SINGAPORE: A foreign domestic helper took to social media because she was upset that her employer refused to lend her money to assuage her family problems.
In an anonymous post to a Facebook support group for domestic helpers, the maid asked netizens for their opinions on her situation. She wrote that she worked with her employer for 8 months and was hard-working. “i dont complain with my work loads here. wake up at 6 am and end at 10 pm no break at all”, she added.
The maid wrote that when she shared her family problems with her employer asking for help, her employer refused. In her post, the helper wrote that her mother was “in big trouble”. As such, the maid wanted to borrow money from her employer instead of turning to other people or loansharks. “so i talked to her and surprisingly she was very disappointed of me because of my problem with my mom”, the maid wrote.
“i’m a professional person and i know my responsibilities as a helper here. work is work. i dont let myself be affected with my problems but this family that i am working now just making me feel unease and not comfortable. .i feel not happy right now. what to do?” she asked others in the group for advice.
Both employers and other helpers who commented on the post told the maid that if her work ethic was professional, she should not have taken it personally when her employer refused to lend her money. Others also said that she was very entitled to think that her employer was obliged to lend her money the moment she asked for it.
In the comments section, the maid also added that she was upset to have heard her employer telling others about her problems.
Here’s what they wrote:
Last month, a foreign domestic helper who ran away with her boyfriend after working for only three months left her employers to pay the remainder of her loan to the agency.
In an anonymous post to a Facebook group about the working conditions of domestic helpers, the maid’s employer asked others for help and advice. The employer wrote that the maid had worked with them for three months and added that her main task on weekdays was to look after their 9-month-old child. She added that she had two other children in the upper primary but they were sent to childcare after school.
The woman added that her mother or mother-in-law would stay over sometimes, especially if her children were unwell, to be of added assistance to her helper. She explained that her helper would only clean the house on weekends when she was home so that she would take over the duty of looking after her children. When it came to working conditions, the woman said that she allowed her maid to use her phone at night but had to return it to her the next morning. Her maid would often nap when the woman’s baby sleeps in the afternoon, but she does not scold her for doing so, the woman added.
The woman then wrote that despite all of this, her maid had run away. She explained that a week prior, she found out that her maid’s friend had also run away back to her home country despite having a loan to pay her agent. After her maid ran away with her boyfriend, the agency informed her that she would have to pay the balance of her maid’s loan, she added.