Ingratitude is hard to accept

It appears that on her day off she had to prepare breakfast and lunch for the family before leaving the house. By the time she had prepared the lunch, and changed to go out, it was already ten o'clock. And she had to be home by 5 o'clock to be in time to cook the family dinner.

Her situation was not what her recruiter in her country of domicile had described it. She had agreed to pay seven months of her salary for the privilege of working in Singapore where the salary while low by international standards, was still better than what she could hope to earn in her own country, if she could get a job. However, when she came to Singapore, she felt cheated.

It was no privilege when the family of 4 turned out to be a family of 7. Her recruiter had conveniently under-counted the number of children her employer had and totally failed to count the grandparents. But as if that was not bad enough, her employer's large house had room for four student-boarders from a neighbouring country.

So when she had fulfilled her financial obligation to her recruiter and her local agent, she asked for a transfer. Her employer was livid with rage and threatened to cancel her work permit and send her home. Her local agent (also her employer's agent) could always give her a replacement at no charge. It appears that her local agent would still find it worthwhile to provide an employer a replacement at no charge.

I managed to persuade her agent not cancel the poor girl's work permit but to let her work for me. Three hundred and fifty dollars (which I agreed to pay the agent to attend to the paperwork) was persuasive enough.

And after all that I had done, Elenita wants to quit too.

Disappointed II