My maid has a tendency to take instructions wrongly and she likes to perform a task hastily to complete it, without thinking whether it is done correctly or not. This morning, my mil asked our maid to boil ‘choke cheh mar tai’ (sugar cane with Chinese water chestnut). After chopping the sugar cane, my maid peeled the Chinese water chestnuts and soaked them in a bowl of water. My mil told the maid to later put all the sugar cane and Chinese water chestnuts into a big pot to boil. In the kitchen was also a big bowl of birds’ nest which my mil had soaked.
When the pot of water was boiling, my maid asked my mil and I if she should put all the sugar cane and ‘benda putih yang direndam’ (white stuff soaked in water) into the pot. Thinking that she meant the Chinese water chestnuts, we said yes. Ten minutes later, my mil went to the wet kitchen to check the pot of sugar cane water. She was shocked when she found the birds’ nest boiling together with the sugar cane. She quickly removed the birds’ nest from the pot and called the maid in. Again, she took instructions wrongly. My mil had earlier told our maid that she should put the Chinese water chestnuts in. That bowl of birds’ nest costs a few hundred bucks and now it’s partially cooked though not cleaned yet. Luckily my mil had checked the pot earlier, else the expensive bowl of birds’ nest would have been wasted. I told my maid that in future, she is to show us everything before she cooks them. This is not the first time she has screwed up a meal. I have told her countless times that she should check with me before cooking but she often forgets and cooked them herself and screwed up the dish. She tends to listens to half of what we tell her and the other half is normally forgotten.
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