Day +2179 : It is a no-show

I am fine today.

My maid is supposed to return from holiday today. The flight from Bali was scheduled to land on 8:00pm. My wife, Aaron and I went to LCCT to fetch him. 

We waited at the arrival hall for about one hour and didn't see any sign of her coming. I approached AirAsia ticketing counter to check if she boarded the flight in Bali, and the status is no-show. 

She left quite an amount of salary with me, so we didn't expect she would decide not to come. She must changed her mind during the holiday. I don't mind if she decided not to continue working with me but she should at least inform me that she is not coming so that I don't have to take the trouble to go and wait in the airport.

My last maid changed her mind after she went back for holiday but she was better as she did called and inform me she was not coming.

My wife and I decided not to employ a maid anymore. We believe with some arrangements like engaging hourly house cleaner and catering meals, we will be able to handle the situation :-)

See you next post :-)

Day +1133 : New maid arrived

I am fine today.

Our new maid, Yumima, arrived this afternoon. She didn’t have working experience and this is her first time to Malaysia. We will have a busy time to get her started in doing house work.

I booked this maid about two months ago which I blogged on Day +1069 : Booking a maid. Getting her to be here within two months is considered fast :-)

I paid Agensi Pekerjaan HAZ Sdn. Bhd the remaining RM6,215 before fetching the maid home. The total fee for getting a maid, including the first 6 months salary, is RM8,715. The breakdown is a follow:

Agency fees: RM2,415
Indonesia processing fee: RM1,600
Christian maid recruitment: RM200
6 months advance salary: RM4,500

The photo I posted showed that she was smiling, but my wife told me last night that she always put on a serious or fierce face :-( Anyway, smiling or not is a secondary issue. The most important aspect that we wanted is honesty.

We wish Yumima has a pleasant working experience here and May God bless her!

See you next post :-)

Day +1106 : Days without a maid

I am fine today.

Life goes on as usual without the maid. My mother-in-law is in charge of cooking, my wife is in charge of cleaning, and the children especially Joseph helped my wife a lot. I wish I could help, but too weak to do much due to the flu attack. I am experiencing shortness of breath and tiredness most of the time.

In fact my wife is very capable :-) The only problem is that she was tied down too much by her school work. She taught 5 classes English subject, and as you know all the classes are fully packed with at least 40 over students, she has to work frenziedly to complete her daily work. Marking exercise books is taking up too much of her time. I believe she works at least 10 hours a day.

She is responsible and always wanted to do her work seriously. This slows down the marking process, and every often she even asked me to verify for her the correctness of certain English phrases through internet, just to make sure that she marks fairly.

I just wish that I would be able to gain enough strength very soon to be able to participate in the “family businesses”.

See you next post :-)

Day +1105: A very sleepy day

I am fine today.

I coughed heavily last night and I decided to take cough syrup. After that, I am sleepy for the whole day. So I took another day off.

My maid is returning to NTT Kupang, Indonesia this morning. I fetched her to the maid agency at 9:00am. Her flight to Surabaya was 12:40pm and she will reach there 2:20pm. She needs to take another flight to NTT Kupang, but she won’t be able to make it on the same day. Therefore, she has to stay overnight in the Surabaya airport and fly to NTT Kupang tomorrow morning. After reaching Kupang, she needs to take a bus to reach home and this last stretch of journey will take half a day.

My new maid will be arriving in about 3 weeks time. My mother-in-law and my wife will be very busy before the new maid arrives.

See you next post :-)

Day +1104 : A millionaire she is now

I am fine today.

I am getting better and back to office today.

I managed to purchase the bank draft for the maid this afternoon. I planned to transfer money from my current account but Maybank officer told me that she could not initiate any transfer without the cheque book. So I was forced to withdraw RM6100 cash from two banks to purchase the bank draft.

The total amount as recorded on the bank draft is sixteen million six hundred twenty one thousand two hundred fifty three only (IDR16,621,253.00).

The bank draft (Click to get a larger view)
Apart from this I also exchanged RM823.40 for her for an amount of IDR 2,300,000 (2.3 million). She spent RM117 for a bag and other stuffs on Sunday. In the end, we paid her more than RM7000.

Even though she is lazy and like to steal, she did contribute to our family especially in taking care of the children and cleaning the house. We hope that she won’t steal again, and may God bless her.

See you next post :-)

Day +1103 : Bedridden (2)

I am fine today. Continued from yesterday…

I intended to purchase the bank draft at Hong Leong Bank but I found out that it was closed. I noticed that Maybank was open, but I don’t have enough money in Maybank account for the RM6,000 bank draft. So I rushed home to transfer some money into my Maybank account, but when I reached Maybank again, I was told that the bank was not providing any bank draft service on Saturday. I had no choice but to purchase the bank draft on Monday. So the first task was partially completed.

By the time I left Maybank, I was very tired. However, I insisted to do the shopping as my wife was attending extracurricular activities in school. If I didn’t do it, then she has to it, but it is very difficult for her to find suitable time to do it.

I forced myself to finish the shopping, and by the time I reached home, I was too tired, and was bedridden for the rest of the day.

My eldest sister called me and after understanding my situation, instructed her son, Soon Hui, to come to my house to conduct a FooChow traditional massage for me. It was a painful one – almost amounted to pinching – but it was effective. I felt a lot better after the massage session :-)

Soon Hui was down with the same disease after massaging for me last time. I hope he is stronger this time, and will not be infected at all.

I skip the church service today. I still feel a little bit tired, and I don’t want to spread the “goodies” to the rest especially in a time where everybody is sensitive about flu due to A(H1N1).

Normally a flu will take a week to recover. I am now half way through. I will be well very soon :-)

See you next post :-)

Day +1102 : Bedridden (1)

I am fine today.

I am not feeling well today due to flu; coughing, feeling extremely tired with sore body.

However, I have two tasks to complete; the first thing is to settle the payment of my maid as she is going back to Indonesia early next week and the second thing is to do weekly shopping in the market.

The maid salary is RM500 per month. Working for me for 24 months should earn an amount of RM12,000. But the first 6 months of salary were deducted to pay the maid agency in Indonesia as advanced salary when she arrived. This reduces her take home amount to RM9,000.

As mentioned earlier, she “borrowed” from us an amount of RM600 and RM950 to purchase two handphones. And in addition to this, she also “borrowed” an unknown amount to purchase prepaid cards and also to give to her friends. She didn’t know how much she “borrowed”, but we estimate an amount of RM450 for this category of expenses. This further reduces her take home amount of RM7,000.

Deducting an amount of RM450 is a very conservative estimation; we believe that the amount could be well over RM1000. My mother-in-law told us that she was always on the phone when both of us were not at home. However, we would not want to deduct too much from her; else she would have nothing much to take home after two years of hard works here.

After I complete the computation, I briefed her about the payment, including the deduction. She agreed. She said she would like to carry RM800 of cash which I will have to exchange it to Indonesia Rupiah. This amount is for her traveling expenses from Surabaya to her home. If I were not mistaken, she will have to take another flight and other means of transport to reach home.

She would like to spare another RM200 to purchase a bag and other things. I will have to purchase a bank draft for her for the remaining RM6,000.

To be continued and see you next post :-)

Day +1078 : She didn't even spare the God's money (2)

I am fine today. Continue from yesterday…

We asked her to estimate the amount that she had taken from us, but she said that she couldn’t remember. So estimating the amount that we should deduct from her salary is a tough job. We wanted to be fair to her, and at the same time fair to us too.

We were not too fierce in the interrogation session, and we convinced her that we would like to help her instead of punishing her. We won’t send her to police if she cooperates with us; else she might end up in jail and won’t be able to return to Indonesia next month.

After the session, I did give her some counseling. Whenever I reminded her that a Christian should not steal, she cried very sadly. I believe she was sad that she failed the teaching of the Word of God.

Though she was labeled as a Christian maid, she didn’t practice a Christian living; she didn’t pray and read bible.

Of the four Christian maids that we had so far, we saw a pattern. Behave well were those who read bible and pray regularly.

Our first maid worked for us for a few weeks. She was older – about 30 years old - and had working experience earlier. She was lazy and pretended to be sick all the time. Due to ignorance, I sent her to hospital in Putra Jaya twice, and spent quite a sum of money as she was a foreigner. She wanted to go back to Indonesia, and wanted us to send her directly to airport instead of to the maid agency.

She said that the maid agency would kill her should we sent her there because the people there were very fierce and inhuman. She even packed her luggage and got ready to go back. We pitied her but didn’t listen to her. We sent her to the maid agency and that was when we were told that the maid was lying – acting that she was very sick. We then requested for a replacement, of course with an overhead charges of about RM2000 if I were not mistaken. But we were willing to bear the course as we didn’t trust the maid anymore.

When we examined her luggage at home, it was a shock to us that she took almost anything she could pack in the box; VCDs, clothes, books, and etc. :-(

The second and third maid were satisfactory, and here come the fourth one that gave us problem again.

We pray that the next one will be the one that really practice a Christian living and wouldn’t give us trouble anymore.

See you next post :-)

Day +1077 : She didn't even spare the God's money (1)

After the church service last Sunday, my nephew, Heng Chiek, complained to my brother, Richard, that a pile of RM50 notes amounted to RM500 was missing. He put the money in an envelope and hid it underneath some clothes in a cupboard in the study room.

In fact, the money was belonged to my nephew, Ming Hui, who went for a two weeks holiday not long ago. Before he went for the holiday, he entrusted Heng Chiek to give the money to the church as an offering. So this amount was for God and belonged to God indeed.

The very first thing Heng Chiek did when he found out that the money was missing was to question the maid. The maid admitted that she did “touch” the clothes, but denied of any wrongdoing.

We felt that it was time to confront her, and with the help of Richard, we started to interrogate her in the afternoon. Only Richard and Heng Chiek were involved initially.

I reminded Richard to record down the conversation which can be used as an evidence should she accuses us of inappropriate acts toward her later.

Unlike me, Richard was a lot better in carrying out the investigation. A few minutes later, he came to me and said that the maid admitted she took the money. The maid also told him that the money was already given to another maid who was working for a family staying opposite of my house. She said that the money was used to pay the old handphone that she was carrying.

My wife always complained that the maid spent too much time upstairs and she really didn’t know what she was doing there. And now we know that she was in fact conducting treasure hunt instead of doing houseworks.

As we knew that she was always lying. We “summoned” – of course very politely – the neighboring maid to our house to assist in our investigation. And we were told, in front of my maid, that an amount of RM950 was passed to her(neighboring maid) to purchase a new handphone two days ago. We were also informed that my maid gave her RM600 for the old handphone long time ago, and from time to time, gave her money in the denomination of RM10 to RM50 to purchase phone cards.

She lied again!

It was very fortunate that we confronted her on Sunday, as the witness – the neighboring maid - was going back to Indonesia the next day. If we did it later, we would never know what really had happened.

We asked the maid to give us the handphones, and two of my nephews scanned through the messages in the handphones to rule out clues to potential acts that might threaten our safety. However, not much they found apart from love messages – I love you, you love me :-(

Apart from giving money to the neighboring maid, she admitted that she purchased phone cards from some other maids too. Not only this, she also gave money to other maids in the church :-(

The handphones - "confiscated" temporarily. Will return to her before she returns to Indonesia
To be continued and see you next post :-)

Day +1075 : She borrows money from us again without our knowledge (2)

I am fine today. Continue from yesterday…

However, we changed our mind when she “borrowed again” a few days ago; from my mother-in-law this time :-(

My mother-in-law complained to me that the money that she kept under her clothes was missing. She suspected the maid was the culprit, and confronted her immediately, warning that she will report this matter to me, the maid agent and the police. Upon this harsh warning, she returned 10 RM50 notes to my mother-in-law immediately. But my mother-in-law insisted that the maid “borrowed” more than this from her as there was a pile of 10 pieces of RM100 notes still missing. The maid denied.

With this incident, we will reconsider our decision of letting her go without deducting her salary. Cutting her salary is easy as we have not paid her anything, but the difficult part is how much to cut. We don’t want to cut more than what she had borrowed; else it wouldn’t be fair to her.

I think the best way to do is to ask her to tell us roughly how much she had borrowed, and deduct this amount from her pay. Hopefully, this works.

See you next post :-)

Day +1074 : She borrows money from us again without our knowledge (1)

I am fine today.

Our maid likes to “borrow” money from us without our knowledge. We believe she has been doing this for a long time but we only realized it a few months ago when my wife “accidentally” spotted her carrying a handphone. I blogged about this on Day +1069 : Booking a maid.

My mother-in-law said that whenever we were not at home, the maid would play with the handphone; taking photos, talking at length to someone over the phone, and reading and sending SMSes. She always asked my mother-in-law to buy telephone card for her, and many times she passed a RM50 note to my mother-in-law.

The handphone alone cost RM600, and together with the amount spent for telephone cards, and other stuffs that she had purchased, the amount that she “borrowed” was well over RM1000.

My wife was angry about this. However, we didn’t confront her at all. As her contract is expiring very soon, we planned to deal with her only when she is about to go back to Indonesia. The most likely thing to do is to deduct certain amount from her salary. In order to reduce her temptation to borrow, we keep our wallet well this time, and we also warned our nieces and nephews about this.

A few days ago, I discussed with my wife the possibility of letting her go without deducting her salary. And finally both of us decided not to deduct a single cent from her salary but we will warn her about her mischief, hoping that she will repent; else she will run into big trouble for repeating this mischievous act in her next job.

To be continued and see you next post :-)

Day +1069 : Booking a maid

I am fine today.

My current maid’s work permit will be expiring middle of July. We are not going to renew her contract as she really didn’t perform.

She is not only lazy but also likes to steal. We only realized this when we saw her possessing a handphone that worth RM600. When we questioned where she got the hand phone, she told us that she borrowed it from the maid next door. But later we found out from the maid next door that she actually passed her RM600 cash to purchase the handphone. Where did she get the money from? As a maid is not allowed to keep any money, it must be from us. And since we didn’t give her money, then she must have stolen it from us :-(

Apart from the handphone, she also has the luxury to purchase junk foods and beauty products – all at our expenses without our knowledge.

She is very dishonest, and always denied responsibility when she did something wrong. She also uses things belong to others such as facial wash, lotion without permission.

However, we didn’t confront her much, but would not renew her contract anymore.

I booked a maid from Agensi Pekerjaan HAZ Sdn. Bhd. today – the same agency that supplied the current maid to us. The maid is from Nunkurus, no working experience. She is 22 years old with secondary education.

The fee is as follow:

Agency fees: RM2,415
Indonesia processing fee: RM1,600
Christian maid recruitment: RM200
6 months advance salary: RM4,500

This makes the total as high as RM8,715, and I have to pay a deposit of RM2,500 today. The rest will have to be paid once the maid arrives, which is expected two months from now. Though I have to pay RM750 per month for the first 6 months advance salary, the monthly salary after that is fixed at RM550.

May God bless the new maid! And may God bless us!

The maid, 40kg only. What do you think?
See you next post :-)

Day +489 : The maid (2)

I am fine today. Continue to talk about the maid…

We really can’t expect much from her, and we will be very happy if she could handle the basic house works.

However, I have no regret of choosing this maid at all; it is in fact a blessing in disguise :-) Why?

If the maid is too capable, my wife will start to worry that the maid would entice me and then she will disturb me with all sort of complaints. This was exactly what I face with our previous maids. In the end, I have to handle to sets of complaints: one that complains that the maid didn’t do the works properly, and the other one saying that the maid want to become the owner (女主人) of the family. The first type of complaints is very easy to handle but the other complaints could easily landed me in disaster if I were not careful :-(.

However, this does not mean that my wife is ridiculous. Despite a little bit insecure and sensitive, she is a wonderful wife :-) If I were given a chance to choose a wife again, I will choose her :-)

Now at least with this maid, I only need to handle the easier complaints:-) Positive thinking again!

See you next post :-)

Day +488 : The Maid (1)

I am fine today.

I paid RM130 water bill this month, more than double the amount before the maid came :-( She washes the car porch and waters the plant every morning, but recently I noticed she just stands there spraying the water continuously for a long time. This might explains why the water bill is so high. She should at least use the broom to clean the car porch.

Frankly speaking, the performance of this maid is below average. Sometimes, we have difficulty to communicate with her. Initially, we thought the problem is due to language differences, but the other maids in the church told us that they have difficulty to communicate with her too :-(

Besides, she often skips meals. We were a little bit worried and brought her to the agency for counseling. Only then we knew that she is having gastric problem. In order to make sure she is not starved, we asked her to cook anything she likes to eat. In addition to this, we also purchased milk powder for her.

To be continued and see you next post :-)

Day +384 : Finally, the maid arrived

I am fine today.

We welcome our new maid yesterday. It took us more than 4 months to employ this maid. We book a maid on 9 March (Day +248 : I booked a maid), but on 3 April (Day +272 : Three things to thank God), the agency told us that the maid could not come due to some unforeseen circumstances. Then we chose a maid again (Day +278 : We choose a maid again), but again, this maid failed to come due to serious illness. On 8 June, we choose another one (Day +339 : We choose a maid again), who came yesterday.

My wife is busy training the maid now. I hope the she will perform well; else we might become the maid’s maid.

May God bless the maid.

See you next post :-)

Day +339 : We choose a maid again

I am fine today.

While I was driving along the coastal road from Malacca to Port Dickson on Tuesday, the agency called, telling me that the maid that we booked (Day +278 We Choose a Maid again) contracted serious illness at Indonesia training centre. They had to send her home urgently. This maid should arrive early this month had she not contracted any disease.

My mother-in-law is going back to Sarawak next Tuesday for about a week time. We thought that the maid would take care of Aaron when my wife went to work in the morning. But now, we have to make alternative arrangement :-(

We choose another maid yesterday based on the agency recommendation. This is the third one that we choose. The agency said that the new maid will arrive in another one and half month time.

We faced so much difficulty in getting a maid this time. However, it is a blessing for both the maid and us that the problem appeared before she comes here.

Photo of the 22 years old maid that we choose.

Again, as I asked earlier, based on the look, do you think she will be a good maid? If you guess correctly, I should cook you a delicious dinner when the maid comes :-)

Lastly, may God bless the maid and God bless me!

See you next post :-)

Day +278 : We choose a maid again

I am fine today.

Last week, the agency that I booked a maid on early March (Blog Day +248) informed me that the maid could not come to work. I thank God for this (Blog Day +272) even though there will be a delay of one month of getting a maid.

Now we have confirmed another Christian maid with the agency. She is 23 years old and comes a rural place called Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) in Indonesia. Our former maid also came from the same place.

The agency said based on their experience, maids from the Indonesian Agency which supplied this maid always performs very well. Do you believe? I choose to believe :-) This will make me happier than choosing not to believe :-) You might ask, “What if the maid could not perform later?” The answer is very simple, be happy now and handle the problem later, if any (到时才打算) :-)

Again, as I asked earlier, based on the look, do you think she will be a good maid? If you guess correctly, I should cook you a delicious dinner when the maid comes :-)

Lastly, may God bless the maid and God bless me!

See you next post :-)

Day +272 : Three things to thank God

I am fine today.

The agency that I booked a maid (Day +248 blog) told me yesterday that the maid could not come to work due to unforeseen circumstances. We are in the midst of choosing a fresh one and now, the earliest we can get the new maid to work for us is June - a delay of one month. It is very fortunate that the problem appears before the maid comes; else we need to tackle her problem here and may even need to replace her. This will incur unnecessary effort and expenses. So we thank God for this :-)

When I reached home from office yesterday, I noticed a screw penetrating one of the tyres of the Daihatsu Charade, leaving the tyre half-punctured. I immediately drove the car to a nearby workshop and get it fixed, just before the workshop closed. It took only RM5.00 and 15 minutes to finish the job :-) It was very fortunate that the screw was positioned in such as way that it was very easy for me to spot it. I did not check the tyres of my wife’s car everyday :-) If my wife drove the car to school with the screw on the tyre this morning, I would have to do extra work to get the tyre fixed. So we thank God for this :-)

This morning, I brought my two nieces to open bank account in a nearby bank. The car park was full. So I parked the car in front of the bank and waited for them inside the car. After waiting for quite sometime, I went into the bank to see if everything was going on smoothly. When I came out from the bank, I saw a MPSJ (council) officer at the back of my car, aiming a scanning device to my car plate. He was just about to scan my car plate for the purpose of issuing summon to me for parking my car outside parking lot. When he saw me coming out from the bank, he left. Huh! I thank God for this :-)

See you next post :-)

Day +248 : I booked a maid

I am fine today.

I booked an Indonesian maid yesterday through Agensi Pekerjaan HAZ which has an office very close to my office. After reviewing many biodata and upon recommendation from the agency, we chose a 26 year old maid from Medan, Indonesia. Her name is Debora and she will be with us in about 2 month time.

Since my former maid did not turn up after she went back for holiday, I need to cancel her work permit in order to get a new maid. To do this, I went to lodge a police report early yesterday for the agency to process the cancellation. The police report cost RM2.00 only but the immigration department will fine me RM250.00 :-( Fortunately, the police station is very close to my office as well :-)

The fee of getting a maid is as follow:

Agency Fees(after discount)RM 2,215.00
Indonesia Processing Fee   RM 1,300.00
Recruitment Fee (Christian)RM   200.00
Advanced Salary (6 months) RM 3,000.00
Immigration Fine           RM   250.00
-----------------------------------------
Total                      RM 6,965.00
-----------------------------------------
I paid RM4250.00 yesterday and we just pray that the maid would perform.

I let you see a photo of our future maid :-)

Based on the look, do you think she will be a good maid? If you guess correctly, I should cook you a delicious dinner when the maid comes :-)

Lastly, may God bless the maid and God bless me!

See you next post :-)

Day +221

I am fine today. Continued from yesterday…

Not only the maid’s identity changed, but her religion also changed from Christian to Muslim. Seeing me so surprised looking at the documents, the staff said, “Don’t worry. Everything is in order. You see, the passport is real; the immigration clearance is also real with proper stamp on it. If these documents are not real, how could we manage to get her new work permit with your name as employer?” Yes, everything was real. I knew something must be dreadfully wrong, but seeing those ‘real’ documents issued by government departments, what else could I say? Indonesia Boleh, and Malaysia pun Boleh! (Indonesia can do it, and Malaysia can do it too!)

Now I believe this is just a tip of the iceberg. Who know how many in the administration are making illegal legal and doing something illegal legally? Sigh!

After hearing the agency staff said that they can in fact convert tourist visa to proper working permit but I might not want to do it because I am a Christian (See Day +218), I came to the conclusion that it is impossible to do it legally. If I were to do this, same trick applied to my former maid has to be used. It will be cheaper and ‘legal’, but it is wrong :-( Considering this, I choose the service of another maid agency to bring my former maid’s relative here through proper channel.

See you next post :-)