Last night I sacked our driver, Praveen. Before I get into the particulars of that, where the hell have I been for the last 7 weeks since my last post? The answer is many places. Let's go back to early June.
Big Blue had me working absurd hours and I would carpool quite often with my colleague, John. With the demise of Bobo, the long hours and the lack of sleep due to the anticipation of flying home on the 18th, I was knackered. A neighbor asked me to dinner; they were going out for pizza at a local place called Chez Marrianick. This place was awesome! The owner is British of India decent. His wife is French and they met in Tanzania. They built their restaurant by hand and made a brick & clay oven which is wood fired. They make their own sour dough, sauce and source cheese and other toppings from local farmers. It was one of the best pizzas I have ever had. Who knew that I would find good pizza in southern India?
A few days before I left for home I was messaged by my car rental place that also provides my driver. My first month's bill was available and would be handed to me by my driver. Oddly, each day for 3 subsequent I asked for the bill but my driver did not have it. Bear in mind that he drops me off early each morning, does nothing all day (supposedly) until he picks me up in the evening. Finally, two days before I leave for home he hands me the bill as I pull into my driveway. The next morning I read it. It was a total work of fiction. I am allotted 12 hours per day, 6 days per week. That is all IBM will pay for. Anything beyond that is on my dime. The bill showed that I had an additional 43 hours of time, including 2 Sundays. This NEVER happened. I never used Praveen for more than 12 hours in a day, nor did I ever ask him to work on a Sunday. It also had about 1000Km of unexplained use. This would have been almost $300 additional out of my pocket. I wrote a letter to his manager that morning before being driven to work. When I got in the van, I called his boss so the Praveen could hear me speak. Several hours later his boss called me back and told me that I would not be charged anything additional. I would have fired the driver that moment, but I needed him to drive me to the airport in roughly 36 hours. NOTHING was going to stop me from flying home! That night after I was dropped off at home and Praveen explained that they docked his wages because I disputed the bill. I asked him why he lied and he answered that I did not provide him with lunch. Not once did he ever ask me for lunch. Plus, every week I gave him a 500 Rupee tip. This is above the norm. I was infuriated, but held my calm and reminded him to pick me up at 1:30 the following morning. He did. I got to the airport on time and headed home.
At roughly 5:30pm EDT I arrived home in Poughkeepsie. Nancy, Court & Effie ran up to greet me, Effie screaming DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY!!!! It was wonderful. I missed everyone so much. Everyone with older children notes that in a few years my kids will barely make notice of me coming and going. I'll miss the exuberant screams from my kids.
A few minutes later I was eating a pepperoni pizza from my favorite joint, Colanero's, and drinking my favorite beer, Lake Placid Ubu Ale. It was great to be home with the family! Over the next 12 days we were invited to numerous people's houses for meals, said good bye to friends and family, mothballed the house and packed.
I have to pay a SPECIAL THANK YOU to my parents. They held a party for us on Wednesday the 15th. It was catered and the rented a huge tent. I was able to invite all of our friends and to my surprise, nearly everyone was able to attend an very short notice. It was a wonderful time and it was great to see everyone in one place.
The Flight to India:
Truthfully, I was dreading it. 13.5 hours between JFK and Doha, Qatar. Then another 4.5 to Bangalore. In practice, it was easy. The kids slept for roughly 8 hours. Qatar Airlines is awesome! They had special kids meals, 10 inch LCD screens at every seat with over 300 movies from which to choose. All of this was made even easier by Genna Hanson. She is a friend and colleague of Nancy's who flew along with us. Having an extra set of hands and eyes made traversing airports much easier.
We made it through customs with no issues and waited another 1+ hours for our luggage. Our driver and my colleague John's driver, Madhu, were waiting for us. Praveen kept annoyingly calling me every 15 minutes asking if I was coming out. When we did emerge outside into the rainy night, it was 5:00am local time and pitch black. The gals went into Madhu's van, and Court, the luggage and I got into our van. 61 minutes later I was at our doorstep:
Palm Meadows Villa 321 Phase 2
Whitefield Airport Rd
Bangalore, KA India 560066
Nancy, Effie and Genna followed 5 minutes behind. Did I mention that Praveen drives a bit too fast?
The kids were suddenly WIDE AWAKE and running around their newly discovered house; the one they will live in for the next 12+ months. My colleague and friend, John, and his wife Wendy, with whom I lent a key to the villa, did some shopping for us and stocked the fridge and cupboards. They also left a beautiful flower arrangement, a few bottles of beer and wine, too! Despite it being 6:30 in the morning, it was beer time! I poured Nan, Genna and myself a glass of beer and tried to relax. The kids ate some cereal that John & Wendy bought. By 8:00 am we all went to bed. I woke up at noon - exactly. I did not want to sleep past noon, and somehow my brain knew it was noon and jolted me awake. For the next 90 minutes I tried to wake everyone else. The best was to beat jetlag is to stay awake the first day while it is light outside and go to bed when it is dark. The rest of the house was having NONE if it. I finally succeeded and we went to the pool at the club house. Did I mention that my neighborhood / compound / walled - gated community is really nice? We spent the rest of the weekend doing as little as possible and getting acclimated.
On Monday I went to work. When my driver dropped me off I asked him to go right back home because Nancy needed to do some shopping. He arrived 5 hours later. Despite a pretty thorough dressing down that evening by yours truly, and what I thought was a clear understanding that I will not tolerate it again, it took him 3 hours to make it back to my home the following day. I was going to sack him that Saturday; enter serious complication: Akila. Remember the beautiful young fiance of Praveen's that wanted a job cleaning for me? The one which I would not allow whilst living alone (away from my beautiful wife)? Yes. That one. On Wednesday Praveen introduced her to Nancy and she was hired. Exactly how do I fire my driver 3 days after hiring his fiance? I decided to give it some more time. Sucker!
Akila is a delightful young lady. She did not, however, do a nice job of cleaning the house. Nancy tried to show her how, but she would not allow her to. You see, the Madam (the term which hired help normal call their female employer) is not supposed to clean. You have to understand this one point: I never ever once thought that I would have a maid or a driver. I had been to India several times before but never 'lived' here. I did not know the protocols for hiring domestic help. There are many, by the way. First, and I know how awful this sounds, I find it detestable too, do not become friendly with your hired help. Ever. From what I am told by natives and ex-pats alike, is that they lose respect for you and feel they have agency to slack off. I came home several times to find Akila playing cards with Nancy, Genna and the kids. Hmmmm!
This leads me to this past week. On Wednesday I was dropped off at work and Praveen told me that he would be back to our villa at 1:30. At 2:30, no Praveen or Akila, so Nancy went to the pool. I was unaware of any of this. I got home at 5:00 that day and saw Praveen driving into our villa as John's driver dropped me off. Akila was on our patio. I called Nancy and got the full scoop. I was furious. Praveen knew he screwed up and kept asking where is Madam? Where is Madam. He clearly did not want to speak to me. I also detected the sweet smell of alcohol on his breath. Long story short, I made up my mind to fire them both that instant. On Friday I told Praveen he and Akila were no longer needed and I called his boss asking for a new driver. This Saturday, today, right now in fact, we are lounging around with no place to go. It is wonderful. It has given me time to write this blog. Much has happened since we arrived 28 days ago. I will write new entries for each of the places we went.
