These maids do Windows
Some domestic servants in Hong Kong have a new job description: they’re venturing into high-tech maintenance, performing tasks like removing software viruses and cleaning up spam.
It’s “more fun than washing dishes,” says one maid, who got her training at a Hong Kong computer school whose student body is largely made up of other maids in a city where most middle-class families have full-time domestic help. In fact, a maids-only computer course offered by the Hong Kong YMCA has proven so popular that the number of classes has ballooned to 11 from one since the program was first introduced in 1994. Many of the students report being called on to do spreadsheets for household budgets, design and maintain family Web sites, and perform Web searches to help the children with their homework. Meanwhile, the expansion of duties has been a boon for busy execs. One high-tech entrepreneur whose maid takes care of all his home computer maintenance says, “the last thing I want to do is look at [a computer] some more when I get home.”