So, today our driver-in-a-pinch showed up on time as scheduled. Picked up myself, my 5 year old and the baby. Drove us to nursery school where I dropped off the baby and then drove us to school to drop of the 5 year old.
On the way he asks me:
"You have no driver? I thought you had a driver?"
"No," I reply "we don't have a driver. We've been thinking about it but don't really know what we want."
"You want driver with accommodation or without?"
"Without"
"You want driver with car or not"
"Without"
"You tell me how much you pay, I'll drive, I have car, I have everything. You tell me how much?"
Now all of a sudden I am intrigued. Part of the reason the driver thing has been difficult for me is that, at the end of the day, it is myself and the kids spending time with the driver. I haven't been so keen on "trying out" driver after driver, getting to know, seeing if the kids like, etc. etc. a person that we will come to rely on. The entire thing makes me well, tired just thinking about it. But, this man we feel as if we know. He has been driving us from time to time over the entire time we have been here. When we were staying at the hotel in the beginning, he drove the kids and I everywhere...so, to me this doesn't sound like a bad idea. To top it off, he wouldn't have to drive our car and our 5 year old LOVES him!
So, what's the problem?
Part of the problem, for me, is simply the thought of having a driver. We already have a live-in maid and now we are considering adding a driver to the list of our household employees.
Over the last couple of weeks I have been talking to people trying to get information on what they have their drivers do, how much people pay, and so on, and so forth. I had one conversation that went a little something like this:
"Do you employ your driver yourself?"
"No, no, my husband's company provides a driver. Once you reach a certain level in the company they just give you one."
At this point I am already disappointed in the conversation and don't want to take it further. I am completely unimpressed. What do I care what your husband does or if a driver is included in his benefit package. Is it now my turn to give a detailed reporting of what my husband does? What is included in his package? Or what I do? It isn't a contest.....or, is it? If it is, it is certainly a contest I do not want to compete in. (But, now as I write this I see that it was I who asked the question. Am I overly sensitive? I do not want to become that person that can only talk about position as if trying to carve out some kind of pecking order. I am a social worker for goodness sake, you know empowering the vulnerable...what am I doing here with a maid and a maybe driver??)
Then, the friend --all the while admiring her newly manicured fingernails--pipes in.
"You'll find that they don't do anything. The drivers, the maids, you really have to stay on them all the time to get them to work."
(No, they don't do anything, they just leave their families to come here to make the minimalist of wages working unbelievable hours to clean up your
c -r -a -p!)
Then, woman no. 1 "Yes, we just seem to go through the maids and drivers. Although our nanny has been with us for years".
To this I can only reply in my kindest of voices, "Well, we aren't looking for a nanny, we can take care of our own children."
I politely thanked them for their time and left. That's it. I decided. There is NO WAY we are getting a driver.
This morning however, when we arrived at the compound which houses our 5 year old's school. I walked up to security and told them that I would like another pass so that driver-in-a-pinch could drive onto the compound. They informed me that they thought the 2 passes that I had (for the compound's drivers that pick up after school) were plenty and probably would not issue a 3rd. So...it is a problem. I need a driver for when hubby can't drop of at school and neither of the drivers from the compound that have a pass can do that. --and, everybody around me probably thinks I am crazy...JUST GET A DRIVER ALREADY!)
Fast forward a week after deciding to definitely NOT have a driver and I believe our driver-in-a-pinch is going to become our personal salaried driver. Oh the torment and relief all at the same time.
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