our househelp diary and why i was so busy

i'm in blogging mode once again as after more than a month of having no househelp nor yaya, i have another new one--thanks mama dear for recruiting one for me! =D hence, i have more time now to blog and surf the net... yahoo!

and i thought i'm already good as wifey-mommy-atsay-yaya and home-based employee rolled into one. honestly, i'm already getting the hang of it and if not for my once or twice a week reporting to our office, or only if there is a daycare center where i can drop iñigo when i need to leave the house, i prefer not to have another helper again. i just love the privacy of having no househelp brings. but since i can't forego my income (now pa na ang taas lahat ng bilihin!) i need to hire someone who can help me inside the house and take care of iñigo while i'm away.

so my current right now is the third since jude and i settled down. i thought my first one was a heaven-sent and as matter of fact, she was with us for two years until may of this year. she knew the drills inside the house; she knew my standards and my ka-OC-han; and she knew well how to take care of iñigo as we hired her before i gave birth. but as the song goes, " all good things never last" and my heaven-sent helper transformed into a witch. for the last two months she was with us i cannot count on how many times she lied, she slept over her unfinished chores, and she complained to everyone of her tedious job and how snotty i was to her! the last one was really a "DUH! (with wishing na puede bang manabunot???)" as i was even scheduling chores so she'll have a lot of time to rest and the more and louder "DUH! (with wishing na puede bang manampal???) as i held myself in confronting her when i caught her many times that she's using my things--from shoes to hair accessories. i was even generous of praises and gifts like brand-new celfone as i thought that those would motivate her to do better in job and hopefully to win her loyalty for us. but i should know better na tawag ng pag-ibig is more powerful and in one month after meeting the guy (give one week for their ligawan, if that ever happened) my first househelp, matet, told me that she'll go back to her province for good to study DAW.

me: eh pa'no yun may na and alam mo na makakaalis ka lang after a month, yun usapan natin.

matet: okay lang po ate... inenroll na raw nila ako.

me: ah good. at least wala ka na palang problema.

matet: oo nga po. pagdating ko na lang daw po sa bicol ako mag-eexam.

me: HA???

i decided not to continue with what i have to say. uhm... malay n'yo prelims na pagdating n'ya sa bicol 'di ba? hehe.

her bigtime lies was just one of the many things that made her a good riddance when she left us.

nuggets of her kabalastugan:

- she left the house on her last day without us knowing. if i'm just a malditang employer i could have fabricated a story that she stole something, right?

- she had her boyfriend slept inside our house when we were in malaysia.

- she taught iñigo the word, "pawo (for palo)" while holding a slipper. grrr talaga! and you know how dead-set we are of just using time-out to discipline our son.

- she's telling everyone in their barrio (my staff in bogzzi told me this) that she has an illness, which could lead to leukemia (anemic lang pala, paano nga kakapuyat!) after her stint with us.

- the postpaid line which we issued to her registered an amount in the billing of whopping php 3,000--and that's only for two weeks of use. thank gawd the smart customer representative called the attention of jude or else, it may balloon to a five-digit figure with the rate of her phone calls.

sighs... i really hope not to have another of her inside our house.

the second one was a recruit of my mother... or should i say pirated by my mother. hehe. she's already with another family in antipolo when my mother offered a better compensation package. the whole thing was actually done in bad fate since she only left her former employer's house to visit her sons who live near my parents' place and in three days, she was already with us. i know, i know, it's not right... and i also knew the moment i hired her that she won't stay long.

but i never thought naman that she'd only serve us for one month. hay naku talaga! but do i have the choice when she told me that her sons wanted her home? i don't want another bad ending with a househelp so i asked, "when kayo manang kelangang bumalik?". she told me that coming saturday. hello? it's already wednesday! "may emergency" daw. i dug deeper, "ano pong emergency?". "ano... kasi... namatay yung lola ko uuwi kame ng kapatid ko."

galing naman ng lahi ni manang... may lola pa pala s'ya at her age of 50+. good grief!

and so those are my experiences with our former two househelps. now would you blame me if i prefer now not to have a househelp at all if i just can do the housechores and tend iñigo alone? as i've said i'm already good in having all the jobs done. and it's better for me that way than to have a sakit ng ulo. just to give you an idea, this was my routine everyday except when i need to go to my office after lunch, then i have to do everything in the morning:

prepare iñigo's breakfast (nevermind mine or jude's), sweep then mop the floor while he's eating, wash and hang clothes which i prefer not to be done in the laundromat, water the plants, organize things particularly iñigo's things, cook our food if i have to, wash the dishes, spend time with iñigo thru playing and reading books though this is squeezed in in between my chores as he'd demand, "mommy, sit down here!" oh 'di ba? dictator ang anak namin! hahaha. check emails in the afternoon when the son is already asleep. lucky i was if i had an extra time to take a nap. then another round of sweeping and mopping our floor and putting the house in order (i tell you OC ako), and in the evening when jude and iñigo already dozed off then it's my time to iron the clothes which either came from the laundry house or i personally washed. this took me until past midnight as i never let any garment, even the undergarments, be kept in the cabinet without being ironed.

while jude was in charge of the "dirty jobs" like cleaning our T/B and garbage disposal.

unfair 'di ba? oh well, that was my life and somehow i'm thankful now that my shoulders and back can take more rest.

but  definitely i will demand from jude a free spa and massage. =D