Hi mummies,
tks for all the advice earlier. An update on my maid who arrived on Wed. She's a fresh maid with only 2 yrs Indon experience so I had very low expectations actually. But we've been pleasantly surprised so far:
1) Her English is better than we thought - I will be struggling for the word in Malay and she can supply it.
2) She seemed to take to my DD right away - a few minutes after I introduced them at the playground, my DD (3.5YO) came down the slide too fast and fell on her bum, and it was the maid who ran to her first (Mummy and Granny v relaxed - used to her tomboy ways!)
Since then, still q protective e.g. go carpark will hold her hand or carry etc without being told.
3) Seems to be quite hardworking. Wed night we got home late and she only went to bed at 11pm but she was up at 6am next day to mop floor, wash toilet etc. In fact, she's the one asking us what chores we want her to do - I haven't given her a schedule yet coz we're in the midst of moving house so I thought no point. But she seems uncomfortable having nothing to do and even asked if we had anything for her to iron. I gave her my DH's shirts and later when he came home I asked him to grade her work he said 8/10!! I dunno whether his standards low or she's really so good
4) Also seems to have some initiative - my DH was impressed when we came back from grocery shopping on Thur and she came running to the door to take the bags from him. I noticed that she would also hold my mother's arm when they are crossing the road. And today, when I was eating a packet of noodle my mum bought home for me, she came to ask me if I wanted a drink.
So it's so far so good and I really hope that this will continue. I had a very good experience with the EA as well, which is the same as Emily's - Sun Employment, but at the Bt Timah SC branch. My agent is Kent Chia, who reminds me SOOOOOOOO much of Hossan Leong
We picked Sun not just coz their package is the most worth it but also coz Kent was friendly and frank and made us feel like he would be on the employers' side, not the maid's. He says things like, "don't spoil them" and "give them 2 months max, if cannot, just change".
Sun also has a 24 hour 'hotline' that you can call anytime with problems - it's actually the hp no. of their Indon-speaking staff who's been training and counselling the maid. When I went to collect the maid, I met the guy who's also very nice, and before we left he gave the maid a parting 'lecture' on how she must take good care of Mdm (me) coz I'm going to have a baby very soon, must watch out for me and 'sayang' me etc - all in Bahasa so I really only caught a few words here and there.
Btw, Sun does not charge food & lodging if you return the maid, but you will have to keep the maid for 1 mth or rather, you will have to pay the 1st mth salary even if you return her after 3 days. Maid loan and insurance premiums are also refundable, pro rata.
And they have been q reliable abt the dates for handover in the sense that they said she could be here in 3 weeks and they would try for 2.5 i.e. last Friday. But she could only get on a Thur not Mon flight and so I could only collect her this week. And Kent kept me notified all the way - he called me on Thur to confirm that she was on the plane and again on Tues to say that she had passed all the tests.
So am very pleased with their service really and would recommend them strongly for the lack of aggro (so far)... fingers crossed that my new maid will continue to be a Godsent since I'm probably going to pop in 1-2 weeks or so!
