Communication with her is not looking up, and everyone’s tempers has risen one time or another.
Tempers are not the only thing rising. Blood pressure is, too.
Here are some things I’ve since found out about the new maid.
1. She says ‘yes’ to everything she doesn’t understand.
2. She says ‘yes’ to everything she understands. (not much)
3. She says ‘yes’ to everything.
As a result, I constantly use a simple litmus test to find out if she really understands what I’m trying to convey to her.
Example:
Me: Later when I go out of the house, remember to close the gates okay?
Maid: Yes, yes.
Me: Do you understand what I’m saying?
Maid: (Very convincingly) Yes, yes, I understand.
Me: Okay, later when I go out, what must you do?
Maid: I must wash the toilet.
In short, if you ask her what is there to eat, she will tell you that the time now is 5pm. If you ask her what is the time now, she will inform you that the laundry is done, and all there is left to do is ironing.
That day, mum asked her to get the fruits in the refrigerator, and she brought down three boxes of cakes and donuts. Dad told her to get the luggage bag from the attic, the maid brought him Mum’s handbag instead.
It’s no wonder that our fuses are turning into short circuit, our fiery tempers running under the surface ready to explode anytime.
The other day, I told her to cook less because I wasn’t eating. In my maid’s dictionary, “cook less” literally meant “practically not cooking anything at all”. She kept every single chicken, eggs, and vegetables back to their original places. Guess what she cooked for the rest of the family? Two small pieces of fish! And, when Mum scolded her, the maid promptly informed her that it was ‘a lot of food already’.
I think its pretty common sense that clothes do not go well with newspapers, for fear that the ink on newspapers will stain the fabrics. Guess what my maid did? She emptied all the contents out of our cupboards, lined the bottom surface of the cupboards with newspapers, and stacked all our clothings on top of them.
When Mum scolded the maid and told her that newspapers were very dirty, she very calmly informed Mum that “these newspapers are clean one, I never use the dirty newspapers.” Vomit blood!
Another thing that I’ve found out about the maid is that she has a goldfish memory. I thought 50 First Dates was an exaggerated tale, until I met her. Her two most favourite sentences are, 1) “Sorry, I forget” and 2) “I will try to remember next time” followed by "Sorry, I forget" the next time round.
Try telling her something, and once she walks out of the room, she forgets it in 5 seconds flat. In short, you have to remind her to do routine stuff or else she forgets. Dad taught her how to set the alarm about a million times, and I still hear the same words every night - “Sorry, I forget.” One night, she even told Dad that there was “no alarm”. Which got Dad hopping mad, especially since the alarm would never disappear! Hilarious! At times, she even forgets what she says or does just seconds ago! And, if you remind her what she just said or did, she goes, “Did I (say/did) that?” followed by, “Sorry, I forget.” -_-
It’s bad enough to keep forgetting what others said or did just seconds ago. But, to not even remember what YOU said or did?!! And, worse, to ask others whether YOU actually said or did that?
THAT’S NOT ALL.
The maid finally agrees to put on her hearing aid, BUT SHE STILL HAS TROUBLE HEARING! That’s because she only has one hearing aid, and not a pair, which she needs. This means that everything you say to her may have to be repeated five or ten times, in both Malay and English.
The maid told me that one hearing aid alone costs a thousand dollars, and she can’t afford another since it is too expensive. The one she owns now was paid for by her agency, who told us that the maid WAS PERFECTLY HEALTHY.
Shouldn’t they be sued for deceptive manipulation of the customers’ minds, causing us so much mental distress? Isn’t it the agency’s responsibility to ensure that her handicap is amply insured, so that the customers do not have to suffer as a result of their negligence, or should I say, deception?
Her sob story is not enough to camouflage the evident truth that SHE IS NOT SUITABLE FOR THIS SORT OF WORK.
I’ve condensed the reasons why:
1) Unlike what the agency told us, THAT SHE IS ABLE TO SPEAK GOOD ENGLISH AND MALAY, she has trouble even understanding the most basic meanings of both languages. Once, I overheard her speaking to a girl of Malay race on the phone, and the poor Malay girl COULDN’T UNDERSTAND A WORD MY MAID WAS SAYING, and finally gave up, saying, “Your Malay is too cheem, sorry, I can’t understand.”
2) She can’t even follow simple instructions when performing basic husbandry duties. She can’t cook, unlike what the agency told us – that she was able to whip up Malay delicacies like curry etc. (Of course, this is the trick tactic that agencies use, as my previous maid told me) But, still, her cooking is bland, tasteless, atrocious. The consumption of ketchup and chilli sauce in my household must have soared ever since she arrived. Every time I think about dinner, going hungry seems like a more appealing option.
3) Goldfish memory and hearing problem.
Also, she can’t differentiate the different voices. This means that unless she’s looking at the person’s face when he or she is talking, otherwise she doesn’t know who is talking. Apart from that, I don’t understand why, but it seems that even with the hearing aid, most of the time, she has to rely on the movement of the person’s mouth who is talking to her, in order to actually ‘hear’ or ‘understand’ what the person is trying to say.
Another funny thing is that whenever I call her, she doesn’t appear as she cannot hear me, nevermind that she is just 5 cm away. But, sometimes, when I’m just sitting around and minding my own business, she comes running to me and asks, ‘Yes, what did you call me for?” when I, or in fact, anyone else for that matter, did not even call her.
Her antics may seem funny to the uninitiated, but for the insider, it’s frustrating, hair-pulling inducing and nerve-wrecking.
It’s a bit like trying to talk physics to a two-year-old.
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