All About Full-Time Maids

[winth]

Hi,

May I ask how I send my maid off successfully without any ill-feelings?

I have already paid maid agency the first 3 months up-front, but according to the contract, I will need to give the maid 14 days notice.

We plan to tell her that we want to terminate the contract on the 2.5 month. And that we won't need her to work for the remaining 14 days although we have already paid the agency. And we need her to just pack her bag and leave on the same day.

Is this possible? Will the agency come back and say that we still need to pay or let her work for 14 days?

[lifestylelink]

Hi,

May I ask how I send my maid off successfully without any ill-feelings?

I have already paid maid agency the first 3 months up-front, but according to the contract, I will need to give the maid 14 days notice.

We plan to tell her that we want to terminate the contract on the 2.5 month. And that we won't need her to work for the remaining 14 days although we have already paid the agency. And we need her to just pack her bag and leave on the same day.

Is this possible? Will the agency come back and say that we still need to pay or let her work for 14 days?

I assume it is poor performance that you want her to go off. You can tell white lies if you don't want to hurt her feelings. Just say you have a change in mind and decided you will send the child to child care or something. The first 6-8 months, maid has to repay their debt, no salary because thats what they owe to the agency. I think you can ask the maid to leave immediately but you need to pay for her lodging, think it is $10 per day for at least one month till she finds a new employer. Also, if I am not mistaken, you do not get the money back, you simply lose out. The best is check with your agency, diff agency practice a little different.

[winth]

Hi lifestylelink,

Thanks for replying.
I don't mind losing that 14 days which I have already paid for as long as she doesn't hurt my boys when she knows about my plan to send her away. But agency won't ask me to pay right?

So for maids on transfer, the usual practice is employer need to pay $10 per day for lodging?

[matrix0405]

You just need to pay for the govt levy, no need to pay for lodging.

[matrix0405]

Seems like you can do w/o a maid. Just get a partime cleaner and you can save some money and headache.

[lifestylelink]

I am not very certain, best to check with your agency. Honestly speaking, if your maid is not all that bad, maybe give her another chance, especially new maid who are inexperience. They may not know what their mistakes are, what your expectations are etc.

I will give my maid chances so long as it is not relating to abuse and theft. I will tell her the mistakes and what need to be change.

You can also check up the MOM website for some basic info.

http://www.mom.gov.sg/publish/momportal ... rkers.html

[matrix0405]

[Moderator's note: Topics merged.]

How strict are you with your maid, for items like having handphones, day-off, talking with neighbours' maids etc? Any bad experiences after allowing your maids to have handphones, dayoff ...?

[BlueBells]

I think you can do without a maid. The $$ spent on your maid could be put to better use, ie. send both kids to Childcare. You will find that your kids' learning is sped up, and they are more independent as well.

My kids are 2 years apart, and we didn't fancy the idea of a maid, so they went to Childcare at 18 and 24 months. We order tingkat dinner so that settles it.

The only outstanding piece then, is the housework. We get everyone to work their hands, even the kids need to magic-cleaned their rooms, and sometimes they will magic-clean the living room and dining room too.

[mintcc]

day-off is a no no for me because
1.) I need their help esp on sundays
2.) Once I let a maid go for day off and wah, after starting, her attitude get from bad to worst.

Before I get them at the agency, I told them no handphone but for the current maid I eventually give her permission after she is with us for a year...

[winth]

Hi,

I had bad experience with current maid who is only with me for less than 2 months.

1) She went with me to Shichida for a couple of times (not more than 4 times), and I thot it's inevitable that she will have fellow maids to talk to, so I didn't enforce that she cannot talk to people. (But anyway, don't think they will follow such instructions) One maid she talked to told her about all the bad employers (and this maid will be transferred for the third time in 4 months??!!!) and she told my maid to be careful of employers. Even though the maid was good to her employers, the employers will change their attitude after 2 months.

2) Then one other time at Shichida, another maid had her arranged to go to the toilet together, the maid will pass her $$ and my maid is suppose to go 7-11 to buy phonecard for her. I was shocked after she told me.

3) I allowed maid to switch on phone only at night and she has to ask me for permission. One weekend afternoon, while we were out, I saw her SMS-ing and while we were driving, the phone rang suddenly and she talked freely on her phone for like 5 mins. And we seem to be like her chauffeurs, while my boys sat with her. The car braked and stuff but she just held on for her dear life.

4) She will also bring a pen and paper down when we bring her to the park with our children. She will jot down those maid's phone numbers whenever she talk to them.

5) Once, we went grocery shopping. She said she had something to buy (with her own $). I didn't want her to follow me like a shadow too, so I was happy to let her shop by herself and meet at the cashier's. Within seconds, I saw her talking to a fellow Filipino (a hunky guy) and the next minute, they were exchanging phone numbers. She even told me that the guy invited her to his house!!!

6) She also caught a glimpse of my 2 younger brothers (who are in their 20s) and told me that they are handsome. And asked me details about my brothers. The next thing she told me was that her cousins (2 of them) came to work as maids, but then married to a Chinese Singaporean, and another to a Chinese Malaysian. I was like

7) Last night, she asked me how come I don't give her allowance (on top of salary) and she hinted to me that she has to get her family to even send her shampoo. Err... not that we never buy her anything, but bec she wants only specific brands of shampoo and body wash. Even her sanitary, she will buy branded. So, we said use your own $ to buy, since she didn't want what we had prepared for her.

Actually, our intention for bringing her out with us was more like to give her some space, some fresh air rather than stay at home all days (since she has no off days). It wasn't so much about taking care of the children as we take care of them very well, without her help. But such bringing her out, actually gave her chance to even interact with maids to such an extent that it made us feel uncomfortable.

The maid will be sent away in like another 3 weeks' time, while I make other arrangements for childcare. I intend to let her go immediately after I reveal the news to her. We are still pondering over the options of whether to buy a ticket and send her home or to send back agent as a transfer maid.

No more maids for us! In the first place, maids did not even value-add into our daily lives.