re: good maid stories
heh... like i say.. maids r oso humans.. they jus wanna earn a living. n esp so if we r the only kin here, they will treat us well if we treat them well. my family's very first maid is still with us after 18 years! she went back for a break in between for 2 yrs... but returned to us again till now. she was young when she first came and as it was our first time, we really treated her like family. somehow, it felt weird to command someone to do work that we usually do and we were very polite to her all the time. her english was not good and we didn't understand her initially but being young, she took to our language fast and can soon speak singlish and such. we also got used to her slangs and communication was not a prob. we got her to look after my little sis too and her chores were to take care of bb and do housework while granny plays w bb in the day. my mum thot her to cook chinese food too.
and b4 i make her sound super good, she has her shortcomings as well. sometimes cleaning not to our standard, ironing not so straight.. blah blah blah. but if we think of it, if we cannot do everything ourselves, sometimes gotta close an eye when helpers do for us lo. if we wanna be so particular, seriously, no one can be as good as ourselves wan! the main issue is the house is clean, the children safe. not spick n span we jus tolerate lo.
in between this maid, we have others as well. of cos there are lousy ones. 1 was sent back cos she fought with my granny. 1 sent back cos she treated my little sis badly. 1 chose to go cos my granny left home over her. overall, i feel maid + old folks dun really belong together. in fact, sometimes 1 maid unattended is better than 1 maid with 1 old folk tending.