Sunday January 17th 2010

In Sao Paulo as in Manila we have a driver. Here it is a question of security as much as anything but I am very grateful not to have to face Sao Paulo traffic.

In Manila it was
a. because hiring a driver is very inexpensive and
b. because there is never anywhere to park and
c. because the traffic is also horrendous.

In Manila our driver was called Arnel. He was a very slippery so and so and knew all the tricks. We were completely greeen when we arrived in 1996 and the novelty of having a driver was not lost on us. We had just left the UK where such things are unheard of and we were totally oblivious to the goings on that drivers get up to.

Arnel lasted about a year before we finally fired him and here is a sample of the sort of things that he got up to.

I was never with him when he put gasoline in the car. It was always full and I just handed over 500 pesos and he always gave me a reciept. It was only when we had our new driver Joseph that I discovered that it was physically impossible to get 500 pesos worth of gas into the car. Arnel was clearly pocketing the difference.

In Manila, as I mentioned, the traffic was so bad that the government introduced measures to keep your car off the road for one day a week. It all depended upon the last number on your license plate. Stupid move really because everyone had more than one car. Our "alternate" car was kept at the office and used by a pool of people whenever they needed it. We suspected, but never proved that Arnel was telling the office guards that "Sir needed the other car for the weekend/evening" - whatever. What we suspected was that
a. he was using it to drive himself home from work or
b. he had set himself up as a taxi using the alternate car.

A couple of times we saw the alternate car in places it shouldn't have been. Could we ever prove anything ? - unlikely - but it was his downfall and I suspect that he regretted losing his very lucrative job.

So Marcelo watch out - I am not so green these days.