⌛ Finding maids, cooks or drivers

In the hopes that we will sell our home soon, I was hoping people living in Negros Oriental could talk about their experiences with finding a maid, cook, or driver and the costs for the area. My wife doesn't think she wants to employ a maid, but is considering hiring a part-time cook, and as for a driver, I doubt that many people have them, and I'm sure it isn't something we would want nor could afford. So, If you could help by explaining how you found your employees, what their duties are, the length of their workday and week, the monthly pay, etc., then it would help alot for us, and maybe for others too. For those who don't hire any of these type of employees, it might be interesting to know why too. Thanks alot in advance folks.

Sincerely,

Tom

 

Wow, no help at all guys? How come? Am I one of those that has done something wrong or is there no one with a maid or no one that knows any of this type of information???

Tom

 

Hi TFA, are'nt you a bit too fast with your conclusion ..... on the same day as your post you already expected many answers on such a delicate question :D
I think you can't (as ALWAYS !) generalize on an item like this. Everyone will have specific reasons for hiring a maid, coock, driver.
I never had these in my homecountry. And that was NOT purely because of financial reasons. Privacy was more the topic of concern.
Since 8 months we have now a maid here.
It was hard to find one. It took some months before we found a woman (43 yr), being a friend from a friend from my honeponey.
We are blessed to have found her. She is a good maid: washing, cleaning, coocking, even gardening (without asking from our side), you name it !!
I love her coocking, don't have to tell her what to do (she DOES) and she has become a dear friend of us.
Yes, the privacy is reduced with a maid (how otherwise she can perform ?) but with HER it is no concern at all.
She eats with us, drinks with us, goes karaoke with us...... we adore her and have a lot of fun (she as well, she told us).
In 2 days from now she has her birthday and that will be a special day for all of us
How to find them ???? Asking/telling around everywhere.
For us there were 2 important things: She has to speak English and her homeplace should be not too close to our place to prevent having her family around too often or her being away too often.
To go home it takes her 7 hours by bus + ferry. She goes in average once every 2 months (we pay the travelling cost).
Food, drinks and snacks are free to take for her. A 13th month payment at the end of the year, presents at special occasions.
Her salary ? We did ask around here what was the normal salary.
The lowest payment was 2000 p/mth, the average 2500 and the luckier one got 3000. I know a few pay more with however different conditions.
She came here the first time with a 'testperiod' of 2 months. When she performed well and did like it here, we promised to raise her salary (we did of course).
I hope this helps you Tom, but we had a hard time to find one, even though we asked at all our friends at the forums we are on.

 

your right jell, it was fairly close to my first post. Thank you for taking the time to answer though. We appreciate the information. I think the nerves may be gettring to me too, with the selling of the house (hopeful) and slowly packing things away. Again, thanks for your input. Now, I do still hope others will share their experiences with the subject.

Tom

 

It’s true what jelly said, it’s better the helper is not living in the same town with you, what I can add once you hurt their feeling, mostly this helper making gossips in the whole community about something bad to you what she observe inside your house ( that’s the risk when you have a helper, your privacy).The helper you will get there , be sure you thoroughly investigate the background on her, before letting her to enter your house. In defence for the wife,,it’s better the helper is older because if it’s a young hmmmmm… .If I live there and I’m still strong enough to do the household chores, I prepare no helper in the house. For a driver be sure he has no vices especially “drinking” so much SMB or Tanduay.

 

We have a maid who works from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Friday, with an hour off for lunch. She sometimes leaves earlier if she has finished her days chores. She eats lunch with us. She does all the washing and cleaning plus any other job we want her to do, but no cooking. We pay her P750 every 15th & 30th of the month. She is married and lives only a few minutes walk from our apartment as I did not want a live-in maid. She was recommended by one of our expat neighbors, who has known her for several years. Problem with a driver, apart from sobriety, is that to be totally useful he has to be a live-in and that does cramp your privacy - especially as for long periods of the day he will not be required. And if neither you nor your wife drive, Philippines style, what happens when you go on vacation, etc.?