Lucky in Love, Unlucky in Maids

I am temporarily skipping my remaining posts from my travels to give way to my kwento about our maids and my dinner preparations and the actual party itself with some OMB readers at our residence here in Quezon City.

Although this dinner had been scheduled since a month ago, I didn’t have much time and energy to plan and prepare because I was in and out of the country.

I came back from Barcelona on Sunday night. I still have jet lags from my travel prior to that, then going to Spain then some more jetlag from my flights coming home. I have triple jet lags.

My birthday Dinner with OMB readers would be on May 12. I initially intended to hire a caterer but their minimum was 50 px. They could do 20 px but they would increase the price and when I computed, it was as if I paid for 50 px.

If I have reliable maids then preparing food for 20 px would be chicken feed but we, as you all know by now, are not liked by domestic helpers. And as the saying goes, lucky in love, unlucky in pekwa and maids.

We had no single maid when I arrived from Barcelona. Edmund said they took their day off two days prior. The next day, we figured they would no longer come back. But why?
Edmund said he didn’t know. We were trying to guess what made them abandon this not-luck-in-maids-family.

Edmund said it could be that he told the kusinera not to cook tinola and sinigang all the time. Ibahin naman daw ang luto. For the past two and a half months, our ulam was either tinolang manok or sinigang na baboy. Baka daw yun ang reason. My guess was that they didn’t want to get tired cleaning. Before I left for Barcelona, I requested them to start cleaning because I was going to have a dinner party.
Tingin ko yan ang trigger. Sabi ko lang naman mag-palis-palis, unti-untiin ang linis. It was absolutely fine if they leave. What’s new? We are used to that. It’s not like the first time that all our maids left all within two days span.
What made us feel a little sad was that why this people could not just text to say they won’t be coming back. What’s so wrong about having some courtesies. Tinanggap naman ng maayos, sana magpa-alam ng maayos. Sabi daw sa driver namin, baka daw kasi hindi sila payagan ni sir. We’ve never stopped any of our employees from leaving. That’t their free will. Our rule is we only want those who want us. Kung ayaw sa amin, eh di ayaw.

I hired a professional cleaning company to do some dusting and carpet shampooing two days ago. They live in the same village so it’s easy for mobilization. They told me they charge P1,200 per hour and carpet vacuuming and shampooing is P20 per square feet. The number of hours would depend on how dirty our house is. In a few hours, they did an ocular and they told me that our house is very clean. I told him, I have a dinner party for 20 px and I want the living room, kitchen and powder room to be super clean. They came and did the cleaning from 2 pm to 4:30 pm. I didn’t want them to stay any longer because I didn’t want to pay much more. The carpets were cleaner but the alikabok in the sulok-sulok were still here. Before they left, I ran my fingers on the window sill and whoala, nadyan pa rin si alikabobok. Ulitin daw nila.

I did some extra leaning after they left. Ano ba yun? I could clean our whole sala in two hours by myself, squeaky clean.

I spent my whole morning calling employment agencies. Grabe the fees, merong 11,600 per maid, merong 8,600. And the maids salaries have increased considerably. What happened? Ang tagal ko bang wala? Okay lang to pay that much and to increase the salaries but their attitudes and level of efficiency and competence are retrogressing or getting worst.

I personally went to check-out an employment agency to see their office, and interview maids. They told me younger women no longer want to work as maids. They go to factories and stores instead.

Labandera/Linis (47 years old, 4’11”)— “Ilan kayo? May washing machine? Mam, yung mga bedsheet ba pinapalitan?”

Labandera—- “Saan kayo nagpapa-load?
Omb—–“Hindi ko alam pero sigurado ko meron dun, paki tanong na lang yung gwardya”.

Labandera/Linis— “Saan ang bahay nyo?”
Labandera/Linis—-“Ay, mahirap dun, sobrang malalaki ang bahay”.
Omb—–“Yung dati mong pinasukan maliit ba ang bahay?”
Labandera—–“Townhouse, two bedrooms, isa toilet. Ako lang ang katulong”.

Labandera— “Pwedeng lumabas? Mahirap pag ganyang village, hindi makalabas”.

She hasn’t started work and she already wanted to go out.

In desperation, I ended up getting three maids from this new agency. Two then one more arrived yesterday.

Yesterday morning the labandera was already complaining that she threw up daw while she was watering the plants because she smelled dog pee. She said next time baka daw ubuhin sya.
She also complained of not having breakfast. The kusinera didn’t cook breakfast for the staff because she said she was still full from the pizza mam Oyen gave her.

The Labandera complained that there’s no cel signal in our house. Lalabas daw sya. Magpakabit ako ng fiber optic for the maids.

I don’t know what maids are looking for. They are not serious about their work. I swear, work here is not heavy.