We made a choice to hire someone who has never been out of the Philippines, and is relatively inexperienced - although she has worked as a housemaid in the Philppines before. Many things therefore have to be taught from scratch, and this task has fallen on yours truly. I must say that coaching a new domestic helper is really not easy! I am super tired but know I have to perservere so that she can be independent by the time Bubbles arrives.
Thankfully, our new helper J, has shown a great deal of enthusiasm and intiative. When our agent first brought her to our place, the first thing he said to me (in Mandarin) even before he stepped in was "This one you've chosen is very good". I was quite taken aback, although of course pleased and relieved by his statement.
On the 1st evening, after she had unpacked her belongings, we took her out for a Chicken Rice dinner, orientated her to the guest bathroom, and told her to shower and go to bed.
I could not sleep most of that night! Instructions from my 8-pages were swimming around in my head. I kept mulling over how best to guide her, what I should say and do first, when I should do it, and if I had forgotten anything important. So, because I was mostly NOT asleep, I heard her awake at 6-ish and bustling around in the kitchen. I was curious and a little worried, but was too zonked to face her after a sleepness night when it was still dark in the morning.
I finally washed up and came out of my room at about 7.30am, was greeted with a cheery "Good Morning, Madam!" and saw that she had basically cleaned up my kitchen! All the dirty dishes were washed, counter-tops tidied and cleaned, and I believe she attempted to wipe the floor (because at that point she didn't know where our mop was kept).
The rest of the morning (after I requested that she had her breakfast first!) was of her being an energiser bunny, enthusiastically plunging herself into tidying up the cupboard under my kitchen sink. I had a team of part-time cleaners come it for a spring-clean of sorts (including cleaning of windows, lights and ceiling fans), so I got J to observe some of the things they were doing. In that 1 hour or so, I was basically in the middle of 6 people trying to get our little apartment sparkling clean as I tried to get out of their way!
I thus didn't have time to start on my 8-pages yet. More of that in later posts!
9 comments:
WAHH! Professional cleaning and all! Your helper sounds good. I'm sure all will be well. :)
Your helper seems pretty good! :) I am sure you'll make a good employer too!
Sounds good already. =)
She is able to converse in English fluently?
imp:
The spring clean was part of my part-time cleaners package :) They're really great - will miss them!
cindy:
She has a good attitude for sure - appreciate that. But it is still tiring to train from scratch.
moo:
Am thankful - but still very tiring leh. Good think mum's coming to the rescue to take over some training this week.
celcilia:
She's not fluent, so I do have to repeat things and speak slowly. And sometimes after verbal instructions, I not only write, but also draw pictures. I also ask her to write her own notes!
God has really been gracious in keeping his hand over all this as we soaked it in prayer! Happy for you. :)
lyn:
Yes He has :) Just wrote 2 more posts of my experiences so far. Am really tired though!
Soon, she will be independent and on auto-pilot and she will definitely be of great help to you :)
lms:
I look forward to that :)
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