Helper issues. help please

R

rs2000

Registered User
Hello All,

we have been having numerous issues with our helper who came in Jan this year.

in past 2.5 months, we have been subjected to lots of lies and complaints.

i.e. inc. the agency calling me that I dont let her sleep before 1 am. when I asked her she said she did not even mentioned anything like that. Then her husband finding a job abroad and she asking me who will take care of her kids. Then in 1-2 days, the husband's job just disappeared again. When I asked her if her mother can take care of her kids? she told me that her mother had died many years ago.
Now last week she said she want to go home and give us 1 month notice and I said its OK. then today she came crying saying that her mother (who had died many years ago) has passed away and she needs to go home asap
i did not say anything
she said she cant give me 1 month notice

Now in this situation, I have been given 1 day notice and have 2 young kids.
Am i supposed to

1. pay for her ticket?
2. pay her last month salary?
I spent 5k on herin Jan inc. agency fees etc and with this kind of attitude I dotn want to pay anything unless its legally required.
I am feeling very bad that I am being deceived . I did not say anything on her mother's passing but I know its a lie. She also mentioned that if she stay any longer, my kids will be put at risk!!!! now i am feeling ver unsafe with her. I am planning to have her sign the notice of termination (from her side) today and then will ask her to leave tomorrow morning.
 
if she has given you 1 day's notice, SHE PAYS YOU one month salary.

yes, you still pay for her ticket.

you need to pay her for any outstanding salary. i would also call immigration NOW and tell them that she has threatened the safety of your children. they will give you the definitive response. get rid of her NOW, even if she changes her mind, she should NOT be in your house with your kids at all.
 
Hi Cara

how does it work then?
she def. does not have the money I think so wont pay 1 month salary. I have to pay her last month salary.
Shall I not pay the salary in lieu of the notice?
or shall I pay her and then she give it back to me?
How do we document this? please can you guide me into what shall I get her to sign?

so I pay for the ticket even if she resigns? thats a bit unfair? anyways, so shall I book her flight and give her the ticker or shall I just pay her? the problem is that the flights so close (in next 1-2 days ) will be expensive due to easter etc
I dont want to bear the extra cost as she is the one who chose to leave
so can I pay her in $ and then get her to sign? will hk$700 be OK?

I am feeling a bit unsafe with all this

thanks a lot!
 
yes, you pay for the ticket even if she resigns. that is clear on the contract. the employer is responsible for repatriation to home.

like i said, contact immigration & labour depts TODAY... tomorrow is a public holiday, they will be closed. they will give you the definitive answers to your questions. you do NOT want her to come back at you for "unfair dismissal"....
 
I would have thought your agency would be able to help you with all of this. Afterall you did pay them a commission at the start. Have you tried calling them?
 
Hi All,
yes I called them and explained. and they said they will also talk to the helper.

an update, she woke me up at 6 am a few weeks back and said her mother had passed away and she need to go back immediately. I told this to my husband who then remembered that she told a few weeks back that her mother had passed away a few years ago

she then told my husband that "its her biological mother whom she never met but she was taking care of her kids" now i am not sure what sense this sentence makes

anyways, we called agency and they told us that she was telling a lie and that she wants to go back as her husband has left the job after she came here so now she does not want to work and let her husband rest at home....

in short, she went without igiving us a notice and without any reason from our side.....
in past 6 months, this is the second helper from Arrow Agency that we had hired ..first one would not say anything and would not listen to what I say too...and the second one would throw tantrums every other week as she called him and got an update from what was happening.....in short...horrible experience for us...
 
If you feel your kids are at risk, then get her out of your house immediately. You can sort out the money later.
I'm surprised, because I also used Arrow, and they were so thorough and responsible. We are very happy with ours. I'm sorry yours did not work out.
 
If she threatened my children's safety, not only would she be out on her butt, but I would call the POLICE not immigration! That's criminal!!
 
I heard a recent case of helpers coming and going within 3mths to earn some quick money in HK as they don't have to repay their agency fees if they don't work for more than 3mths. So what happens is, they come over and at the end of the first month, start to do things to get fired! We give them a month's notice OR they give us a month's notice (because they're homesick or someone's died etc.) and return home....all within 3mths! I was shocked to hear about this but apparently it's been quite common lately.
 
Though this post is a bit late, i still would like to say: treat your helpers kindly and feed them because they need energy to burn to get the daily hard job done. Based from what i have read here, all 3 helpers are from Arrow yet only one didn't work out well. I am not judging the one whose helper been telling lies since i don't know her personally, it seemed to me the helper has been fabricating lies just to get out of their house to the point of saying the children will be at risk. Aside from others wanting to fool the agency in order not to pay the fee which they owe from a lending company back home, and others wanting to have Caucasian employers, these helpers who are capable of telling so many lies are signs that they want wanna go out for reasons being they are not happy with the working condition anymore. So ask yourself first have you had treated your helper fairly, have you fed her enough eating 3 times a day? Based from the many stories i have heard, helpers are not happy mainly because of food and the amount of work she needs to do. Should be the bigger the responsibilities, the nicer and the more generous the employers should be and these traits are with the Caucasians. For i don't see any reason why a helper, who owed and spent a lot of money just to get here will risk her DH job and return home with nothing and start from zero again.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
sorry, but i don't see ANYTHING in the OP that warrants the implication that they are not treating their helper kindly.

NOTHING you can say would make me think that threatening the safety of children is ok.
 
hknewbie12,

how, on earth, did you infer from my post that we were not treating her well? and thanks for telling us the traits of caucasians! there is'nt any such thing as traits based on skin color! this is just the mentality that prevails in Asia wherein people just admire anything that the "westeners" do

Anyways, coming back to the point!

she threatened the safety of my kids literally, we felt so unsafe that I paid her tickets and she went off without 1 month notice
we have had VERY BAD experience with ARROW. the first helper gave us a really really hard time with respect to not doing anything that was asked. she tested our patience all the time(read my posts from last year if you are interested). Then comes the second helper who was here for the first time as DH. The moment she stepped in, there was a lady from Arrow with her who informed me that how this lady did not like chinese food and had only rice for lunch that day. Anyways, she did not like the food we cooked so we literally got her food from outside breads and let her buy her own. It was a special duty for us to cook our own food while also cater to her needs. Read my posts on how she complained about back ache 2 weeks after starting the work (not that we asked her to do weight lifting, just normal household cleaing). she refused to goto doctor or have medicine, saying that she only had herbal medicines from philipines and she did not want any.
she would complain about feeling cold if I asked her to take my kid to play area (she had ample warm clothes btw), just that it was cold outside and she did not want to go. then she started lying about her husband, etc etc to the point that she one day said her mother (who was dead years back) had died again.
When I contacted Arrow, they spoke to her and did not inform me about what was going on. she had mood swings. in the end I came to know that her husband left his job after she came here and refused to pay money to the agents back in philipines. she basically did not want him to stay at home while she works here in HK. he was not even retrinign teh debt to the agent so she wanted to return asap

now the best part is, when she returned back, she told Arrow representative that how we did not give her food (a white lie), and also how we made her sleep at 1 am (i asked her here and she said she never said anytugn like that. she was ff work at 10 pm btw) and the best was "her thumb felt numb while making dough and she felt she will be paralayzed if she kept working for us" and this is when she used to make dough for 1 indian roti for my kid. trust me even a 10 years old can do it. btw the Arrow respresentative in manilla is the one who reccomended the 1st helper to us saying she was very competent with kids. she never said sorry or apologized. Infact, in order to save her face, she actually said she believes whatever the helper told her about us.

In the end, the agency that I found in teh forums reading "Arrow really hit the spot for us" gave us a real bad experience in the end. I really feel angry at them and at all the recommendations about them here & elsewhere

and also, I was just sharing my experience. your point of view can be different & i dont want to justify what I said or did any further. thanks for the understanding
 
HKnewbie12, just like to point out that threatening the safety of children is not a white lie it is a THREAT!
Anyway I'm not sure what you are going on about with the lack of food and energy to do the helper's job with regard to this thread. If you have some axe to grind about asian employers or helpers conditions find an appropriate outlet!
 
have you fed her enough eating 3 times a day?
Click to expand...

That's just ridiculous! She's a grown woman and should be able to feed herself! Most families have stocked fridges and cupboards and helpers still complain they don't get enough food. They are responsible for the cooking and marketing. She should ensure she's cooking enough to feed the family and herself.
 
Not to haze the new kid but did anyone else kind of burst out laughing when hknewbie12 posted? It's all very subjective, I think. Yes, of course helpers would have some issues "with the amount of work they are required to do" but that could vary greatly. I mean, just like in any other job out there, there are some employees who think they've done the boss a favor simply by arriving at work every day. There are others who will put up with poor treatment from an employer because they feel they can't speak up or they think it's normal. There are extremes and it just depends on what the helper is expecting and what the employer does.

Helpers not getting enough food is actually a problem. I was shocked to find out about this. Some people really ration out the helper's food. One lady we know said that her employers ate out a lot and they would bring her along--they didn't stock much food in their house--but they would order their meals and then pre-portion out how much food they felt the helper needed and give her that and not ask whether she needed more or not--so like "You get a 1/2 cup of rice and a 1/2 cup of veggies and 2 chicken wings." Then they would eat the rest. So, she was kind of in a constant state of semi-starvation. They also didn't give her a food budget because, "We are feeding her from our common food." I can't even imagine that! But, I'm sure in this case with your domestic helper, rs2000 it wasn't like this. That is just flat-out ridiculous!

I think there is something to the "Caucasian" thing--not that it's true but I think that is the perception of some helpers that working for a "foreign family" will ensure better treatment or an easier workload. There is a stereotype out there like this.

I know from listening to my husband's family talk about helpers the role of helpers is really seen differently between most "Westerners" and "Local Chinese." Helpers are considered "lower class" and "uneducated" and therefore don't really "deserve the same amount of politeness." You simply speak in commands and a good helper is one that does what you want. (But, I mean, I think that sure, everyone wants their helper to do what they want.) My husband used to talk to our helper like, "Do this. Do that." It used to bother me because I am big on "please", "thank you", "would you mind..." etc. etc. He has softened his tone a bit. But, this is just my experience in our family about how domestic helpers are viewed.
 
rani said:
That's just ridiculous! She's a grown woman and should be able to feed herself! Most families have stocked fridges and cupboards and helpers still complain they don't get enough food. They are responsible for the cooking and marketing. She should ensure she's cooking enough to feed the family and herself.
Click to expand...

You'd assume that they would and I'm pretty sure most people on this forum who hire a helper DO have stocked fridges and their helpers have access to food.

But, there are definitely employers out there who have a lot of "off limits" for their helpers or like I posted before ration out food because they honestly don't really consider the helper equal to themselves with similar nutritional needs. It does happen.

Hopefully not with people who post here, though! :)
 
rani said:
That's just ridiculous! She's a grown woman and should be able to feed herself! Most families have stocked fridges and cupboards and helpers still complain they don't get enough food. They are responsible for the cooking and marketing. She should ensure she's cooking enough to feed the family and herself.
Click to expand...

My helper told us her previous employer used to give her 10$ to buy pork for the entire family and apportion her a small cube a day. She was really thin when she joined us, and now has a nice little tummy that all her friends laugh at.
 
charade said:
My helper told us her previous employer used to give her 10$ to buy pork for the entire family and apportion her a small cube a day. She was really thin when she joined us, and now has a nice little tummy that all her friends laugh at.
Click to expand...

Or maybe the employer is in fact really poor? I mean the $10 meat is for the whole family, isn't it? If the helper can still get a small cube out of that, I'd say it's not bad, eh? Sorry for the sarcastic tone, but most times we need to hear both sides of the story to pass a judgment.
 
I agree with HK2008. I've seen one pretty messed up situation where the family had an elder who had had a stroke plus other illnesses and to go into a public nursing home would cost 6000 or something like that per month, as a consequence they decided to hire a helper to look after the grandfather (cheaper option) and live in their tiny flat as there is little by the way of another choice for the family. That or else turn him out brutally and hope social services does something for him. They were pretty poor and just getting by.
I mean honestly, if the whole family has only $10 for pork and the helper gets some - then to be fair, that family must on some level be good. I'm sure faced with a similar situation most mothers and fathers would reduce their own inatke for their children and the helper would go without.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top