Aren't maids in Indo allowed boyfriends??
I've heard a few times now about altercations involving maids having boyfriends...
What a joke. Sounds like 19th century fsking Ireland!
Also, I remember when the Clinton administration left the white house, they removed ll the W keys from the keyboards. Hilarious :)
But that's sort like the average maid in the average expat's house I reckon. You are not providing steady employment, expats are here today and gone tomorrow like the drop of a hat.
Mayb making it clear that u'll go to some lengths to recommend and place employees with good families in the future might help all parties involved...
Ok, I have no experience with servants, but I thought I'd give my two rups FWIW, cos I see the same bloody things happening over and over...
8 comments:
Maid issue in Indonesia is one amongst other things that baffles outsiders. It's slavery! Well some 'masters' do not really have control over their maids' lives. Most of them perhaps do.
Outsiders call maids 'slavery' as their jobs are not covered by labour regulations and most importantly they are getting paid to be pushed around.
In other part of the world, they don't call it slavery but blue collar jobs...mmm....or like when slavery was abolished, it was replaced by indentured labour.
Spew...
Is it really slavery? Is working as a domestic servant the best job in the world, no.
I have a maid and treat her with respect. She is paid a reasonable wage. She can have the weekends off if she wants (usually she chooses just the last weekend of the month -- but that is her choice).
On my departure would I recommend her as a potential employee to another family Indonesian or expat, without hesitation, but it is not always as simple as a recommendation.
Can she have a boyfriend? Why not? Maybe she does already, I do not know. Her personal business is her own. Nah, if she wants to bringhim to the house and have him stay over then that is something I need to know about.
Simply, for no other reason than the neighbours are probably not going to be as open-minded on "sleep-overs" as I or my wife might be.
I have been advocating for a while that there needs to be some kind of basic regulatory framework that covers maids and the conditions.
Over time you will find that there will be less and less people having a maid as the cost rises. Not only the cost of having servants but the costs of liveing more generally.
I know that my maid sends some of her salary back to her folks in the kampung so in many ways having a job albeit perhaps menial and manual is better than not having a job at all.
As a foreigner living in Indonesia it took me a long while to get used to the idea of having a maid. I resisted for many years and all of my Indonesian friends thought that I was stupid. My take was that I can cook, clean, wash, sew and anything else I need by myself.
Ultimately, my friends and colleagues convinced me I was being selfish by denying a willing young woman the opportunity for a job.
Just my two rups worth :D
maids aren't slaves. they work of their own free will.
ppl do often treat them like shit tho...
Rob and John,
I was being sarcastic. Of course i don't entirely believe that having maids is equal to practicing slavery.
First impression of outsider on Indonesia might think that having maids are slavery but as you said,it takes a while for foreigners to accept the whole idea of having maids.
in future cita, u gotta encase any sarcastic comments with like so:
*sarcasm* this is the greatest blog everrr *sarcasm*
actually that's now a blog wide rule :)
Anyone at the bottom end of the income scale is going to be open to exploitation and abuse, doubly so in a domestic environment. That's what makes cases like the recent one involving the New York couple all the more revolting.
Slavery? What a load of pretentious generalist toss. The Stump has maid and driver and both are paid as normal employees at above norm. Do we need them no, we do not but it is expected and in fact the RT (Village Head) insists upon it and fair enough as well. It's one way to ensure some of the income generated stays around the village. Some bosses are arseholes (The US wasn't it?) but you dont have to be a maid for that to happen. As for the excuse that the job is temporary as the expat, rubbish as well any good driver or maid well get further employment in fact the last three driver emplyed by the Stump have move up to more senior positions in the company.
Ah Spew.. sarcastic comment..got me in then.
I do agree that domestic help needs to further regulated but thats not going to happen..so perhaps its up to expats who do treat their employees with respect in the hope the word will get around to the other poor buggers it doesn't have to be a life of hell for a couple of bucks..
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