Mid-November 2012:
On my way to MRT station for a shareholders meeting, I ran into the maid working for WL/LL. She was on her daily trip to work in their aunt's house at 59 Jalan Limau Nipis.
She said she heard that I will be returning to Malaysia and she will also be going back to Indonesia. When asked why, she initially only said she wanted to be home.
Although I already had my suspicion (see below), I asked her why leave after only 3 years since she had to pay 8 months salary to the agents for coming over to work in Singapore, and will have to pay again if she want to return after that. Asked how much she managed to save after 3 years, she said 'OK lah', her monthly salary is $400 and she gets additional $50 from the 2nd household of 6.
$2.50 a day is not even enough to buy her a meal in Singapore! There are 6 people in that 2nd household and 5 are working. One is a mongoloid daughter who I think gets a better salary than what they pay the maid! That got me feeling really sick. Those bastards are not human.
[Side note: When WL was 1-2 years old that aunt kept sending that mongolid kid to our house to 'play' with WL - because the other sisters likely refused to play with her. It got more and more often until I showed my dislike. Since then that aunt bastard and WL's mom had been unhappy with me. Those idiots thought I was prejudiced against that mongoloid when I was worried that playing too much with a half-idiot would harm WL's development. My belief is one becomes like what one mixes with]
Told maid that it is illegal for her to work for 2 households.
I had been suspecting that they had been exploiting the maids ever since Lis (another maid) left about 6 years ago (there was another maid after Lis before this one). While sending her off at the airport with LL, I asked LL to pass her an ang pow with $250 and then saw she had tears in her eyes after returning from the toilet (she probably went there to check how much was in the envelope). Since then I had been asking WL and LL if they knew how much the maids were compensated for working in 2 households but they said they didn't know.
The maid says she goes over to the 2nd house at about 11am daily, finishes her work there about 5-6pm and return to WL/LL's house with dinner for them. I later estimated she has about $11,000 to $12,000 in total (her first 8 months salary went to the agents).
Shared with her a few other things below:
She should consider carefully if she intends to work overseas again as she will have to pay 8 months salary as agents commission again. She then shared with me that she has provided her details and contact to a Singapore agent and hope to return without having to pay a high commision. Told her not to rely on just one agent since they would then have a 'monopoly/leverage' on her and she should use her off days to contact more agents.
Also told her not to keep her savings in cash when she go home but to buy land, house or gold with it. Told her about government money printing and how the Rupiah had depreciated from about 300 Rupiah per Singapore Dollar in late 1980s to more than 6,000 today.
Information/knowledge is power and internet is where to go for knowledge without having to beg/kowtow to another person. I will give her a tablet for her to take home. Told her to make sure her children learn English as it enables them to learn from all over the world via the internet without having to kowtow to other people like people had to do in days before internet.
Was worried that she would not remember all the things I shared with her, so had written them down in a notebook. Will pass the booklet to her along with a blank book - want her to copy my notes and return the original book to me to make sure she gets them.
In the book are some tips on:
- key life lessons e.g.
- grow 'financial tree'
- 'blindmen and an elephant' fable
- learn from as many sources as possible esp. the smart ones which is only 20% of people
- do not bother with or learn from the stupid/lazy which is 80% of the people
- diet tips
- components of computers/tablets/smartphones and what to consider when buying them
- how to use tablet, download apps etc.
- how to use internet to find out things and prices of things before buying
Early Jan 2013:
Ran into the maid again few days ago - she was on way back to Ferraria Park. Told me that she does not get off days!
