Just my opinion about how to hire an Indonesian Maid

Recently at the pediatrician – you see, my son was not well and I juuuust had to drag my maid along to take care of my very active son to keep my sanity :). Well, at the pediatrician, a mom said to me that my maid looked efficient and seemed to love my son very much. How did I choose my maids and which agency did I go to? Ah! This is one question that I have been asked over and over again - especially now that I have TWO maids to take care of 3 very young children.

At the end of the day, it is all about luck really. Just how much can you tell by looking at the bio-datas that your agent sends you? The bio-data essentially just tell how the maids look like (believe me! When they appear before you, they do not resemble the photos AT ALL!), height, weight, family members, etc. To me, what is REALLY important is the character.

Here are some of the things I look out for when I talk to my agent – and not fully dependent on the 4 letter word, LUCK :) Please don’t take this as the hard and fast rule – it is definitely NOT fool-proof. Just little old me expressing an opinion :) Feel free to discuss :)

1. Age must be at least 28yrs. Bearing in mind that the reported age in the bio-data may not be correct – some would over or under declare. Then ideally I would go for age between 28-33 years. Maturity is important. Once my mum had an 18-yr old Indon maid and all she worried about was boy friends, getting lazy, etc. At last, she ran away after incurring loads on my phone bills!
2. Preferably Muslim. Nah! Nothing to do with religion really! Just that the Christian Indonesians were generally located at the kampong kampong area, according to my agent – I heard from some that they can be so kampong that they have not seen electric kettles, remote control and such, much less operating them. The Muslims are generally located more towards the ‘more developed areas’, more exposed, less ‘pantang’, hopefully.
3. Coupled with requirement 2 above, it is important to know where they are from and under which clan – Javanese, and so on. Sorry this is the part that I forgot. But it goes kind of in tandem with requirement no 2.
4. Must be married with children. Why? I do not want them to come to Malaysia looking for a mate!!! Married women with family have specific purposes when they come here to work – to get money to – to improve the standard of living of their family, to open business and for their children’s education, etc. They are more stable and reliable AND hopefully LOVES CHILDREN! At least, MY maids are! They said that my kids are their ‘anak angkat’
5. Never work in Malaysia before. They can have working experience elsewhere which is good but not in Malaysia. I do not want to have her friends knocking on my door! And generally, maids who came to Malaysia before know how to get away with things and know how to ‘’handle’’ their ‘majikan’, if you know what I mean. The fresh ones are better.
6. If they have working experience but other than Malaysia, it will be good too. Reason? You don’t need to train too much! Believe me, a fresh maid needs a lot, a lot, a lot of time to train – and especially if you have children. You will finds lots of things in your house breaking :) :)
7. Education level – preferably at secondary level. But this is not that important. If they have higher learnings (majority drop out at primary level), they can at least help out your toddlers a bit. My 2 maids are secondary drop outs and they are teaching my 5 yr old son and guiding his homework.
8. Lastly and most importantly, if I cannot meet or talk to the maid (some agencies have video conferencing), I would ask my agent which maid is better from character perspective. They must have already met her and interviewed her. To me, reading bio data is not very useful. I have a set of requirements for my agents – such that the maid will independently care for my children and easy character – no tough nuts and rebellious kinds. They must be independent and stable.

So, I laid down my requirements very clearly and explained to my agent under what environment would the maid be in, before he/she went hunting. This however does not prevent bad maids as bad habits can still be developed when they are here in Malaysia. Hence, a new discussion – how to manage Indonesian maids :) - next time :) :)