Category Archives: Daily life

Ring! Ring! Ring! Argh!!


Posted by Skye

If my home phone doesn’t stop ringing, I am marching over to the PLDT office and hitting someone on the head. Seriously. When we moved to KL, I used to get the odd few direct marketing phone calls, the odd few wrong number calls, and so on. Oddly, I never actually had a legitimate phone call (why give a landline when your mobile number will do?), but I needed the phone line for the Internet. But the phone calls never really bothered me. They were few and far between, and usually more amusing than anything else.

But since we got our landline in The Philippines, aside from being a cost I wish we didn’t need to have (annoyingly Sky Broadband isn’t available in this building), you get the most ridiculous pre-recorded phone calls, the odd “we’re currently testing the phone line” call, and a ton of hang ups. I don’t think I need to explain to anyone how annoying a “Happy New Year” pre-recorded phone call is, first thing in the morning on January 1st… Or how much it makes my blood pressure rise when the phone starts ringing pointlessly when Nicholas is down for a nap (like now). And today there have been about a half a dozen phone calls in the last 2 hours! I don’t even know what my landline number is, so it’s not like I’m expecting any urgent phone calls…

So is it possible for someone to explain to me why my phone keeps ringing, and when I answer it, there is noone there? I don’t think they’re prank calls, I think that they’re line testing. But goodness only knows why they are repeatedly testing the line.

I really need to move on with my life (although if the phone rings again, my next blog post might be from a cell, and not a cell of the smart phone variety). Could this be a sign I need to get out of the house more??

 


The tears are explained…


Posted by Skye

Does the reason why my maid was so emotional make my lecturing her about respect and making her cry, better or worse?

She’s pregnant. Gee golly. At least it means she really needs the work right now and will be less likely to just take off and not come back. And it resolves my dilemma as to whether or not to have a helper  - I’ll just wait until she wants to leave, as it’s only a few months away anyway, and then I won’t hire anyone else. But it sounds worse that I made a pregnant woman cry. I had better make sure I don’t put on any heart wrenching Disney movies while she’s watching Nicholas… I know when I was pregnant, Brother Bear was well, too much to bear!

Overall I’m happy for her. It’s another year of babies, and a good year at that. But since this blog is all about me, I am torn between feeling like a sh*t because I made a pregnant woman cry and feeling vindicated – “ahh, pregnancy hormones”.

Sigh.


House help… Sigh…


Posted by Skye

Following on from my last post, my maid returned to work late. Almost 1 week late to be exact, and with nary a warning – just a single text message to Vincent, “Sir, is it OK if I come back on Sunday?” which was sent on the day that we were expecting her back. Vincent understandably flipped his sh*t (as it’s not the first time this has happened), and then asked me to be more strict with the maid.

Fast forward to yesterday, where the day ended with a big and slightly befuddled sigh.

I’ve had a few jobs “over the years” (ok, it hasn’t been that many years, but there have been enough incidents) where I’ve had to manage people, and I know that people in general don’t always do what you want or need them to do. So in the corporate setting I follow a few logical steps:

  1. see the behaviour/incident/thing/etc (at this point moving forward I’m just going to say “thing”)
  2. teach the person nicely, the right way to do said “thing”
  3. see the “thing” again
  4. commence performance management
  5. correct the “thing” and accompany correction with a serious discussion on why it shouldn’t happen
  6. see the “thing” again
  7. Forget corrections, it’s time for this moron to get the h e double hockey sticks out of here or pull up their socks big time

And “over the years” (I’m seriously not that old) I’ve had the misfortune of getting to step 7 a few times. People who make it to step 7 aren’t always the brightest sparks, but are usually always the nicest people around. There have of course been the odd few step 7 conversations which I’ve had with absolute relish – it must be the bitch in me – but generally it bites big time to have a hard discussion with step 7 people.

And in thinking about step 7 people, there are times when step 7 people cry.  Sometimes I can understand why the person is crying. Other times I feel guilt because maybe I’ve gone too far (although half a second after the guilt pops up it’s squashed down with cold, hard, reason and facts…). But sometimes I’m just confused. I seriously didn’t go that far! I was nice! I was gentle! I used “When you do x, y happens…” statements! I’m not firing you! I’m giving you a billionth chance! Why on earth is this person crying?!

So coming back to yesterday, I made my maid cry.

I had had a discussion with her last year about taking time off, and how if she wanted a few extra days all she had to do was tell us before she went on leave. Of course there would be times where it wouldn’t be OK, but 99% of the time I’m sure we could be flexible. The only thing I asked was that she be upfront and talk to us about this before she went on leave. So I too, was disappointed, when she was late back this time around, and expressed said disappointment. We sat down and I talked about respect, and how I respect her as an adult and an employee, but I felt she had disrespected me as her employer… that I couldn’t give her an additional new year bonus because she wasn’t here for a week that I expected her to be here, and how it can’t happened again.

And there were tears! I was genuinely shocked. I don’t even think I sounded like a bitch. I smiled and was empathetic about how difficult it is to be away from family. What the hell did I do wrong!? I genuinely like the woman. I think she’s good with Nicholas and the cats, she cooks well, and she keeps the house clean to a standard I am satisfied with. So I don’t micromanage her. I don’t look follow her around waiting for her to do something wrong. I respect her space and I honestly require very little from her.  So why tears?

After the tears had subsided and the world had been restored to order, I checked my email. I’m a member of an expatriate mums and dads group here, and one of the perks is a mailing list, free seminars etc etc. And wouldn’t you know it? An email from this group tells me that they will be running a seminar on “managing your household help and cultural expectations” this weekend. A bit freaking late don’t you think? But maybe I should go, just to find out where I went wrong, or if I “went wrong” at all…


House help


Posted by Skye

Since moving to the Philippines, I’ve been introduced to the wonderful world of household helpers – maids, drivers, yaya… It’s a wonderful convenience, to have someone help around the house. To not have to worry about doing the laundry or cooking dinner. But at the same time…

When we were back in Sydney, I always imagined how amazing it would be to have someone to do all the household chores I really don’t like doing. When I was scrubbing out my bathroom every Saturday, I would imagine with relish, having someone to do it for me. I admit I wasn’t really thinking about a person doing this, but some amazing and magical “cleaning fairy” (girl’s gotta dream), but I’m sure you get what I mean.

When we moved to Kuala Lumpur, we hired cleaners to come in once a week. They would mop, scrub out the bathrooms, iron the clothes and clean the kitchen. It was a pretty sweet deal, and the only complaint I had was that I had to be at home to supervise them! It was a fantastic arrangement otherwise, because while I didn’t mind the day to day chores, I’ve always hated but been obsessive about the once a week total scrub down of the bathrooms/kitchen/laundry. That and the fact that I hate ironing.

I was truly thrilled about moving to Manila, because I thought immediately “live in helpers”. Of course, there were other things about moving to Manila I was excited about (the food, the people, to name a few), but being pregnant and working… having a helper just sounded amazing for my sore legs and exhausted body at the end of each day.

We’ve been in our apartment since April, and have had a live in maid since May. It’s been nice. She does all those things I wanted my magical cleaning fairies to do, and more! But just now she is away for the Christmas break – she left on the 23rd of December and she will be coming back this week. And let me tell you – it’s been AWESOME. I love having the house to myself, not having to worry about telling someone what to do, being able to wander around the house in my underwear… LOL. Sure I have to do my own laundry, make my own bed, clean my own bathroom, but in all honesty… I’ve had to do all of these things for all of my adult life anyway and it’s not an inconvenience at all. Even with a baby now, it’s not too much skin of my nose. I’m not an OCD housewife, so I can live with a little mess, but I’m not a slob – the clothes are always clean, the kitchen always sparkles, and you could eat off my bathroom floors.

Reflecting on this time, I’m seriously considering not having  a maid at all… But that’s more easily thought than put into action. I return properly to work in two weeks so I might give it a couple of months to make a decision.

So in a natural, at the end of the blog kind of way, are there any “luxury” items or things that you have in your life, that you could do without, but can’t quite rip the bandaid off for just now?


Disaster has struck!


Posted by Skye

I went to load up my laptop yesterday, and to my horror it won’t boot. I was concerned the other day about a small ticking sound from the hard disk drive, and decided that I should back up my files again, as it has been a while since I’d done it (there hasn’t been a need until just recently when I started working on the prints for Nicholas’ bedroom). I’m hoping that the files are all recoverable, but will be extremely sad if they’re not. And fingers crossed that my HDD is not at the point where I need to call someone to fix it for me. Sigh. There go my plans to have the prints made for Christmas… And I guess it also means that there will be no new design for this website any time soon.

The silver lining of this disaster though, is that if my laptop ceases to work properly I will most likely invest in a new one, or in a new computer + netbook. Yay! Any suggestions on a new laptop?

In other news, I’m planning on returning to work earlier than expected. I’m kind of looking forward to it. I’ll miss the time I spend with Nicholas each day but I’m only committing to three days a week until March and I will be working from home. At this point I need to send out massive good karma vibes to my awesome manager. She has been so wonderful and flexible, allowing me to set my own schedule for when I come back to work and not pressuring me at all. I really feel bad for people whose managers aren’t so “new mum” accommodating as I don’t know what I would do if she was so strict about following the standard maternity leave agreement here. There is a definite benefit to working for a European company, with a European manager.

I’ve also found a hilarious website, which I’ve been using to amuse myself today, while Nicholas naps and while I don’t have access to Photoshop/Illustrator/etc (as they’re all on my dead laptop): How To Be A Dad. Freaking hilarious – particularly for the parents among us!