But among the nerve-recking situations at the office, these 2 small things help me deal with the stress....*I love Indonesia :) *
- There's a maid in the house
It is very comforting to come home after a busy day and find that everything in your house is spick & span because you have the maid doing your housework! Your laundry is done, there's food on the table & your bed is made up. All you need to do is relax....
It is a common thing for middle-class Indonesians to have a maid. The more wealthy households even have their own driver, nanny for the kids, gardener & security guards. A survey done by my office showed that 27% of people in emerging markets pay someone else to clean their house, while only 12% do so in developed markets.
Quoting my Executive director for Consumer Insights, Mike Sherman :
Although Indonesia needs to catch up economically, but cheap labour has its benefits!In the same way that money cannot buy happiness, affluence does not necessarily mean access to life's luxuries.
- In a country where you have to sweep & mop the house everyday because of the dust, having a maid is a tremendous life luxury! -
- Pampering yourself at the salon is cheap
This is yet another consequence of the cheap labour cost in Indonesia. Hair salons, besides providing cutting & styling services, usually also provide various treatments such as hair conditioning treatments, manicure, pedicure, foot massage etc.....at a cheap price!
Just for an example, last weekend I went to the salon to get a hair conditioning treatment (we call it having a "cream bath", where they also massage your shoulders & back while waiting for the hair cream to settle in), manicure and pedicure for only Rp. 120.000 which is about 12 USD!
Of course you have the high-end salons that cost just as expensive as abroad, but why go there when you can get something similar at a far lower price....and just a small note: tipping the hair dresser is a "not must, but expected" thing to do.
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