Alright, I finally collected Indar’s (my most trusted helper) work permit. Actually, she should been enjoying her Hari Raya home leave back in Indonesia at this point of time if not due to our negligence.

We had the air ticket booked for the 3rd of Nov, and she had brought all the presents for her family. Just lacked one item, her work permit was due for renewal by the 12th of Nov. I happily procrastinated the renewal and thought it would be done just in time before her departure and never checked her passport expiry date. Ah damn, it will be expiring in 3 months and she never informed me. That was like 3 days before her departure date.

That meant I wouldn’t be able to renew her work permit at all. Without a permit, she would be allowed reentry if she leave Singapore. Ack! I called the embassy and found out that they will be closed for 10 days starting from the next day for Hari Raya. We rushed down to the Indonesia Embassy immediately, took and filled up the forms and charged down to the domestic worker consulate. Oh man, the staffs were busy rounding up their work and told us passport renewal application is only available in the morning! But luckily after some begging and pleading, the nice lady agreed to help us and took in our application after giving us a lecture, ok, we deserved it. We managed to get a new passport 16 days later, not too bad.

Going down to MOM to renew the work pass was another headache. I wanted to call them up to enquire about overstaying without a valid work pass. It was like almost impossible to get to the customer service officer. I could have turned on my speaker phone and waited 2 hours before someone picked up my phone while I do something else, but the irritating part about MOM hotline is, the sweet recorded voice request you to press 1 for this, press 2 for that, and press 3 for another thing repeatedly. If you are slow and do not press the button to confirm that you are going to wait, it will hang up! What a waste of time. So I took the advice and called outside peak hour, at 8.30am. And yes, after about 10 minutes, I finally got to talk to an officer.

So I found out there will be a 7 days grace period after the work pass expire, but I have to go to MOM personally for the renewal. The place was crowded, but I only waited for about 15 minutes in my queue. The serving officers even congratulated me for the short wait, they told me the wait for the previous week was 3 hours and they worked till 6pm non-stopped. 3 hours!? Goodness, MOM should just generate more jobs by opening up more serving counters instead of the proposed reduction (they said now can go online, no need so many counters).

Anyway, got that done and the finally step was for me to collect the work permit at Tanjong Pager Centre today. Wah, that place is like a construction site to me. Probably upgrading to look as posh as MOM? The staffs there were as busy and diligent as those in MOM, calling queue numbers one after another non stop. I noticed that the poor souls at the collection counters don’t seem to have chairs to sit on. They were standing and retrieving this and that all the time. Must be so busy that they have forgotten about resting their legs. Such committed staffs, should give them a bigger year end bonus. Especially so when they continue to serve you happily without giving you the ultimate black face.

Now I have gotten all the necessary documents done, got to pack up my trusted helper and send her to the airport tomorrow. I am going to miss her terribly for 2 weeks.