Hyperventilating

My current maid is booked to go home this Thursday, and I heard all sort of problems with my selected replacement maid. I need a paper bag...

What happened? You see, Mama & Papa already selected the candidate. A widow with 2 grown-up kids, husband passed away. Never worked in Malaysia before. Based on her "water-face", we think she's sincere and hard-working. Mind you, THAT has always been the guidance for us to select the pass 3 candidates. It's always based on the photo that was given in the personal data info. What other means can you assess the person you hope you could entrust your kids with? Doa and lots of doa...

This is a typical career-woman issue. Replacement maid, run-away maid, horrible maid, stealing maid... you name it. I'm sure many could share with me of their maid-from-hell stories and untrstworthy agents. My neighbor had her fair share of maid troubles, from stealing and bleeding (this is gross actually, I might write on this in another post). So does my cousin, who recently thinks she got conned by the agent. The maid she was waiting for at Port Klang didn't turn up, while the agent said she already boarded the ferry. And the list goes on..

So much of maid issues that everytime working-mothers get together, there will be endless narration of all sorts. I'm sure everyone would like to share their agony and grouses. For me, alhamdulillah I have not encountered any horror stories yet. I decided to set a very low expectation on the maid's scope and quality of work. To me, as long as she could prioritize my kids well being, I'm already thankful.

So, at every contract renewal, both Papa and me are starting to be jittery. We have experienced problems getting the maid in, especially with passports and tickets. This time around, the candidate that we selected had actually lied to the agent. She was supposed to get a new passport, and it turned out that her thumbprint is already in the system. She had worked here before, under a different name. We got so upset, but we can't prolong our disatisfaction as we need to work fast getting a new one. Now we are faced with a pool of candidates that are neither Muslim nor young. Sigh!

I'm chasing the agent like mad today, up till the point that he's not taking my calls anymore. Nevertheless, I sent him multiple smses and e-mails to remind him that I desperately need a new candidate!

Now, where's that paper bag?