So you want a nanny to take care of your four-year-old while you are away at work.
Or a maid who will be useful to your aged parents living in the suburbs.
The easier way to source these people is to turn to an agency.
Tarry. For, you could well be courting trouble from day two.
Changing lifestyles produce new words, phrases and concepts.
Manpower is one!
Scan the classifieds of the weekend editions of the newspapers and lo! you have a bounty of them.
But between those smart lines are some stories which should caution you.
Yasmin and her friend Sitha dropped in the other day to share their story with an unhappy ending.
Sitha had been looking for a maid who would stay at home and turned to a 'manpower services agency' in T. Nagar.
The reception was warm, the deal was quick.
Sitha had to just pay Rs 2300, which was one month's salary of the domestic servant that the agency would provide.
And 300 rupees as application fees.
Sitha did not mind the additional fee; manpower is what she wanted desperately.
And she had one the next morning.
But the maid left her house on some excuse and did not turn up at all.
When Sitha rushed to the services agency, it refused to refund the money. They promised a replacement.
The second maid made her appearance.
But she cooked up a story and left three days later.
A request for a third one got an evasive answer.
The agency said it was now facing manpower shortage.
You will have a new maid in 10 days, the agency convinced Sitha.
On the eleventh day when Sitha, seething in anger, drove down to the agency, the shutters of the office were down.
The watchman next door said the business had shifted.
Shopping in Mylapore some weeks later, she noticed a board that looked familiar.
Yes, it was the same agency she had gone to in T. Nagar.
To make a smart move, Sitha got her friend Yasmin to drop into the agency and make small talk.
The staff were the ones who had been at T. Nagar but they claimed to know nothing about the agency in T Nagar. But they promised they could help with maids.
Smart manpower agencies indeed.
9 comments:
Dear Vincent,
When I saw this article, my thoughts reflected on a very similar situation we went through around Dec-Jan. We had approached a 'International Manpower Organisation' with official address in No. 1 Justice Ramanujam road in Thiruvanmiyur but operating also out of a small office just near where the flyover lands in LB Road, Adyar.
We paid Rs. 2300/- (deposit + admin charges) and took home a maid for domestic work, only to realise within a day that she had not been eating properly and looked like she had just been picked from the roadside (sorry to say this). Her general upkeep and health was so poor that she could not carry out even the basic work like washing vessels, clothes, sweeping, etc. She expressed her wish (we didn't find much use with her either) to leave in just 2 days and we agreed. This experience in the meanwhile had upset us so much that we lost faith in the Organization and wanted a full refund of the amount paid. We submitted a request letter dt 23.12.06 to this effect and several follow-up calls are yet to yield any positive result.
Wonder how many more are facing similar situations like us.
Jubal
Sir down south,special mention about karnataka things have not gone that bad. People and agencies deceiving needful for manpower as maidservants are just a handful. May be coming days may not be rosy for people here also. Can we attribute this to the staining humanrelationships in the families , the nuclear family concept or the decline in human values. Ultimately, we are the loosers anyway.
I also had a very bad experience with International Manpower Organisation, L B Road , Adayar, Chennai recently. I made a call to this office taking contact No from the popular English daily. I got a immediate answer that they can send a babysitter of middle aged. we told them our requirement and told them to bring a good babysitter.
The lady agent and the baby sitter came and gave very convincing talk and the baby sitter lady also appeard good to take care my two kids 2 and 4 years old, while we both go to office.
the deal settled for 3500 per month for the babysitter and a service charge of 3500 + 300 as registration fee and paid 3800/- as advance.they agreed to give service for one year incase a replacement of person needed.
The Aya was ok for two days and started frightening the kids. The kids were so much afraid to move with aya and she also told that she wanted to go home to take care her house.
We could clearly understand the game plan of these agencies. We asked for a replacement and they brought another cruel looking lady & we asked them to let us know her details and previous engagement. They did not give details and never send one as replacement. When we asked for a refund the agency told they can not find a person so far and asked to pay for the first aya 4 days salary.
Please ask for the servents complete address and previous employer details to make an enquiry. Otherwise you may be doing injustice to your loving kids who never able to tell the aya's all bad doing.
These agencys makes daily advertisements and make daily collection( Cheating) with 3-4 ayas in rotation.
Take are
One of the worst organisation i have seen is, International Manpower Organisation, which was located at L B Road , Adayar, Chennai. They are fraud, Pushpa and Kala are the two fraud in this organisation. They will talk nicely untill they recieve their commission after that there will be no response. My sincere advice is Dont call these fellows. They regularly gave the advertisement in the Hindu News paper as They are establised in 1964. They will send the maid for 3 days and after that they ask there maid to come back for other house to make everybody fool. Initially they will show very clean lady afetr that they will send useless person. Pls be Careful...
Beware of another Maid Agency by the name of Sumathi Maid Agency, they have taken Rs 4000/- as comission from me and provided a maid for only 5 days.
Repeated reminders no replacement.
i have had a similar experience with an agency called "good will homecare services". they collected rs. 4000 as commission and another 500 as registration fee. they sent a maid called kalpana who came to work just for 4 days. after that no news of her. we tried calling up the agency and they were very rude to us. after repeated calls, they sent a person called anusuya, who came to work only for 10 days. she kept asking for money, saying her son was in the hospital and we gave her 1500. after that, she also stopped coming. since then we have been calling the agency , but no use. they dont even pick the call and they havent sent a replacement either. there is a person called manju, who repeatedly used to call me, when i enquired for a maid, but after collecting the money she stopped taking the calls. their md is a guy called sundar rajan, who claims to be a high court lawyer, but he talks like a goonda or rowdy when u ask hin to refund the money. this expeience has soured me to the idea of ever contacting a manpower agency again. wish some thing could be done towards agencies like who are playing such tricks on people.
Om Siva Shakthi agency of Padi, anna nagar...he does the same thing....He cheated me of Rs 5000. Standard services Coimbatore, Rs 9000 and Smart jobs Palghat Rs 6000. Ive swworn not to go to any agency again....Dont fall for these agencies anyone. But something should be done to stop this fraud...
In fact the Palghat agency has changed the name of his company from smart jobs to jobe line or vice versa...How brilliant!
Another fraud agency is S.S. Manpower in Thiruvanmiyur....the lady takes the money and guarantees a replacement for 6 months but all the maids she provides refuse to work or complain that there is too much work when there is minimal work for the salary they demand and "run away" after a few days and the lady refuses to provide replacement on pretext of her maids not being treated properly and that she would call the police if we continue to harass her!!
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