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Good rage!

Language Learning, Philippine Culture / by

I just did something, which ordinarily I would not consider a good thing, but this time, well, I think that what I did, and the way I did it was just right.

What did I do?  I got mad at our maid.  I did it in a sort of different way, though.

Lately, we have had our carpenter from GenSan staying with us, actually he’s been here for several weeks now.  He has been taking care of a few jobs that needed to be done around here.  I really like Jun-Jun, he is a very nice guy, and a very industrious person too.  He can literally build anything.  Jun-Jun enjoys having a bit of drink every night.  He either drinks beer or he drinks Tanduay Rhum.  I don’t really drink much myself… oh, I have an occasional beer, but very occasional.  Because I don’t normally drink, we don’t usually have a lot of beer bottles around the house.  Here in the Philippines, if you buy beer in bottles, you must return those bottles, not throw them away.

Anyway, since Jun-Jun has been here, there has been an abundance of beer bottles every day.  About a week ago, there were about 5 or 6 large beer bottles (bottles that are maybe 1 liter or so, not single servings) laying out on our front lawn.  I didn’t like seeing the bottles out there, but I didn’t say anything.  But, several more days went by, and the beer bottles were not removed.  Each time that I went outside and saw these beer bottles out on the lawn, my anger bubbled a bit more inside me.  I don’t like living in a garbage dump!  Throw your trash away, or if it’s bottles that need to be returned, bring them back and get them out of the yard!

Well, yesterday, after having seen these beer bottles laying in the grass for nearly a week, I got angry and told Feyma to get them taken care of.  Put them away somewhere, or return them, whatever, just don’t leave them out in the yard!  I was downright angry about it, probably more than I should have been, but the anger just kept building up over the week, and it finally boiled over.  The next time I passed through that area, the bottles were gone, and I felt a lot better.

Today, I was outside walking around the yard, just looking at the various plants and such in our yard, and again, I saw a case of beer bottles in a flower bed that I had not previously seen.  They were hidden behind a planter, and I just didn’t notice them.  I called Feyma and talked to her, told her that again, we had beer bottles in the front yard, and I didn’t like it!  This time, there were about 30 bottles, though, a full case of 24 bottles and about 5 or 6 bottles piled on top of the case.  It really angered me, because I thought I had made it clear that I didn’t want any piles of garbage out in the yard.  It seems that Feyma also did not know these bottles were there, so she told my nephew to clean them up, which he did.

I continued walking in the yard, and came around to the side of the house, and that is when I went into a rage again!  What did I see that set me off?  Those same 5 or 6 large beer bottles from the day before!  Instead of being returned, they were just moved to the side of the house instead of the front.  Obviously, the maid had just moved them to an area where she thought I would not see them.  This really angered me.

Now, normally I don’t get involved in disciplining the maids.  I leave dealing with the maids up to Feyma, because she is better at dealing with them, and I just prefer to let her handle the household help.  I think it’s better that way.  But, this time, since the maid knew that yesterday she was told to return the bottles at my insistence, I felt like it was time for me to step in and chew out the maid a bit so that she would really understand that I was angry.  I didn’t feel like it would be good to put it off on Feyma again.  So, I asked Feyma to call the maid, and she came up to the front yard.

What did I do?  I chewed her out.  But, I did it a little differently than she probably expected, and probably different than what Feyma expected too.  Feyma was standing there with me, so she heard the whole thing.  I chewed her out 100% in Bisaya!  Ha ha… I told her that yesterday the bottles had been left in the front yard, and I was mad about it, and now I am very mad that I saw that she had only tried to hide the bottles from me, instead of returning them as instructed!  I raised my voice at her, and kept the conversation completely in Bisaya, so I know that she understood every word that I told her.

Anyway, it felt kind of liberating to me to communicate my displeasure with the maid directly instead of through Feyma, and being able to speak to her in her own language helped make it possible for me to get my point across to her.  It is still my plan to let Feyma do most of the dealing with the help, but, I think that my talk with the maid today was also a step forward.  At least it felt good and right to me!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Bob..Maybe the person doing the beer drinking needs to step up to the plate and take a little responsiblity and take care of the empty beer bottles in a way that would show the proper respect for being at another persons home…etc…instead of just leaving them here and there…

    • Hi Dan – I don’t blame the person who drank the beer, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, he was a guest in our home, so it would not really be right to make him go return the bottles. Secondly, after drinking the beer, he did not put the bottles in the yard, but rather put them in the kitchen out of the way. The maid, for some reason, moved the beer bottles to the front yard and left them there.

  2. Hi Bob, I guess just laziness on her part… I thought that you were already conversing in Bisaya to your help. That was a good idea to reprimand her in the local language–that way you feel more connected and empowered and she will feel more responsible to have to deal with you in the future. Between my husband and two seminarian nephews who converse with me in English, everyone else I have to converse in Bisaya, so whether it’s 100% correct or not, that’s what I have to do. It does give one satisfaction to do it though. Good decision on your part I think.

    • Hi Queenie – Oh, yes, I do already converse with our help in Bisaya. Things like Good Morning, How are you, stuff like that. Small talk. But, I never reprimanded our helpers in Bisaya before, and it felt kind of liberating to do that! In the past, I always left that to Feyma and just didn’t get involved.

  3. Bob
    You went above and beyond yourself on this one, not only being the Ugly American but being it in another language. Only kidding!
    I honestly could see how that would be liberating, indeed you are immersed in the language as well as culture good for you. I am a bit jealous and not afraid to say it.

    • Hi Neal – No need to feel jealous! Heck, before living here, I knew no bisaya at all, and I lived here for 7 years before learning.

      It did indeed feel liberating, though! 😉

  4. Agree Bob! You just did what is right. Sometimes we need to vent the steam out. Just like a car, we need to “rev it up to the Red Line” every now and then. But, keep cool always my friend. Mag San Mig sa ‘ta bay. Tama lang gyud imong gihimo Bay. (Pardon my Bisaya, I learned it some 30 years ago.)

  6. Hi Bob,
    Did you ever find out the reason for taking the empty bottles from the kitchen and putting them out in the yard ? Maybe I missed something in your article but it sounded as though they were at first just strewn all over the place, then after you said something about it were put back into the case and put behind some flowers or something to hide them.

    • Hi Bob – Sorry if I did not explain this well. I got mad about “Beer Bottles A” when I saw them in the front yard. Later, they were gone. A day or two later, I was walking around the yard and found “Beer Bottles B” (a different kind of bottles, and a full case of them) in a different spot behind the flowers. That upset me. So, I kept walking and again found “Beer Bottles A” had just been moved around the corner. So, since I saw that Beer Bottles B and Beer Bottles A were still in the yard, I called the maid and scolded her! 😆

  7. Hi Bob…. Sounds like you did the right thing, a littel mussel can go a long way. Ya have to let her know who the boss is every now and then. Hope she works out good for you, you will find out soon enough. Good help is hard to find, we have some farms and go thoough a few workers. When you find good ones we hang on to them,and take care of them from birth to death ect. We have some very loyal workers, just like familey, actuley Better than familey.
    good luck Bob……..

    • Hi jim – Thanks for your comment… I believe that I did the right thing too. This lady has worked for us for a year or more, and I am on good terms with her, but at least she knows who the boss is!

  8. In about two weeks, over 30 liter size bottle of beer, plus his Tanduay that is a “bit” of drinking. I had my house remodel last year. The men stayed on the property. They drank every night and accumulated bottled. I mention the bottles to them several times. They had removed my front gate and the people walking to catch transportation on the main road could see the bottles. I did not want anyone getting the wrong idea. I finally exploded, but not at my maid. In my house I do not care who you are if you make an unnecessary mess you clean it up. I saw a young boy walking through the neigborhood going through the garbage cans. I called him to the house and told him to load all those bottles in his big rice bag and take them off. I told him the deposit money was his. The carpenters then said “Father, we get rid of them now.” My reply, “Nope, you had your chance. The bottles are on my property and I have now promised them to the kids. They are his.” They were here about three more weeks and no beer bottles left the next day. I suppose it made it easier to do since they were doing a crappy job anyway and I did not ever want to see them again.

    • Hi Tom – That was 5 liter bottles, and 25 regular sized bottles. Sorry for any confusion. Ha ha… I enjoyed your story about the kid getting those bottles!

  9. Believe it or not Bob, you can actually be deported from the Philippines for simply verbally abusing or insulting a Filipino….I would have let my wife handle the maid until your wishes were satisfied. Some maids have been known to cause their foreign enployers all sorts of bother with their ability to stretch the truth after being “chewed out”.

    • Hi Bob – Not only do I believe it, I have written about that many times here on this site. Trust me, though, I was not hard enough on her that deportation was even a though. Just let her know that I was serious about getting those bottles returned to the store. I know this lady well, she has worked for us a long time.

  10. Hi bob ,i dont have any help here in aus but i can see why you went crook i would have too ,funny thing about my wife she cleans every day and moves things around all the time and she (and my daughter) are always telling me to clean up and if i dont then they do , now when i was single my kitchen table was my sort of office all my paperwork of one kind or another was on it and i new where it was ,now i dont know where any bloody thing is couldnt even find the salt the other night ,not learning the language for 7 years makes me feel a bit better i can say a few words in visyan but not much did feyma teach you or did you take classes just wondering as i should learn there language as my wife and daughter talk in there own dialect all the time at home
    chris

  11. Hi Bob,

    After reading the article and the comments, I’m still a little confused. Where did “Beer Bottles A” come from, when they were all over the lawn. It doesnt make any sense to me, for the maid to take them from the kitchen and spread them around the lawn. It would make more sense that it was jun-jun who had left them after a drinking-session and later forgotten about it.

    I agree that what she did after the first incident was wrong. If he was the one who left them there in the first place though and it bothers you, perhaps you should sit down with him and explain the situation with a little diplomacy. I realize that you appreciate all the work he’s doing for you, but any guest should in my opinion remember restraint their liberties when in someone’s home – at least if it could in any way affect others than one self.

    • Hi Adamite – No, when Jun Jun finished the beer, the empty bottles were put in the kitchen. He drank the beer in the back yard while we were barbecuing. How did the beer bottles end up in the grass in the front yard? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. The maid was told to get the bottles and return them. She went and got the bottles and hid them in the side yard instead. Does it make sense? No. Lots of stuff that people do here makes no sense to me, so I don’t even worry why it doesn’t make sense, because that is what happened.

      Anyway, the article was not really about beer bottles. The article was about communicating my displeasure with the maid. The beer bottles were just something that showed me that there was a problem. It seems that I must have done a poor job in writing, because several people said that they had a hard time understanding. I apologize if I slipped in the quality of the writing on this.

      • Hi Bob,

        I wouldnt say that its your writing thats to blame, if its the actions of the maid in the story itself that doesnt make sense to me. I just wrote what I found to be the most logical explanation in my mind and made assumptions based on that. Even if something doesnt make sense though, I guess there would always be a reason for a certain action, wether I understand the reasons behind that action or not.

        Did she ever explain why she did it ?

        • Hi Adamite – I have gotten past the point where I even ask people’s reasons for what they did… it rarely makes any sense to me anyway, so I just avoid the stress by blowing that off! 😆

      • Bob,
        This article may have started as more to do with the Maid than the beer bottles themselves but it looks like I was not the only one confused about the bottles, how they got out to the yard in the first place, the first set of bottles were removed from the yard and then mysterioulsy a second set of bottles put back in the case turn up hidden in the flowers. I guess the answers all came out in the comment section of this article.

        It is almost sounding like ” Mindano Bobs Beer Bottle Mystery ! “. I realize the theme of this article was not intended to be comical but I am having a good laugh out of all the attention the bottles are getting here, thanks for another great article !

  12. Bob,
    Being the head of the house is being head of the house to all.
    You do what you got to do and you did the right thing. You gave her a chance to fix it and she didn’t. That was like telling you to bump off and you can’t have that from hired help.

    • in the Philippines is a single serving of course …. Also 1 bottle of Tanduay is a single serving for some people lol .

      Bob you know how to speak Visaya ? very jealous of you !

      • ok i always wanted to live in the province but i was always been terrified of the idea to learn the language. U know it would be great for me to know Ilocano and Bisaya .

        • Hi reden – I used to think that I could never learn a language, but I found it kind of easy with the right teacher! You can do it too! Good luck!

  14. I would have fired everyone in the house, No yelling, no anger management issues to deal with, just fired them all after being asked to to the job and it not being done. And yes I have done this before :/ I dont like to get mad so I just get rid of the problem but thats me. dont get me wrong I give lots of chances but something like that would set me off and I cant have that.
    Why fire them all you ask, If they know they are all responsible for getting the job done one of them will do it.
    My wifes sisters husband is not nice to the help and yells at them for anything, hes American Korean. I find this very bad as they live with my wifes mom and its her moms help he yells at. This makes it look bad for me when i come so I figure No yelling is a good thing.

  15. Hi Bob. Glad to hear that you got angry and blew up, albeit in visayan. Since joining this site about four months ago, all you postings have seemed too good to be true. I’m not doubting their veracity, I’m just saying that I could never have a chance to emulate you and succeed. In a way, what has saved me is that I do NOT speak visayan, and the help speaks on english. So perforce I cannot get mad at them. I have to let my wife handle them and that’s all for the best.

    So, now I have vowed to learn visayan. Also will have to try anger management. Actually, we are VERY lucky with our help. They have been with us for ten years continuously. And most of the time, NO problems. Every once in a great while, one or the other of them does something knowing that it is wrong, but almost daring us to react. Managing help is a difficult job here and one that I am glad to leave to my wife.

    • Hi ProfDon – Oh, I get angry often enough! If you haven’t read about that…. you need to dig deeper into the article archive! 😆 I used to get angry a lot more often than I do now, so that is a good move in the right direction! Learning the language and adjusting to the culture is a big part of my ability to spend less time angry!

  16. Hi Bob

    People seem to be misunderstanding. This is your home! You were not being treated with respect. Not acceptable! It is not about being angry. It is about getting the services you PAY for. It does not matter where you live. You did the right thing.

    • Hi al – Thanks for your support. Yes, I think that it’s just a matter of having told the maid to do a chore, and she made it look like she did it, but I later found that she only hid that fact that she defied my request. I think she now understand that I mean business! 😉

  17. Bob I fear that hiring domestic help is one thing I will never bring myself to do. It’s so alien to the Australian ethos it would feel truly weird. Maybe one day we’ll have someone come to clean for a few hours once a week but that’s about as much as I would ever be comfortable with.

    My partner, I have to add, thinks I am insane. I hear “matigas ulo” a lot when the subject comes up :).

    • Hi Ken – Having a maid is also way outside the “norm” for an American, probably just the same as an Aussie. But, after 10 years of having maids, I am used to it now, and honestly, I don’t think I’d like not having one! 😆 I guess I’m lazy now! 😯