This story began 2 months ago when our helper resigned. Her name was Tini. She was short, dark skinned, not exactly fat but her body was big, and her feet were unusually large – I suspected she had “elephant feet syndrome”. If I should guess her age, maybe around 40-something. Nothing special about her appearance, her eyes were big (or belo in Indonesian), her hair was short, and if I imagined her resting expression, I think she always looked a bit worried, as if there’s a debt she kept thinking about. She often wore T-shirt and regular pants, whose length right about knee high.
What was so special about Tini wasn’t her appearance, it’s about her work. As a helper, she was responsible for cleaning our houses, and sometimes he could do other things which is not in the helper’s jobdesc like receiving package and turning off stove at certain time. From her work, you could immediately tell that she was passionate about her job. If not passionate, then she did it with seriousness while packing a lot of experience. She was not as quick as most helpers but she cleaned every corner flawlessly. And there’s also her attention to detail, she could put things where they belong, as if the items were hers. While doing all of that, she was also very considerate with her words. She was polite and she knew what to say and what not to say.
Unfortunately, she had to resign because her daughter had just given birth to a baby, and as a grandmother, she helped taking care of it.
Then not long after she resigned, there is a new helper, her name is Siti, which is our helper now. At her first day, I barely noticed anything, except that she was unusually chatty and loud. But I put no mind to it since I perceived it as normal. After all, she was new and no wonder she wanted to know more about the work to be done in our place.
But then strangeness after strangeness emerged. First, the print on my clothes were cracking. I wasn’t mad at all, shocked? yes because it never happened before. Then I suspected that maybe when ironing, she put the iron directly on the print.
I came to her, “mbak, my clothes were cracking, can you avoid the print when ironing next time?”
She said, “No! It was not me, I always avoid ironing the print, maybe it’s the washing machine.” then she showed me how she ironed the shirts while avoiding the print.
I thought, oh! she already avoided ironing the print, maybe it’s indeed the washing machine. Maybe she used another setting that caused the print to crack.
“Okay mbak” and I was then in pursuit of solving the problem, I wanted to know what really caused this and prevented it from happening again to my other clothes.
Then I called my household expert, my mom, “Mom, the print on my clothes were cracked, it’s never happened before, do you know the possible cause of this?” My mom then knew exactly what caused this and it was indeed the iron! She then told me she would taught Siti how to iron correctly. And since then, all my clothes are now safe. I just wondered, why did she avoid accountability before?
And then while working, sometimes she would stop doing what she did, and asked a very unimportant question to me, such as when I weigh my weight, she would stop sweeping, raise her head a little, like she wanted to peek at the number, and asked me what my weight was. And then this is so weird, when, for example, I went to the kitchen to take some glass and water, she, who was in another room, could stop whatever she was doing, and asked me with her loud voice, “ko, are you looking for glass?” Keep in mind it happened so many times and it annoyed me. Because:
1. She stopped working only to ask something that’s really not related to her work.
2. I had to answer a really unimportant question. Otherwise, it’s rude. To be honest, I ignored her a few times when I was not in the mood.
But I didn’t hate her. Siti was not exactly the perfect helper, but despite her insensitiveness, she had a good heart. Just sometimes (by sometimes I mean, often) what she did annoyed me. To give you more context, Siti introduced another helper for my sister, and this other helper confessed that she couldn’t have conversation with Siti because she often talked nonsense.
Sometimes when I looked at Siti (cielah), I imagined my old self trying to fit in with other people. I was very insensitive, my world and their world were different. What considered okay in where I grew up could be considered rude by them. And of course I would sometimes say the wrong things. Am I a hypocrite if I am annoyed by Siti for her insensitiveness? Am I allowed to be annoyed?
Just before I wrote this in a Starbucks cafe nearby, while riding a motorcycle I passed her riding her bicycle. She smiled at me widely, greeting me, “Koh” and I gave her a smile back, “halo mbak.”
Goofythinker 