but in fact that means that your scene dimensions are not correct.
i think in preset the scene dimensions are at default by cm or inch and your scene looks like meters or yards.
So go to your projekt folder, normaly at c: doc and prefs-user-maya-2009-prefs-user_prefs...
delete that file and start maya and you will end up with a new scene with the right presets! inclusive right scene proportions....
When your object is to big try to import it under file-import...
ans scale it to 0.1 of global scale... than you should get a right scene size...