house cleaning were way below my expectations. She then said that my expectations were too high and that "only God should have high
expectations". I then told her that if she wasn't willing to improve her work, I would ask her to leave. Mary then burst into tears and told me that I was being mean to her. She asked me not to cancel her work permit because she needed to support her family in the Philippines. I told her that we were not mean or exploitative employers that we would allow her to find another job. I gave her a few days off from work and suggested that she go and talk to a few employment agencies about getting a new job. She then told me that she didn't want to use an employment agency because she didn't want to pay them a fee. Mary decided to go through her network of Church friends to find a new job.
Well, last night, Mary came home and told me that she has been offered a job in Canada by the mother of a Canadian guy in Singapore who happens to be a friend of one of her Christian friends. I told her that was great and that she would need to get a visa to go to Canada ASAP to enable me to hire a new maid myself. I asked her to give me her passport and work permit so that I could get an employment agency to do all of the paperwork and transfer another maid over to me. Mary was very reluctant to hand over her passport to me and ended up bursting into tears. She then called the Canadian son of her new employer and asked him to tell me that I had no right to ask her for her passport. I hardly every lose my temper but this time round, I really blew my top when I heard this young man telling me off and saying that I had no right to ask for my maid's passport. I thought "Who the hell is this guy and why is he involved in my affairs?"
I told Mary that I would drive her down to the Canadian embassy this morning and try and sort out her visa to Canada for her. She started crying again and told me that she didn't want me to go with her to the embassy. I then asked her why not and what she was hiding from me. Mary told me that her church minister and the young Canadian man were going to meet her at the embassy and help her to get her visa to Canada. I then told her that as her employer, I had every right to take her down to the embassy and that I was trying to help her not give her a hard time. I also told Mary that I would need her to go with me to the employment agency to hand over her passport, work permit & plane ticket to Canada so that they could cancel her work permit and advise the Immigration Department that she was going to work in Canada. At the same time, they would do the paperwork to transfer my new maid across to me.
Mary kept bursting into tears and getting emotional in the kitchen. She also made up a story about not having her passport and giving it to her church minister to look after. I ended up losing my temper with her because I knew she was lying. I rang her pastor and asked him if he had her passport. He told me that he didn't have it and that Mary was afraid that if she gave me her passport, I would cancel her work permit. I told her that I needed to cancel her work permit in order for her to leave the country to go to work in Canada and in order for my new maid to transfer over to work for me.
This whole incident has caused me a lot of stress. I am now 8 months pregnant and
really don't need any maid problems. I ended up having to take a day off work today to sort out these maid issues.
If Mary was your maid, what would you have done? Would you have paid her $800.00
per month and allowed her to take Friday nights off to go to Church meetings as well as give her Sundays and public holidays off?
Would you have fired her earlier on?
Your comments would be appreciated.
