As of today we are on to our third driver. The 'temporary' driver we had lasted a little over a month before I had to tell him he no longer worked for us. Not only is there a major language barrier but there are major cultural differences as well. Something that we think is inexcusable has them looking at us wondering why we are making such a big deal over nothing. For example: this weekend we went to Raffles City to look at the Gap. As much as we could, we explained to the driver with much hand signalling and translation on my iphone that we were going to Raffles City and for him to park the car. When we were finished we texted that we were ready to go and he said he was in parking in B3. We went to B3. He wasn't there. Then he asked us to come to the road because he can't find us. We went back upstairs to see the car parked outside the mall with the driver's door open, no driver to be seen with my camera sitting in the back seat. Common sense would suggest if you were going to leave the vehicle you close all the doors and lock it but when the story was relayed to my husband's assistant she couldn't seem to understand what the big deal was. HUH?
Needless to say that was a strike against him. Yesterday was strike two when he refused to take me to the costco-like grocery store Metro because he said there was too much construction in that part of the city and there was no way to get there. Today was strike three when he took me to the Shangri-La instead of the before mentioned grocery store and then finally upon arriving at said store refused to drive me to the door saying there was no way to get across the parking lot and then yelling at me when I slammed the door.
From a young age I was taught to treat all people equally whether they are White, Black, Native, Asian, whatever. People are all the same. I think that's one of the reasons I have a hard time in China. I am expected to treat a driver as an employee who is to be available at my beck and call, not as my equal. I have mentioned before how much that bothers me as well as the fact that I am almost completely reliant on this person to get me from Point A to Point B.
My first mistake with our first driver was I treated him like a friend instead of an employee. You know that saying, give them an inch and they will take a mile? That sums up our first driver. I bought him Starbucks because I felt guilty for drinking it in front of him, I asked him "is it okay if you take me____?" and before I knew it he was using our car to drive around his friends and their dogs, giving excuses why he couldn't pick me up and asking for our weekly schedule so he could plan his leisure time.
I think the mistake I made with this temporary driver was that I set boundaries right from the get go and inadvertently made his job easier. He tried overly hard for the first two weeks by opening our doors, trying to help the kids and driving like we were a carton of eggs and liable to break if he drove over a caterpillar on the road. When he realized we didn't want his help with certain things like loading groceries or taking the kids back packs he took that as permission to be lazy. He started smoking right outside the car so it smelled like we were driving around in an ash tray rather than a brand new car. He started treating the vehicle as his own, refusing to take me places and sleeping in the car. Is there no happy medium?
Tomorrow we have a new temporary driver until the 1st of December and then hopefully we will have a suitable permanent driver after that. I keep threatening to get a scooter(which I really do want to get) but it pisses me off that I have to resort to driving myself and my family around on a glorified bicycle because we can't seem to get a driver who takes his job seriously. Truth be told, some might think that maybe we are taking advantage of our situation with the low cost of living and hiring help but honestly we pay our driver well, he gets benefits and he really doesn't have to work that hard.
I am really hoping that the third drivers the charm because being taken advantage of really starts to grate on the soul after a while.
