This is How Much She STOLE!

We finally got our stolen stuff back from the maid agency a couple of days before we left for Beijing. They were keeping it for a while to painstakingly take pictures of every piece as evidence.

 

Since we have no pictures of the stolen item as well, I laid them out one piece at a time and grab a picture. Believe me or not, I took my wife and I a full one hour to unwrap and photograph them.

 

And once I was done, this is how much she has stolen (or attempted to steal from us since she was caught) ....

Yupe. We were careless and we were too trusting and we were also too busy in the last couple of months leading to our decision to relocate the family to Beijing.

 

But it has never occur in our wildest imagination that we could have employed such a dastardly character to stay with us in our home for the last five months. Does she not feel guilt when she give those clothes that she has so conveniently stolen from us, to her youngest son named `King'. How can she look her son in the eyes and gave him the very shirt that we have bought for Ryan, knowing fully well, that that shirt was NOT meant for his son. How can she honestly gave out those stolen items as Christmas presents?

 

How can she began to tell her children to live a good and honest life and that stealing or taking things from others without permission is VERY wrong, a crime and could lead them being branded as a criminal.

 

We could not comprehend what she was thinking of when she wrapped and labelled those items so meticulously and honestly, we are right now, too angry and disappointed to really care.

 

And to rub salt to the wound, the agency actually told us that we still have to pay to her, her balance salary and to get her an air ticket to send her home. We practically told the agency off and reiterated that she could get her salary and her air ticket from us at the police station, if she so wishes.

 

Needless to say,the agency left the issue as it is and dare not pursue any further.

 

Well, after having lived with the help of a maid over the last 4 years, it can be difficult adapting. It is in time like this, we are thankful that we have our moms and in our case, my dear mother in law who not only helped us out when we were busy packing and shifting but also followed us to Beijing.

 

I am still coping and my daily routine has been drastically changed to accommodate the additional chores without the maid. In a way, as we slowly settled down into our life without a helper, we sort of enjoy the extra privacy of not having a stranger in our home.

 

Well, enough said about this maid. It's good riddance to bad rubbish.

 

For now, several baby bottles awaits me in the basin to be washed before I proceed to put our clothes in the washing machine to be washed. Life is SO MUCH FUN!

Even the Ultraman was not spared ....What the hell was she thinking of?

My mouth gasped in disbelief. 

My mind was spinning and trying to comprehend what the hell was she thinking of when she packed the items laid on the floor in front of me.

On the floor, were packets after packets of neatly rolled up clothes, packed in small transparent plastic bags that I bought for her to pack our food, each packet meticulously labelled not only with the name of the recipient but also a brief description of the content.

"6 piece toys. Ultraman" reads one label and inside this neatly wrapped plastic bag was six of Ryan's favourite Ultraman figurines.

"3 piece girl baby clothes. 1 pink, 1 white and 1 stripe" reads another with three of Chenya's new branded clothes that we have just bought from US, neatly rolled up, taped, wrapped and labelled.'

But nothing tops these two ....

"This is for outdoor activities only" reads one plastic bag with one of Ryan's outdoor shorts, meant to be given to her son.

"For `so and so' birthday. Happy Birthday. From {Maid's name}" was written on one of the label where another Chenya's cute dress was neatly packed.

Not only were my wife and I stunned and shocked. The magnitude of the volume of such packets found in three huge bags and the manner of which they have been packed and labelled sent ripples literally throughout the maid's agency. In all the years that they have been there, they claimed that they have not seen something akin to what was slowly unfolding before their very eyes.

It took 4 staff to slowly laid all the loot over the floor, carefully photographing them, unwrapping them and documenting them. The last count was 250 pieces, discounting those that came in pairs! 250 fucking pieces of clothes, taken right under our nose!

And just the day before, we were just about to process her visa and bring her along with us to Beijing, China to take care of both Chenya and Ryan for the next 2 years.

However, we are thankful and grateful because the heavens are definitely looking out for us. The timing could not have been more timely and how the entire conspiracy and scheme unraveled was rather unexpected to say the least, and it's nothing short of a meticulous and calculated conspiracy between my Pinay maid and the one behind our house.

Being with us for the last 5 months, we have learnt to trust her with our children and house chores. She has started off well, although lately she has somewhat slacked and was caught on various occasions by my mother and mother in law staying at our house, in our absence while travelling, chatting and having a good time with the maid behind our house and another from the corner unit. I have verbally told her off and that she is not to waste her time chatting away when there are loads to do.

So, how was she caught?

On Sunday evening, when we got back with her to have her picture taken for her visa application, we found our neighbor's car parked in front of our house. When my wife got down, our neighbor showed her two bags and asked her if they were ours. The bags were clearly ours and on opening those bags, we were shocked to see neatly rolled up, wrapped baby clothes with name of various people written on them.

We were then told that these bags were recovered from the maid behind our house, when she was fired and were asked to leave. When our neighbor checked her belonging before letting her go, these bags were apparently found and upon questioning, were told that they belong to our maid who gave these items to her to be sent back to Philippines.

My wife was fuming and I can not blame her because we both felt betrayed! We were hurt because we have attempted in the last five months to be as positive and caring as we can (as an employer) to her. We have even bought her clothes from US during our last visit as souvenirs and here she was, stealing from us, right under our nose! We wanted to confront her there and then, but realising that we have no place to sent her to in the night, we refrained ourselves waiting to get that done in the morning.

I was certain that she has suspected her deed uncovered when the neighbor brought down the two bags. Although she has said nothing, she was not her normal self, looked somewhat disturbed and worried. I was fearful that she would just run away that very same night and to ensure that does not happen, I have resorted to keeping every key to the house in my pocket and slept on the couch downstairs to make sure that no one leaves the house without my knowledge.

We called the maid agency the following morning and was advised to bring her in. We told her to get ready because we have to bring her to the embassy to get her visa done (which we planned to do originally anyway) and would drop by the agency to get her documents certified. I could see that she was worried but having little choice but to follow.

Upon reaching the agency, she was brought into a room and was then immediately questioned by the person in charge as to whether she realized why she was brought back to the agency. At that point, she admitted that she did something wrong and that she `took' some T-shirts and baby clothes. She was then asked to list down everything that she `took'. She was reluctant at first and listed down only 3 to 4 items. Upon being threatened that we have already had the loot, she began to fill up a piece of A4 paper!

When the two bags that was returned by my neighbor was brought in and the loot laid on the table, we found that many listed on the paper were actually not there. Upon being pressured, she admitted that there is another bag..."half more she said".....given to the maid from the house behind.

GOD! We just could not believe our ears. What we have seen in the two bags were bad enough and here she was, telling us that there is another bag!

We made a quick call to our neighbor to check and 5 minutes later, she called back and said that she found another 3 bags hidden under the maid's bed and one bag was so heavy that she could hardly pull it out.

With a staff from the agency, we made our way to our neighbor's house to recover this one bag. We were shocked! The third bag is even BIGGER than the first two and stuffed to the brim with items from our house!

We were told that she has been silently packing whatever she fancied and passed them over from our wet kitchen window to the maid behind who would then kept it for her over a period of two months.

250 pieces of my branded shirts and shorts, wife's T-shirts, Ryan's clothes and Chenya's clothes (both hardly used or brand new, still with price labels that we bought recently from US), besides Ultraman, hotwheels, USB thumb drives and Angry Bird keychains!

So, what was she thinking of? What was her or rather their strategy? Don't they know that she would have to follow us to Beijing as agreed? Do she know that when they leave for home, all their bags would be checked? How on earth are they going to move three such heavy bags beside their own bags?

Here is what we think ....

• She has gotten braver and greedier as the days went by, starting with used items to brand new items that we have just bought because she was not questioned about these missing items. (We have been noticing that our children are wearing almost the same clothes everyday and she has been questioned. She acted dumb and we thought that she was too lazy to take out other clothes and kept on using the same ones to her convenience) With our relocation pending in weeks, we were also very busy to really check on the items we have bought home.
• She has been instigated and she was tempted thinking that she could get away with the crime.
• She has no intention whatsoever to follow us to Beijing in the first place, because has been constantly asking my mother in law, the exact date of which we will shift. We have been keeping this date from her for security reasons.
• She has planned to run away just before we fly to Beijing, very likely with the maid from the house behind and if that is so, they would have very likely made arrangements with another party at large with transportation to help them to cart away the loot.

The entire conspiracy would NOT have been uncovered if the maid behind was NOT terminated and asked to leave unexpectedly. Our believe is that both maids have planned to run away with the items stolen from both our house and our neighbor's house when the timing was right. However, the unexpected termination forced the maid to leave early and hence, the stolen items discovered and the plot unraveled.

So, God has been very kind to us. We could not have imagine our loss (not only the items stolen, visa application and air ticket) but also our predicament at the very last minute when we do not have a maid to bring over to Beijing to take care of both Chenya and Ryan. At least now, we can still proceed with our back up plans for our relocation to Beijing.

And if you think that all the above are bad enough, wait till you read this....

My maid was given a stolen handphone by the maid behind to keep their communication line opened. (Our agreement with our maid when we employed her was that she will not have a handphone, hence we paid her a premium on top of her monthly salary with a promise that we will allow her to call home twice every month using our phone card)

When we went through her items to be packed and given back to her at the agency, my mother in law pass a black bra to my wife and asked if that was the maid's. My wife's eyes nearly fell off her sockets. She was holding her black Victoria Secret bra, bought back from the US sometime back but have not wore it since. The maid has conveniently took it and wear it as her own, and so brave and arrogant that she has became, that she actually washed and hung it out to dry (at the back) right under our nose!

We were very hurt because we have always attempt to make our maid's stay with us as pleasant as we could. We even have her birthday coming up in November updated in our calendar so that we do not forget to celebrate it with her, just like we did with the maids before her.....

We felt BETRAYED!

The Old leaves and the New begins .....

Every two years, for those with helpers or maids at home helping out with house chores and taking care of the little ones, we have to face the inevitable of our maid completing her full 2 year term and will be leaving. Not only do we suddenly lose a helper, our life routine that has pretty much settled in will get disrupted to a certain extend. To those, who have not manage to get a replacement maid immediately, I would say that the changes can be rather shocking and drastic to say the least.

Our pinay maid is coming home today, one month earlier than her contract date. She has not exactly been an angel and comparing to our previous maid, an Indonesian, this helper is definitely not only smarter but also more daring and lazier.  However, after having said that, she was still manageable. We do still appreciate her for taking care of Ryan and especially Chenya, whom she has taken a special liking. Maybe, it is because she has a daughter of her own back home and she misses her a lot. She is constantly worried of how she is doing and how well she is growing. Then again, which mother would not.

The biggest mistake we made with this maid was our liberty with her in having her handphone. We have been warned by the agency that we should not allow the maid to carry her handphone during the day. We were specifically instructed to take the handphone from her in the morning and only give it back to her at night. But, we were too soft hearted, We thought that by treating her well like our family member, she would put her work and task first before playing with her handphone.

Our problem started when she bought her new handphone. She was constantly on it, at first secretly and later on more blatantly. It gets better if we reprimand her but only for awhile.

So, lesson learnt and learned the hard way. Never never again allow the next maid to carry her own handphone as all pinays apparently have the same issue. They just have too many friends to chat with .....

We are going to welcome our new maid today after dropping the previous one off at the agency. The whole cycle of getting to know her, getting accustom to her, getting her trained, getting her familiarized with us and her tasks, learning to trust her, getting her into her routine starts all over again, not to mention our apprehension of how Ryan and Chenya will take to her. But at least, we have a replacement almost immediately and my mother in law has been very gracious to come stay with us for two weeks to watch over her while we are at work.

As with all our previous maids, we wish her all the best in her life back home and the future. And with all our new maids, we are looking forward to a wonderful and pleasant two years ahead.....

Celebrating our maid's recent birthday in March this year....We made it a point to celebrate all our maid's birthday. We made it a point to make sure that they get their ang pow during Chinese New Year. We made sure that they get a Christmas present when we do our Christmas present exchange under the Christmas tree each year. And the presents are not only coming from us but from my sister, my mother in law and sister in law.....

The cake that we purposely purchased for our helper this year to make sure that her birthday spent with us are memorable ones. She claimed that no one had purchased a birthday cake for her before ....

We are uncertain how much she appreciated all this but deep in our hearts, we just want to be the best employers we could possibly can (despite being human) to her, to be fair to her and to do our utmost to make sure that her stay with us during the years as pleasant as it can be ....

Bon voyage Ranelyn and Welcome Emily ..(another saga unfolds) ....

Our `Eldest Daughter's Birthday!'

Yupe. We seemed to be celebrating lots of birthdays lately. This round was for our `eldest daughter' in the house, our maid. She has been with us for slightly over a year now, and we have come to refer to her as our `eldest daughter'. While news of maid abuse and rights seemed to dominate the local headlines recently, we are only too glad that we are lucky enough to have minimal problems with her so far.

She has her limitations but then who doesn't. While we continue to remind her of our expectations of her performance (we made it a point to lay down our expectations and work schedule the moment she arrived), we are also constantly reminding ourselves that she is also taking care of Ryan now. With Ryan being quite a handful, we have also lowered our expectations on her towards her house chores (although we didn't specifically told her that). The biggest relief is that she has demonstrated time and again her affection towards Ryan and Ryan fondness of her as well. However, we are quick to ensure that we do not allow her to replace our love and our position as parents to him.

She was quite surprised when we took out the birthday cake and told her to change so that she could take some pictures. She loves having her pictures taken and sent home. We also make it a point to allow her to call home to speak to her family and daughters, so that they too could wish her happy birthday.

At the end of it all, I can see that she was happy and grateful. To us, we are only happy that she is happy and hoping that she will continue to treat our family as hers as well while she is here.

Maid - Setting Up the Review Process

Every human being likes to be told whether they are doing well or otherwise. Praises are good motivators while reprimands on wrongs must be swiftly delivered. Similarly, everyone has their likes and dislikes, opinions and concerns. It is only fair then that they be given an opportunity to speak up and be heard.

We treat our maid no differently. We set up periodic reviews that we will sit her down with us to review her performance. We will let her know what she has achieved, improvements that we noted and are glad and similarly, what we disliked and areas that we wanted her to change. At the same time, we wanted to give her an opportunity to voice out her concerns, views and requests.

We will take this opportunity to remind her and reinforce our expectations and at the same time, shared with her what other new responsibilities we would be entrusting to her.

This periodic review also gives both of us an opportunity to release any penned up frustrations and tensions before it explodes, becoming even more difficult to manage.

For the past one week, our maid who previously was not allowed to handle Ryan has been entrusted with the following new responsibilities:-

• Prepare milk to feed Ryan (although we have not let her to feed Ryan just yet)
• Take care of Ryan for brief moments including carrying him.

She seemed excited at the prospect of being allowed to take care of Ryan. We are glad although we will still be supervising her closely. Ryan seems to have taken a liking to her and would smile whenever she calls out to him.

She has progressed rather well in the last six months considering that she does not even know how to cook. To-date, she cooks our rice, boiled vegetables, boiled simple soup, cooked double boiled herbal soup for my wife (as long as I gave her the ingredients) and boil bird nest soup for my wife. We have also `officially’ assigned to cut all our ingredients whenever we have to cook, and she is pretty good with the knife.

Maid - Setting the Work Schedule

Around 500BC, Sun Tzu was granted an audience with the Prince of Wu and was put to a test to drill his 180 concubines and ladies. Upon dividing them into 2 groups headed by two of the Prince’s favorite concubines, they were instructed to follow Sun Tzu’s instruction to turn accordingly. However, on the first and second attempt, there was total disarray. But Sun Tzu did not punish the ladies or the concubines, giving them the benefit of doubt that they have not clearly understood the instructions. Upon the third failed attempt, both the head concubines were swiftly executed.

In my working history, there have been jobs where I reported to work without any job description or briefing of what my job is and what are the expectations. Have you ever had such an experience? Sitting there on your first day, not knowing what to do? Feeling completely lost? Imagine, if you were given a task without proper instructions and you got fired or lashed out for not doing it right. How would you feel? Was it fair to you?

Our maids are the same too. If we do not lay out a properly structured job description and schedule for them, hoping, wishing and expecting that they would be able to perform from the very first day, should we blame them if they got it all wrong?

The second thing that we did with our maid when she arrived home, after sharing with her our simple expectations, were to give her a weekly and monthly work schedule, detailing what she is expected to do from the time she wakes up to the time she retires. We make sure that she understands what we wanted by getting her to repeat it to us. She knows that she has to sweep and mop the floor by 7:30 am for example. She knows that she has to clean the refrigerator every second Tuesday of the month. She knows that we expect her to change the bed sheet and clean the fish pond every Saturday.

Having a schedule does not guarantee a problem free relationship with the maid. We have our fair share of issues with her. However, it becomes much easier for us to tell her off. Just like Sun Tzu, if we have not given her clear instructions and made her understand, how could we punish her?

Maid - Setting the Expectations

Setting Expectations
We find setting the expectations right from day one goes a long way in establishing a good working relationship with our maid. We regard our maid like an employee of an organization. Hence, we treat her like how we would treat a new staff joining on the very first day.

Our expectations of her
Firstly, knowing that we are only paying RM500 a month for our maid, while employers of other countries are paying much higher wages, we must first acknowledged that we will not be getting the best of the lot. If they are good and smart, they would be heading to the Middle East, Hong Kong or Singapore. Malaysia will be the last on the list.

Our expectations from her
Secondly, on the very first day that we brought our maid home, before we even start her on her first chore, we sat our maid down and set out our expectations. We did not give a long lecture of what we want her to do. We just list down to her a brief short list of simple expectations. Important expectations like we expect to be honest and truthful, making a mistake is OK but must work to improve, smile and courteous at all times to us and to all guests, to voice out what she don’t know and don’t understand. It is also critical also to identify the key person in the house to take instructions from.

This list of expectations becomes very handy for us to continuously remind her when she slacks and useful during our periodic review of her performance.

Next, with expectations in place, how do you make sure that she knows her job scope and tasks?

The Maid, The Nanny?

My babysitter dropped a bombshell two days ago. Although she has indicated that she would be unable to take care of Ryan due to some family commitments, we have initially agreed that she will take care of Ryan till 5th Dec. By then, my mum would be here for Christmas and would be able to help me with Ryan till Chinese New Year while we decide whether to train our maid to help or to look for another babysitter. However, two days ago, the babysitter told us that she could no longer take care of Ryan with immediate effect due to some emergencies at home.

So starting yesterday, I would be his babysitter at least till my mum arrives. Taking care of him full time left me literally no time to go out for my normal breakfast, coffee, appointments or to cook. In order for me to still get some work done while handling Ryan at home, I would have to bring our maid up to speed as soon as possible. The question is always, how much do we trust our maid to take care of our babies?

I have heard horrible horrible stories about maids with kids. A couple of months back, we witnessed first hand how a maid handled her employer’s baby and it certainly did not boost our confidence in allowing our maid to handle Ryan all alone. While waiting at the paed’s lounge, there was this mum with a pair of lovely twins. While she cuddled one, the maid was handling the other. She was `showing off’ how good she was by carrying the baby on one hand, putting him over her shoulder with one hand, much to the `shock’ of the other parents (me included). She nearly knocked the head of the baby on the glass door once! And the most disgusting was, while she was carrying the baby, she was also busy rubbing her toes! (She was wearing slipper). OMG!

So, how do I ensure that my maid is not the same? How can we trained our maid and make sure that she is motivated? How do we set the expectations for her? My next post, how we set our expectations, train and motivate her. At the end of the day, she is just like any employee in any organization.