Maids, respect your employers, especially if they are as considerate as ME.

There is no better way to end the day than this.

My rejoicing over finishing the report (something that actually pays the bills) that I've been working on for the past two weeks was quite premature.

Tonight, I come home to a maid watching Cinema One on volume level No. 22 (when we ordinarily have it at level 16-18), my kid's toys all over the place, a dinner waiting for me to cook, and sacks after sacks of my mother's muscovado retail business blocking the only entrance and exit of the house--an actual violation of the fire code.

The kid immediately rushed to me, took my hand to his forehead and asked if i have anything for him, which i really did--a slice of strawberry cake. my kid had already crossed the 2-meter distance from his play area to where i was seated, untying the laces of my shoes, and the maid's still seated on the bamboo chair, glued to the bullshit movie starring Hero Angeles (it's a pity, you gave up architecture for this shit) and Sandara Park, as if it was not her BOSS who just arrived.

The maid is a recent hire; has been with us for 3 weeks--21 days to be exact. I knew something would go wrong, hiring a stay-in maid who lives more or less 40 kilometers from ours, who went to vocational school in the city. And something really did go wrong because when she takes a day-off on Sundays, she comes back 6:00 am the next day, Monday. By then I am already stressed from having to wake up early to work on my report, prepare breakfast and prepare the kid to school, not to mention prepare myself for office. I've mentioned this before but may i reiterate, that i work on the Island, and that I have to take 3 land trips and a ferry ride to get to office. And i have to clock in at 8:30 in the morning. And that means i have to be out of the house not later than 7:15 am if i want to be punctual.

and this stupid maid comes home on a Monday at 6:00 in the morning. She did the same thing last week, on a Tuesday--went out at 7 pm to attend a relative's birthday party at the district near ours. I did not forget to remind her that our apartment's gate closes at 9:00 am and that she has to come home early because i am very busy during weekdays. She did come home early, at 6:30 am THE NEXT DAY, an hour and a half late from the 5 am she promised.

I will not even begin to tell that last Sunday she asked if she could go home in the coming Tuesday to attend a relative's funeral, to which i answered, "I have told you before, I am a very busy person on weekdays." To which she also replied in a question: "Can i then borrow 1,000 pesos so i can buy flowers to give my dead relative?" This is the third time she asked to "borrow" money in the 21 days she has been with us.

I have never been this mad at a maid; never had as much horrible experience from the previous ones that had lived with us. I've had 5 maids before and except for the even stupider (but at least not as fresh as this latest animal) last maid, I've come to love all of them. The third maid stayed with us the longest, only quit when she got pregnant. She's sophisticated, maid level, even puts on make-up and dresses presentably when she goes out of the house. She does not watch TV but listens to the radio (she herself bought) and from her, my kid learned to appreciate pop music and memorized the smell of a nail polish. The second maid was also very dear to us, to our family, actually. i let her go after she finished her vocational course, while working as maid and nanny for my then 5-month old kid. My kid was already 18 months when she left us to work in a mall, which, we later found out, did not pay much as expected that she went back to working as household help. Then she quit her employer to work as nanny for my sister's kid in Manila after a chance meeting with my mother. Every time we remember her, maid No. 2, we think of ways to help her; get her a good job that she deserves as she's a smart and very driven.

but this new animal is just beyond comprehension. since she's been here, we've been having dirty spoons and forks (like finding bits and pieces of starchy rice stuck between fork tines), oily counter top, oily burner, dirty wash rag (table wiper) carelessly dumped in the corner of the kitchen counter. I have been coming home to blaring Cinema One movies. she does not even change the channel to BBC or the prime time local trash news channels the moment i arrive, unlike the others. (Maid 3 is the most laudable, she automatically turns the TV to Aljazeera when i arrive--plus a clean house and prepared supper waiting to be gobbled by me! That is why we gave her paid 2-week Christmas holiday vacations, a 1 month bonus and Philhealth membership, on top of her pay.)

So today, very tired from FINALLY finishing the 60-something pages report (bringing home a couple more reports and matrices to counter-check) and from the long way home, i turned the TV off, got very very mad while i cooked dinner, cleaned the house, washed the dishes she left on the sink, and hated myself for having too much respect for poor people, and for my inability to yell at maids, while she pretended to play with my kid, and while my kid genuinely laughed from being tickled by her.

I ended up screaming at my kid to GET YOUR GODDAMN TOYS ORGANIZED!!!!, left him alone to get himself ready for sleep and yelled at him once more for not coming to bed on time, slamming the door for emphasis. for this, i feel very very guilty. It's wrong to take it on a family just because you have too much respect for your maid's rights and have too much consideration for her poverty. (Actually, she doesn't look poor at all, and is very comfortable at borrowing money from her employer, to the point that i had to devise a weekly maid payment scheme, for the first time in the 5-maids-of-my-married-with-kid life.)

My younger sister and I have this feeling that her purpose for getting this job is to be closer to her friends in the city. I'm even thinking she's another candidate for pre-marital pregnancy (that one i don't really mind) and would probably leave me again for that same reason (she would be the third maid to get pregnant under my "care"). But i won't wait for that day. I am firing her next week, when she turns a month at work.

wow, if it's not amazing news week, i don't know what is.

my kid's play school teacher just sent me a message that my kid's "nanny" is leaving us end of this month. Nanny just got news from her pregnancy kit that she is positively pregnant. she is the second nanny, in the 4 nannies that worked with us, to have become pregnant. the one before her was the first.

husband said he has seen it coming because she seems to have the same habit as the previously impregnated one -- endless time on mobile phones. i tell you, if your nanny is always spending time on her mobile phone expect a pregnancy soon.

i meant to write a story about her because lately she has been getting on my nerves. but i'll think about it now that she is leaving us.

eehh. but the shine is shining today after 3 days of rain and cold so it's not totally but news day. but eh, i realized i'm in the island and weather here is crazy.

eehh.