... Lipstick-Jungle Maid

11 August 2010, Wednesday 

I'VE ALWAYS BEEN LUCKY BUT LUCK HAS RAN OUT OF ME 
By the normal standard in Malaysia, I'm considered one of the fortunate employers in Malaysia as my maid usually stays long with me. Maids seem to strike a good chemistry with me. I have had maids the last 26 years. 

I WAS STUNNED BY MY MUM'S QUESTION 
When I was pregnant with my first child in 1984, my late mum had posed this question to me, "Wan, have you thought about who would look after your child after you have delivered?"

My! My! My! How innocent I was at that time. I was 24 then. It never crossed my mind that once I go to work, I would need someone to look after my little one. Obviously at that time, staying at home was out of the question. I had to work to supplement my husband's meager and derisory income. 

MY MUM, MY  SAVIOR 
It was mum who took the trouble and made the effort to look for a maid for me. She had foresight. She arranged for a maid from Kedah, Rosmah to work for me when I was four months pregnant. She wanted the maid to get used to my style before the baby came along. 

3 MAIDS OVER A SPAN OF 24 YEARS 
And since then, I have had only 2 permanent maids, with a couple of temps. The temps are the ones with the most antics and most stories. Check out my Domestic Maid Tales (coming soon). 

LUCKY DRAWS 
I always likened getting a maid to getting lucky draws. If you are lucky, you get a good and reliable maid, like mine the past 24 years. It was only the last 2 years that I encountered psychotic maids. 

SCHIZOEFFECTIVE DISORDER MAID 
If you're extremely unlucky, you may even end up getting a schizoeffective disorder maid like mine (in 2009), or one with a similar problem or with other problems, which could be health, mental, or physical. 

IMPRESSIVE BIODATA? 
No one in their right mind (both maids and agents included) would reveal any deficiencies that are afflicting the maids. Their biodata has been inflated to look very pretty and impressive. 

WYSWIG 
When it comes to getting a maid, it is WYSWIG - What You See Is What You Get! But if you're lucky, you'll get likeable and wonderful maids, like the 3 maids I've had before.

Perhaps, I should come to terms with the fact that not every time I would be lucky. Being three times lucky out of five times is not such a bad scenario.....

... AND ALONG CAME A "MEN-CRAZY" AND LAZY MAID 
After I sacked Yanti in September 2009, I was left without a maid for six months. Naturally, it exacerbated my spinal and back problem as I had to do most of the housework, as by then I was a full-time housewife. And children being children, they think their mum is a maid.

The saying "Never judge a book by it's cover" holds very true to my experience with this new maid I employed since mid-March 2010.

She was the complete opposite of Yanti in terms of demeanour, she was soft-spoken and appears very timid. And there her good qualities end. 

MEN-CRAZY 
She is what I'd term as a "men-crazy" type of women. When she came to work for us, my house was undergoing renovations. And of course, the house was swarmed with workers, Indonesian, Myanmarese and Chinese. 

LIPSTICK JUNGLE 
This crazy maid of mine would run to her room to apply lipstick whenever the men descended on my house....

I had chided her many times for her silly antics. But it fell on deaf ears. She gets highly excitable with the presence of my workers. She would use every excuse to be outside the house or where the workers were working.

WHEN THE CAT IS AWAY THE MICE WILL PLAY!!! 
And she is a real lazy bum. She only does work whenever I'm at home. When I'm out she lazes around and plays truant. Many times I've caught her. And to think that she hardly has much work to do.

FATHER-IN-LAW 
The main reason why I had taken a maid was to look after my semi paralyzed father-in-law. But we hadn't brought him home as we wanted to see if this maid is competent enough to look after him. We had deferred taking him back until we are confident enough of her capabilities. 

MY MAID DOES NOT HANG THE LAUNDRY, I DO!!! 
So she hardly has any work to do. No old man to take care of these 5 months or so; and she doesn't even need to hang my laundry as I'm the one who does it. My laundry are hung in my bedroom balcony and she's one maid whom I do not allow to step into my bedroom (I had this uncanny feeling that it was not safe to allow her into my room unlike my other maids and my intuition has been spot-on!!!).

RUNAWAY MAID ... Check out the sequel