Employers are going on holiday, and leave behind a schedule for their maid to get things done around the house in preparation for their return – that’s pretty common.
If things go wrong, naturally the maid gets blamed because she’s “bodoh” or “lazy” or “every day go out with boyfriend when we’re not around” or whatever else employers can think of to throw at them.
But what happens when the schedule itself is a problem? Like this one, which instructs the maid to:
(1) Wash the doormat with soup
Not a good idea, especially when it means wasting precious bak kut teh.
(2) Remove staff from the shelves
You mean like how we remove army generals and put them in SMRT or the People’s Association?
(3) Wipe the piano inside and outside
Confucius said: He who mess around inside piano will soon hear F where A used to be.
(4) Clean all vertical surfaces with dishwashing detergent
We hope they mean just the inside vertical surfaces, sometimes known as “walls”, and not the outside too. Because, some garang people might just do both…
And things could really go downhill from there!

