SINGAPORE: Wingman of the year? A migrant worker clad in uniform was awkwardly holding a dog and sitting under an HDB block in Sembawang while his friend chatted up the helper who had brought the pooch down for a walk.
On the way to pick up her child from school that afternoon, a resident saw the worker holding the dog. She said that as he was “babysitting the dog, his friend was busy exchanging numbers with the helper who brought the dog down (for a walk)”.
A second photo showed the boot-clad leg sticking out from the corner of the block. The resident said the photo was taken from the car park, so it was unclear but explained that the second migrant worker and the maid were sitting there. The dog also seemed to be looking towards where the helper sat.
As an employer of a helper herself, the resident told The Independent Singapore: “As for me, don’t bring your social interactions to the house. What you do outside of working hours is not my problem. But you leaving my dog with some random stranger is not acceptable. What if he feeds him something he cannot eat?”
“We cannot stop them from exchanging contact details. However, we can insist that they are not allowed to use their phone during working hours and sleeping hours. I cannot deny their personal interaction but will give stern advice on not using the phone during working hours and also on sharing employers’ details”, she said to The Independent Singapore. /TISG
Earlier this year, another 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.
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