galdolphin, char
I have an Indo helper. She's first-time in Spore but she's not that young - abt 28 yrs old with 2 kids, the younger being a few mths older than my boy. So the pro is.. she's not totally helpless with babies/toddlers, & she can do a bit of hsework & cooking preps. The young ones (those 23 yrs old, but not REALLY 23 yrs old) are really wuite useless sometimes.
What I like abt my maid :
1) She seems to truly care for my boy. Concerned when he's sick or unwell.. is patient with him coz he's not the easiest of babes
2) Character=wise, quite ok. Polite, not really the show black face or talk back type (sometimes got a bit.. but after we 'tweaked' her a few times, she doesn't really talk back anymore) Huess it's abt being firm when we ened to be?
3) She is educated up to their High school, so although spoken English may not be that great but she can mostly understand & she can communicate with us. Only prob is when getting hr to understand the 'nuances' of maybe jokes, or sarcasm or subtle comments but this is just 'extra'. She can write in English though & that helps.
Cons :
1) Blur & forgetful like sotong! This is her biggest fault. Eg Do magic clean.. leave the paper somewhere. Tell her not to leave the dirty bag on the table on Mon, she can do it again on Tue.. & again on Wed! Mop the floor, then forget to replace the furniture. All this still after 4 mths with us. Tell her 10,000 times & she can still forget. I do wonder if her brain is really so forgetful or she just cannot be bothereed. But this is really inconvenient coz I cannot trust things to her. Cannot let her cook my boy's porridge coz I'm scared she'll poison him due to forgetting to wash the veg or rinse off the soap. Cannot let her totally prepare his diaper bag coz zhe'll forget things. UNRELIABLE!
2) Cannot auto-mode. Dunno if she's lazy & will only stop at 3 coz we only gave instructions till 3. No doing till 4 or 5. Or miscomm. Anyway she also cannot auto-think. Eg if we tell her to do certain cleaning of my boy's room after we reach home, she'll rush to do it. If we tell het to change bedsheet every Tue & Sun... if my boy soils the bedsheet on Mon nite, she will still change on Tue. That kind of thing
3) She is very wasteful with water & soap etc & her time. She'll do things like wash this part of the toilet floor, then start splashing water. Wash another part, splash again. End up wasting so much water & soap. And she'll do things very inefficiently & can tell me never mind, she doesn't mind working longer hrs. I feel like telling her I have other things for her to do!
4) Not up to standard. Not clean enough or fast enough for our standards. Hygiene also like.. er.. must keep reminding & reminding coz their lifestyle isn't like ours.
5) She is very kaypoh - wants to know everything & anything. Or take too much upon hrself. Eg she wants to do massage on my boy when he has constipation or diarrhoea. Yest nite he had a nose bleed & she wanted to stuff leaves up his nose! *faint* Eg she wants to know what we're gossiping abt. or she used to 'investigate' food that MIL left on the table, breaking off a small pc with her fingers, smelling it, tasting it.. MIL got pissed off & scolded her a efw times till she stopped it.
Anyway.. after all the 'complaints' abt my maid.. it boils down to one thing "没有佣人,做死你。有佣人,气死你。" You have to decide which way you wanna 'die" haha
char
I also had the same reservations as you., Don't want someone else in the hse, the lack or privacy, inconveninece, people problems.. But I have no choice coz I ned to provide help for my MIL. And at least the hsework is off our hands - provided we close one eye to the wastage, or lower standard, or keep talking to her. The gd thing is, her character is not bad, so at least we dun get attitude prob. My advice is.. if there's attitude prob, forget it.. send back immiediately. No matter how smart or good at their work, if they have attitude prob, they'll climb up your head.