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Maid Permit, Passport and Contract Renewal 2021 – The Final Chapter

So.

Here I am. At the final part of this neverending Chronicle and my war against the overlords of inefficiencies, the dreaded Malaysian Immigration.

I left my home at 7.15 am to journey to Shah Alam PKNS for one last duel with this foul institution of neglect. Reached at around 7.45 and finally got my place in the queue to take the number and at around 7.55 am I was seated. So far so good – they actually officially open at 8 am but apparently they let you in early, so keep that in mind. By 8.20 the room was filling up and finally it was my turn. I thought we could end it within an hour or so.

The lady took all my documents plus the passport, cursorily looked at it, tapped a few things on her computer and then passed back to me and told me to pay. She said, take a number to pay.

I looked at the queue, the same queue I was in earlier, but now snaking its way along the corridor. Excuse me? I have to take a queue? Again? What’s wrong with my current number?

Yes, you need to go all the way back in line to take a DIFFERENT queue number in order for you to pay.

This is by far, the stupidest procedure of all time. Stupidest. Whichever imbecile that came up with this procedure deserves an award for being the biggest moron of all time, should be shot, hung and dried in the public square. But it was so expected (moronic procedures) of our Malaysian Civil Service, that’s it would have been absolutely shocking if they came up with a procedure that made sense or that reflected any signs of intelligence higher than an amoeba. Like for instance, transferring the same queue number you have in your hand to the payment queue. Or have another queue machine at hand to provide a fresh queue number for payment. Or just write the goddamn number onto a toilet paper. I mean, there could be a billion ways to resolve it but Malaysia chooses the absolute, most stupid way to solve it. This is because its the Immigration’s KPI to have as long queues as possible and as many people as possible sardined into a small non-ventilated room in order to show that they are ‘busy’ and ‘hard at work’. And it speaks volumes to the absolute idiocy of our civil service procedures – the ultimate shithousery to give to tax paying citizens. Its like they came up with these procedures while taking a dump.

To beat this god forsaken procedure, I would recommend the moment you get your first queue number, to immediately go back into the same queue again (which would have been built up) and then when you reach the front, just pretend that you have already gone through the first queue number and now you have to go for payment. Ask for payment queue number. They will give it to you. They won’t recognise you because they are generally not really vested in how ugly or good looking you are.  And there is absolutely zero communications between the officers. So now, you should have 2 queue numbers. By now, the first queue number should already be up, you jump right into their seat, get the lady to tap stuff on their ancient VAX computer and pretend to be frustrated when she tells you to re-queue again for payment. Then, wait for your payment queue number and voila make the payment.

Because I did not do that, I had to re-queue and then wait again – for another 2 damn hours. I observed a few things: there are 15 counters available and only 4 officers working in a room chokeful of human beings. Secondly, the payment counter is ONLY ONE. So it took 2 hours to go through number 14 people.  Also, the payment counter is not just for payment. Apparently it’s also for enquiry and such. Thirdly, the guy behind the counter takes his own sweet time to press for the next number. After completing one person, he sits there, staring powerfully at all of us pathetic idiots looking at him, imploring him to press the button so the number can switch.

Malaysia Immigration – you are the champion in shithousery.

I paid RM221 – Credit card only accepted, so don’t expect e-wallet or cash – and the officer said to me, “Normally, how long do you need to wait?”

I was a bit stunned. I wanted to say, “How the hell would I know?” but apparently he thinks I do this everyday for my living. I just shrugged, unsure what to answer.

He said brusquely, “Come back around an hour and go straight to Counter 15.”

And so, around 1.5 hours, a breakfast and a Teams Meeting later, I came back and went straight to counter 15. Apparently, there is no process here to collect. You just walk straight up to the counter, in front of all the disapproving looks of the people sitting down there like idiots waiting for instructions. You just ask the officer , I am here to collect passport of maid.

And he will ask your name, and pass to you the passport – the new one now has a VISA permit on it. Oh, if you had a passport cover before, it will be gone, because apparently they need to remove it to put the permit, and they never bothered to put it back. I rather wrap the passport in used diapers than to pass the passport back to these group of people to get the passport cover. No way.

I said thank you and actually bowed obsequiously like a Japanese, received it with two hands as if I am being awarded the Order of the British Empire from the Queen. They failed to appreciate my sarcasm and I scrambled away from this hellhole as quickly as possible.

There is a form for feedback below, I suggest all of us go into it and give an honest review of this service.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfm3oFALJ21Jb5TD5e409Z2xOQ3ydxqjJjFBCp8aIquw6EeLw/viewform?usp=sf_link

In CONCLUSION:

a) Go to the Immigration where your IC number and permit address is – if KL, then DUTA, if PJ, then PKNS Shah Alam.

b) Don’t go in the afternoon – go early in the morning. It officially opens at 8 am but loiter there from 7.40 am onwards. They may open early. Once they do, rush to the lift, kick anyone else who follows you in it and run like a mad dog to the office for foreign workers. I would give you directions but the whole area is crazy confusing. So just give in to your instinct and ask the Lord to lead the way to the right room.

c) Once there, take up the queue number for ‘kemaskini’ – which means modifying the passport. Immediately go behind the queue again and once in front again, ask for a payment queue number even if you haven’t kemaskini yet. If the officer recognises you, pretend you have an epileptic attack or just state you have a twin.

d) Remember to have all your documents at hand. Photostat your maid’s old passport front page and permit page, the new passport front page, YOUR IC front and back, bring your actual IC as well, bring your credit card for payment and ensure you have two documents:

  1. Permohonan Kemaskini Dokumen Pembantu Rumah – This document is as rare as golden bird shit. Apparently it cannot be found online, including their own stupid website> I got mine from the officer from Duta during one of my forays there. I’ve posted the jpg here in case you desperately need it:
  2. You need to write a ‘Surat Permohonan’. I wrote mine in English and it’s as follows:

Date

Immigration Department of Malaysia

To whom it may concern,

I, <your name>, IC No: <your IC> would like to request that the permit of my current house maid, <maid name> (OLD Passport No: <old passport no>) to be moved to her new passport number <new passport no>.

Thank you

<Sign here>

<Your name>

<your IC> <your contact>

d) After this, wait for your payment, make your payment and wait for around an hour before barging your way through the wall of people to counter 15 and say you are here to collect.

That’s it. Hopefully I never need to face these jokers again for the next ten years (my maid passport expiry), which by then, hopefully this ancient practice of mental torture and abuse called Malaysian Immigration will be improved for the sake of the generation to come.

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Maid Permit, Passport and Contract Renewal 2021 Part 4

So, after six months, I’ve decided to take on this monumental challenge to continue this game against the Malaysian Immigration – the impossible task to renew my maid permit/passport.

So far, to recap the previous season of this Squid Game competition with the Immigration – I successfully, renewed the contract, tackled the terrible mess of the Philippines government online booking, navigated through the embassy and getting my maid contract renewed and her passport sorted, with the new visa permit on her extended old passport. We also went and collected the new passport. So now I have the old passport with the valid permit and the new passport. These are not easy tasks. But these will be considered a walk in the park compared to what is to come, that is to put the new passport into Malaysia’s immigration system and move the permit from old passport to new. For that, I need to look into:

Defeating the Malaysian Immigration Department. The Bane of all Efficiencies, the Destroyer of Hope, the Betrayer of Good Service, the Devastator of Time, the Unholy Master of all that is Good in this Country, the Forsaken Overlords of the Queues and all that is absolutely Useless In Malaysia. They are the very definition of Malaysia’s government service, which has a the highest ratio of waiting for service to human lifespan found in the entire Universe and Heaven and Hell.

The first foray to defeat this Ruthless Monster, I went to the Duta immigration. I didn’t really know what to do actually. I tried to get an appointment through their immigration website. https://www.imi.gov.my/. Firstly, because the website has been actually designed by gerbils, the navigation makes no sense. In fact, it’s easier to navigate Dante’s Nine Circle of Hell compared to the site. No where will we find any useful information. And each page is designed to put the reader to sleep, with tons of absolutely garbage information that serves zero purpose. So I don’t know. I couldn’t get any appointment so Trusting in the Lord Almighty to give me strength and faith, I took up the two passports of my maid (the old one with the visa and the new one) and went bravely to the imposing fortress of this Monster – the Duta Immigration in KL (opposite Publika).

I already had my share of nightmares getting my passport sorted earlier. In fact, I wake up in cold sweat at night still, tormented by dreams of falling into a neverending queue of silent screaming humans waiting for eternity. Seeing the building still puts me into shivers.

I bravely went up and yes, there was a queue in front of the passport section for helpers. It’s right opposite the passport renewal for Malaysians, which had its own queue snaking down the countryside and far into the abyss. For my queue, it wasn’t supremely bad. Just about an hour.

So after one hour, I managed to snake my way all the way to the front. I explained to the absolutely disinterested officer that I need to do this and that for my maid and she just pressed the queue button, Mickey Mouse Steamboat Willie playing in her mind, no doubt. She pressed, pressed. And pressed again. I finally saw life sparkling in her eyes as she looked up, unsure what to do, as this was out of her SOP to press button. The Automaton spoke, “Oh. Nasib you tak baik.”

This meant, “Oh you are unlucky.”

It’s not something you want to hear. Not after you waited in queue. It’s like The Angel Michael saying that once you reach the Pearly Gates and about to enter Heaven. That’s just not cool.

I asked her what happened. She explained, well the queue machine is broken. It’s hanging. So I asked her what to do. She just chuckled and she went off. For a long time. So now everyone behind me, all 50 people are looking at me disapprovingly, thinking that I was causing the ruckus with a silly request. All of them tapping their foot, grumpily looking at me and wishing me death and dishonor to my family name. DAMN IT WOMAN! Release me from this HELL OF WAITING!

After 15 minutes, which I have picked up my phone and stared intently at the blank screen to neutralise all the cruel stares I am receiving, she returned. This time with an accomplice. They fretted a bit over this cursed machine and finally got it to work, much to the significant relief of everyone waiting. We were all ready to Hi-five each other, the way that the movies show when the rocket to space is launched successfully and the asteroid the size of Brazil hurtling to earth has been destroyed. Great perils share this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers – so say the great Victor Hugo. We were strangers no more, we were survivors of the dreaded beast of Malaysian Immigration. We have slewed the wicked —

“Oh. Ini tak boleh guna.”

So sayeth the Automaton behind the counter. This is where the rocket crashes and burns to a billion pieces and everyone in the launch room stares at the screen in utter horror.

What does she mean?

She explained, in rebooting the queue system, the whole number has been mixed up and now she would have to manually work out which is next in line to those who had already taken the queue number. She said ‘already taken’ in a significant sort of way, that I needed to ask what she meant.

She sighed and told me, you can’t take the queue number anymore. It’s over. All of us waiting, especially you poor devil who had come all the way to the front – you need to go home, rest, recuperate and come fight this injustice and sorry excuse of a government another day.

In the year 2022, when I was a kid, I thought we would see hovercrafts, hoverboards, and flight to the moon. Instead I now witnessed an even greater event – time travel. We have been magically transported back to 1962, before any system was invented, where people would just have to wait in queue like a lottery number praying to the gods that lightning does not come and kill you. There was no backup plan. There was no business continuity. The entire country’s backbone for immigration is dependent on a shitty little queue system that if rebooted meant the end of all service.

What the Fuzzballs.

Malaysia, you have outdone yourself. This is me slowclapping you. I couldn’t even be furious with her. All over the room, there was a warning there would be a 2K fine and jail time for anyone ‘obstructing the officer from doing their job.’ which translated, if you throw a fit, tantrum, raise your voice or as much look funny at the officers, you are going to be guillotined. They have faced these tantrum throwing buggers before who had dared to challenge their inefficiency or their general lack of humanity. Throw tantrum? We’ll throw you in our dungeon, you ungrateful ba$tard!

There was nothing to do but pick up my crap and creep away, defeated.

Day 2

You would think this whole nonsense would end here. But after going through a bit of counselling and psychiatric help, I took up the courage to go again, this time, smartly going around 1.30 pm as I knew these government denizens went about their lunch from 1 to 2.

When I reached, there was already a reasonable line waiting for the lunch break to open. I duly got into line. No more waiting like an idiot.

This time, they opened their doors, we filed in like the gulags and got my queue number and sat, waited for around 15 minutes and then went to the counter and explained to the officer what I needed to do.

She took a minute or so and took my documents, passport of my maid and my IC. She passed me back and without even looking at me said, “You are from PJ, you cannot do your maid passport here. This is for KL.”

I looked behind me, half expecting a TV crew to come and say, “Gotcha!” or some sort of reality show playing pranks on me. I slowly tried to process it. I said, “Wait, I did my passport here. Right opposite. I also previously did all my maid renewal of Visa here. ” I also did my IC renewal here. My two sons, born of blood from me and now carrying my name to posterity, were registered here, their birth certificates were gotten here. If I had to die, I would want to be buried here. This was the location of my entire history of my life, this sacred piece of $hit called the Duta Immigration. How can it be that now, you, Angel of Death, play such a cruel trick?

She said, “Oh, for your passport ok. But maid passport please go Shah Alam. We cannot do it here.”

I know she can. IT cannot be that in 2022, Malaysia is still damned to be stuck in some sort of slippery timewarp where $hit cannot get done because their system is not linked/connected. I pleaded again, “Come on. There must be a way.” Why was this not highlighted in their damn website? Why was this not put as a requirement? Does the Malaysian Immigration think we are all psychics able to read their stupid policies and stupid procedures or navigate through the vomit of information contained in their dungpile of a website? How absolutely bereft of any common, uncommon, cow or goat sense is our good old Government? WHAT THE FLAMING FUZZBALLS is  going on??!

“There must be a way.” I say again. Life finds a way. There must be a way, this cannot be the end. There MUST be a way.

Yes, if I was a VIP, prime minster, a government politician or any of these slippery characters that crawl out of their holes sometimes to run our mess of a country. Yes, if I had connections or drink coffee with the Immigration bosses. But No, because I am none of these, I am condemned to lose my fight with this hell-bound creature called Malaysian Immigration again. In fact, Hell’s immigration department would probably even lose to Malaysia, that’s how good we are in torturing our tax paying citizens.

So there. 2 days wasted and nothing to show. I am defeated, I am destroyed once more. I need to rebuild my life and my shattered confidence once again. I leave, a broken shell of human who once had life, dreams and aspirations – all dashed by this wicked institution called Immigration.

To paraphrase the famed Thomas Hardy (not the actor) in his most famous novel of all: “Justice” was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with me.

Do I dare go to Shah Alam? I will let myself mentally recover for one week first before I pluck enough courage to go again. Stay tuned.

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Renewing Maid Permit in Malaysia

Due to my limited activity in golf, I’ve decided to start writing about other stuff that I want to complain/bring attention to in this blog. Else, I will probably not be updating it for months.

OK – just to share my experience to renew my maid permit in Malaysia – in 2016. Strangely – it was quite a pleasant one, which is a first.

I think Malaysia has come a long way from the days of absolutely horrendous quality in government services. Those days, simply to renew your IC would be akin to you walking naked in the Sahara desert for 40 days and drinking your own piss. Everyone dreaded going to that place at the old State – where death awaited you in the form of government servants working with the KPI of serving a total of two citizens in a year. I remember one time, I was queuing up for the bloody IC thing for 3 hours from Lunch time. Finally, there were only about 3 people in front of me and I thought I would get through, when they announced they were going off for the day and to come back again tomorrow. W.T.F. Angry also cannot. Shout also cannot. So go back lor. And wake up tomorrow at 6 am and start sitting in front of the bloody office for them to open at 9 am.

We have come a long way since then. Nowadays I go to the Immigration Department in Sri Hartamas. The one opposite Publika. I renewed my IC the other day and really, it was FAST. I mean less than half hour my name was called, I did all the necessary photos etc and in 2 hours time, I can come back to pick up the new IC.

So how about renewing your maid work permit?

a) For maid less than 4 years, it’s mandatory for you to get a health check via Fomema. To be honest, even after that, it would be wise to just go for a yearly healthcheck. We had an incident where previously our friend’s maid had a tumour that was cancerous, which would have been caught if she had gone for regular checkups. Maids are humans too, and they deserve medical rights like everyone else, because they become almost part of the family.

b) So download the Fomema form. Link is as below http://www.fomema.com.my/images/Forms/Foreign_Worker_Medical_Examination_Registration_Form.pdf

c) Fill up the form. If you don’t know your worker’s code, the one starting with W, it’s ok, you don’t need to fill that up. For clinic name, you need to decide where you want to take your maid to.

d) List of clinic found at http://www.fomema.com.my/index.php/doctor-availability?view=doctoravailability

e) I would recommend if you can get a booking at clinic with Allocated X-Ray facility it would help. You can opt not to fill this up and only fill it up later, because you might not get a slot at the clinic you want. So get them to check first. I think those with X-Ray facility is devilish difficult to book. So just fill up what you can.

f) Pay around 200 bucks (for female maid. Never seen a male maid before). How to pay? I think cheque might work, but for the sake of ease, I just went and do an online payment via CIMBClicks. Under Billers -> Fomema Registration.

g) Once paid, get the receipt of payment, and print it out as well as your filled up form. You need to photocopy your maids passport first page as well as work permit page.

h) Now, you need to get your butt to Fomema with all the documents and maid actual passport. We thought everything was online, but no, we still needed to take a day off and go to the Fomema office at Menara Takaful. You can google map it. Parking is expensive there but easy to get. Fomema is on the first floor.

i) Once you are there, pick a number, wait, go to counter and show them all your stuff. You can pick your clinic then and there, show them you already paid and the process is less than half hour. They print out something to you and you just need to take that form to all the clinics you go to. I have no clue what is the value add of Fomema in this instance except that it may just be another scheme to add a middle agency to fleece off our money. I don’t know. Its not very painful though so what the heck.

j) So now you have the Fomema printout and in it you have worker’s code and the clinic you are supposed to go to. You can do it another day once you set a time with the clinic. For me, I went the next day with the actual maid (cannot photocopy maid, mah). I chose a clinic in TTDI called Mahanum and it was FAST. I think looking for parking took longer. Just show the paper, the doctor will see the maid, get all the sample urine etc or whatever and tell you to go to the X-ray. They will recommend one and the one they asked us to go was nearby.

k) There is an X-ray facility clinic Mediviron at TTDI itself, near the VADs building. It has is own parking for customer in front, so we just went there, did the X-Ray and that was it. No need to shuttle back and forth the other clinic. Overall, spent less than 1 hour to get everything done. Take leave for the morning is enough. Got time to play golf some more. And also no payment, just show the Fomema printout.

l) So now, just wait for the results – it should be out within 7 days. You can check online at http://www.fomema.com.my/index.php/online-results?view=onlineresult either the worker code or passport number. If you see “Suitable please proceed to immigration” you are almost there.

m) So here is the weird thing. It tells us to ‘proceed to immigration’ but immigration no longer handles this. They stopped processing maid renewal 2 years back. So if you are an idiot like me who believes everything this stupid Fomema says, you would take another morning off and go to your favourite Immigration centre (mine at Hartamas), park and go to the counter and ask: Where to renew maid work permit, ah?

n) And you will be told you have wasted your life there because now, everything needs to go through the richest middle agency of all time: My EG. Yes. The one that will make billions because everything is forced to go through them.

o) So technically Fomema = Stupid. Tell us wrong thing. They deserve their own bullet point for stupidity. Like it would kill them to just say: “Please contact MyEG now because we are living in the electronic era”

p) OK – now MyEG is like Fomema. Middle guys that sleeps with our government so everyone makes money together. No matter, what to do? You can opt to go to MyEG at Bandar Utama (KPMG building, first floor) and go through the maid renewal there or you can login their portal and do everything there.

q) Depending on whether you are comfortable to transact via their portal (It looks like it was designed by a bunch of Iguanas), you can opt to pay via Visa/Mastercard or via online banking. I selected online banking as I didn’t really trust their system (again – it looks hilariously horrible, which just shows all the billions have been pocketed to God knows where and they paid an online agency RM600 to build the website).  Again – what to do? Complain also useless.

r) So we put our entire personal information and financial information at risk by using their payment facility and pay RM631 for the renewal. That is a lot of money, but I suppose with so many middle men, everyone needs to be fed. The process charge is around 125RM. So if say, 200,000 maids present in Malaysia needs to be renewed, My Eg has made RM25,000,000 just like that. If you put in the other non-maid foreigners, My Eg will make A LOT OF MONEY. Now, why can’t they get a proper portal? Like, even after we pay, for me to go back and see the history of what I did on the portal is impossible. It’s like literally the most hogshit service website in the entire planet.

s) Now, once you have paid you will be given option to either deliver to your house or you can opt to collect onsite (at their HQ in Bandar Utama). I suggest you do the latter because you will not have a clue when these jokers will come to your house. If you need to have someone else be at home (like your angry mother in law), you need to write a proxy letter and make sure she is also holding the maid passport.

t) After 2 – 3 days, I suggest you call MyEg 03-7801 8888 to check if its ready. Good luck getting through. They are a bit like Telekom, Tenaga whereby their call centers are generally manned by simians. It took me around 40 minutes to get through, and you pray dear God don’t let my call drop. Once through you can give the passport number, they will tell its ready and you can come. I did note that if you call early morning around 9 – 9.30 am you can get through easier. Now, hilariously, while waiting on the call, they request you to email them at their support email address and they add: For faster response, please email us at blah blah. They actually said that. So I emailed them for fun. It’s going into 15 days now and the only thing I hear are crickets. Faster response my foot.

u) So finally – you go to KPMG building level 1. First, print out the payment receipts and the MyEg document after you made your payment. Of course, bring your maid original passport and your own IC. MyEg seems to be renovating their office because I was directed to some makeshift waiting area that smells suspiciously funny. Walk in and tell them you want to renew maid permit, you will be sent to a room, and asked for documents, your IC etc. Then you wait a bit and they will call you to another room where the nice gentleman will stick the new work permit on the passport and tell you to go on your merry way.

There. The full steps. Total money will be RM631 for MyEG + RM201 for Fomema medical. Total time taken – around 1 hour for the Fomema form, 1 hour for checkup and x-ray, and 1 hour for the actual getting permit pasted onsite.Online process includes Fomema forms and payment, MyEg forms and payments. I’m writing this down also in part because I am very forgetful and I have to go through this cursed process next year again.

To be honest I am pretty OK with the whole process, except that it cost quite a lot. Because I am flexible in my time as I run my own business (I say take leave doesn’t actually mean I take leave lah), it’s no issue for me, but I suppose it can be frustrating if you have to actually take leave and then find out you are being given the runaround like that Fomema telling us to go to immigration crap. However, I must say this really beats queuing up for the whole day and then being told I didn’t make the cut. Damn you, old IC department in State!