I was upset with my maid today who has been with us for the past 7 months. All the while, I thought she is so far the best maid among the past few that I've hired. Even my friends and family members commented that I was lucky to have selected her. Just when I thought I could start to trust her with doing her work diligently and independently without supervision and with handling the kids, I was wrong.
This morning, I reprimanded her for not doing a household chore properly, she threatened and said she wanted to go home. I asked her why and she told me she didn't think she can managed Rachel...citing incidents where Rachel didn't listen to her, didn't let her hold hands when walking to school, walking slowly to school and caused her to be questioned by me why she took so long to send Rachel to/from school, and then also said Rachel wanted her company to play but she couldn't because she had to look after Shannon.....what a whole load of nonsense reasons!
Rachel attends full-day childcare. The maid only gets to handle her for half an hour in the morning before she goes to school and a few hours in the evening after she is back from school to the time she goes to bed. I asked her how much time a day did she had to spend with Rachel that she found it so hard to manage? Sometimes, when Rachel got a bit handful and she really couldn't handle, I didn't force it on her to say she die die must do it or else....... Also, when Rachel misbehaved towards her, I would scold and punish Rachel and told her to apologize to the maid.
I told her straight in the face it is her decision to go back and she better think properly as I will not hesitate to send her back if she makes up her mind. I also told her to do some soul searching and asked herself if Mdm and Sir have not been treating her well since the day she came to our house. Whatever requests she had (such as buying specific things-we would bring her to search and buy; request to develop a roll of negatives she bought from Philippines-I had to bring it to the shop and make deliberate trip to collect photos for her; request to make additional phone call back home after the once-a-month call we allow her; request for advance salary to send home when her family needs the $ even when she had not repaid her loan fully), we have never rejected her as long as it is within our means to do it for her. Furthermore, she is considered a lucky maid to have been hired in our household, no need to take care of Shannon, Rachel during weekdays, and now that my mil is here to stay with us, she doesn't even need to cook meals for the family. Her job is mainly to do housework. What more does she want?
Maids...no matter how well you treat them, they will not be grateful.
