happycitizen on his article on maid, posted his blog:
Before I discuss this topic further, I have to clarify that I've employed 3 maids in the past 10 years.
There were all very different in terms of character, work attitude, honesty and intelligence. I was quite hesistant at first to hire a maid because I was worried about having a stranger in the house whom I wasn't very sure if I could trust but the household chores were getting harder to do as I got older. I got a few tips (mostly warnings and advice on how to 'control your maid') from my colleagues and found what I was told was a 'responsible' maid agency to employ the maid.
My first trip to the maid agency was a bit of an eye opener - the owner of the agency was quarrelling with a couple....I could hear bits and pieces : "If you don't like the maid, just bring her back ....you don't HAVE TO TREAT HER LIKE THAT...I really don't want your business". The maid agency owner spoke to me later apologising profusely for keeping me waiting ...she explained that the couple had struck one of the maids on the head for making a mistake and that made her angry. She told me if there was any reason I didn't like the maid I was assigned, I can just bring her back and she would assign me another one.
The first maid I hired was highly competent....not just competent, she was more intelligent than most Singaporeans - spoke 4 languages (Malay, English, Chinese and Korean). The only reason she was working as my maid was because she was retrenched from a S. Korean factory that paid her 2.5 times the salary she was getting from me. She had very high EQ and was very well liked by parents. All my fears and reservations about hiring a maid were totally unfounded. I almost never had to give the maid instructions - she was full of initiative and seemed to know what to do. I felt that she was completely underpaid and made up for it by giving her ang pows during Chinese New Year and a lump sum when she completed her contract. The day I sent her off at the airport, my mom had tears in her eyes....that was how much she was part of my family. I hired my 2nd maid from the same agency but things were quite different this time round. The first day I hired her, I found her eating on the floor of my kitchen floor...I knew I had to reset my expectations.
The 2nd maid spoke little English, didn't know to operate common appliances and didn't know how to do many things that maids were supposed to be trained to do. Still I decided not to send her back to the agency and let her complete her contract. It took some time to train her and I encourage her to learn some English after she completed her chores. It took some time but she did get to the point when she was quite helpful around the house....along the way, she broke my computer speakers, washing machine, many dishes, etc ...I did tell her firmly to be more careful but did not deduct her pay or punish her further ...over time she did improve and was quite helpful around the house. When she completed her contract and was ready to go home, she had this happy look on her face because she would be bringing back what would be a substantial amount of money to help her family - I hope that she has good things say about her experience in Singapore.
My 3rd maid who is still with me is average and sort of in between the other 2.
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Maids are paid about $300 per month yet some Singaporeans have high expectations of them - some even expect the maid not to make mistakes and punish them severely when they do. How would you like to be treated if you're paid $300 a month to do a job? Lets put it this way, there are people who make millions and get away with mistakes simply by calling them 'honest mistakes' or blaming others for their mistakes.
I've heard of people deducting their maid's pay when the maid breaks something....you have to remember how painful it is for the maid when you deduct her pay ...she gets only $300 a month.
Others are very suspicious of their maids after reading those dramatised juicy stories on the New Paper about maids bringing men to the house or maids having boy friends outside. For this reason many still refuse to give their maids one day off per week. I'm sure many of these stories are true because maids are also human beings - they can go astray just as married men, married women and teenagers go and do things they are not suppose to do....but how many of you lock up your husbands, wives and teenage children for the same reasons. You can't just jail people in your house because you think they might do something wrong. However, all these can be considered minor compared with the cases of maid abuse we read about so frequently in the newspapers....
Why are there so many maid abuse cases in Singapore??? I had coffeeshop discussions with a number of people and these were the reasons cited....
1.
High Levels of Stress. I believe we have the highest number of massage chairs sold per capita in the world ....hmm we frequently rank the highest in surveys on stress levels. There are not too many outlets for people's frustrations and stress...hey they can't just go out on the streets to protest and let go. So things can happen when they get home all stressed up and find that their maid has broken something at home ....they might just explode.
2.
High Expectations. Some people expect their maids who are paid $300 to operate at the same level of efficiency as themselves (who are paid $8k?). They become terribly disappointed and upset when their maids does something they think is 'stupid'...
3.
High Levy. The govt takes a chunk (40%?) of what is paid to hire a maid. Our govt takes in one month for each maid what the Malaysian govt takes in one year as maid levy...and they don't have maid levy in Hong Kong. What the maid levy does is to accentuate the expectations gap - the employer pays a total of $600...but gets an inexperienced maid who is paid $300. This gap causes many problems.
4.
Lack of Respect for Human Rights. We are taught to read and count in school...but how many have been taught what human rights are? I remember moral education in my day was about Confucian ethics - respect leaders, respect elders...nothing about human rights. Given that human rights seems a 'dirty phrase' and respect for human rights seen as religious fanaticism [Link] in Singapore, it is not inconceivable a small number people have no clue that people coming from 3rd world who are less educated and poorer than us have basic rights as human beings....they may not hit another Singaporeans but they think nothing of physically punishing their maids.
Our maids earn the lowest pay in the world and suffer from high cases of abuse....what does that say about Singapore as a society?
A failure or success after 40 over years of nation building?
you should know the answer..?
