So Deepak 2 quit, claiming the commute was too far. "Don't worry, I won't leave until you find someone," he said. His brother-in-law agreed to take the job on Saturday at 11:30 am. By 3 pm, he'd changed his mind.
Then Deepak 2 called Sunday, saying he had to report to work on Monday morning somewhere else and that he couldn't find anyone. (Translation: I found someone willing to pay me more.) Nitin said he wouldn't pay him for the week we worked unless he found us another driver. That got results... He said he had a friend named Misra who would report Monday.
Monday morning brought a man named Pandey. We were confused, but said "He, he moves. Let's have him drive our car." On the way out, a guy named Misra showed up. Too late, we said, but call us tonight if we don't like Pandey.
We didn't. He honked all the way to Vasant Vihar t(to Naya's school) and didn't get out of the car to help me with laptop, bookbag, tiffins and child. Sound familiar?
Nititn released him at 11 with 100 rupees and a half-salute. Luckily Misra called.
We said report to work at 8:30 am so we can see how you drive.
He drove Naya to school and me to work. He helped with bags. He still honks but not as much.
We'll see...
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Monday, July 9, 2007
Finding Mainland China
On Friday night, Nitin and I walked into a swanky Asian restaurant called Mainland China for our first “date night” in weeks. I did the talking and asked for a table and as soon as my accent and pronunciation of “table for two” gave away my American-ness, a scantily clad woman nearby rolled her eyes and whispered something to her dinner companion. I don’t know what she said but I imagined it to be about the expatriate invasion of New Delhi and our privileged ways.
Just then my mobile rang. It was my great-aunt, a left-leaning writer recounting her trip to my grandfather's village that day and my father's birthplace. There had been a wedding, they'd had pigeon and goat and chicken and lots of native yummy vegetables. We caught up and she asked me a for a favour (Toni Morrison's email so she could get translation rights to The Bluest Eye.) We spoke in Assamese the whole time and the acoustics of the place were such that everybody could hear me.
I know I shouldn't care but I wondered if the woman who had rolled her eyes accepted me as Indian. I looked at another group of twentysomethings with really high heels and really low necklines and wondered if they had conversations like this with family too. I wondered if they had ever eaten pigeon.
Just then my mobile rang. It was my great-aunt, a left-leaning writer recounting her trip to my grandfather's village that day and my father's birthplace. There had been a wedding, they'd had pigeon and goat and chicken and lots of native yummy vegetables. We caught up and she asked me a for a favour (Toni Morrison's email so she could get translation rights to The Bluest Eye.) We spoke in Assamese the whole time and the acoustics of the place were such that everybody could hear me.
I know I shouldn't care but I wondered if the woman who had rolled her eyes accepted me as Indian. I looked at another group of twentysomethings with really high heels and really low necklines and wondered if they had conversations like this with family too. I wondered if they had ever eaten pigeon.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Our first fire
The first time I ever tried to fire anybody was in 1997 when I was editor in chief of the Daily Targum and an assistant sports editor didn't show up for a part of his job. He laughed at me and showed up to work the next day.
Ten years later, I have made my first fire -- our driver Deepak.
We told him it is because of the communication gap; our Hindi is limited and his English is nonexistent. He's a Class 10 pass (that means he went up to 10th grade) but I don't think he reads signs so well--huge problem. Anyway, consider this week's problems alone: he got into a fender bender, he missed picking up Naya from school because he got delayed elsewhere, he watched from the front seat one day as I juggled Naya, her bookpack, her water jug, my laptop, my purse, a stack of newspapers, my tiffin and my red-hot temper as he just kept sitting.
I know I sound like an elitist but he just didnt get us and I don't entirely blame him. He is 23 and seems like he's never really had to work, didn't have the skills to get a job beyond driving but really didn't have his heart in it.
But who would? It's a job that requires waiting for people all day and having no idea what time you will go home that day. It must be the least empowering thing. I maintain that if India could put its millions of unemployed women to work as drivers, the sweater- and hat- and scarf-making industry here would be booming because they would find something to occupy their time all the time, in the name of multi-tasking, motherhood and survival.
I think we partly failed as managers, too. We didn't regularly tell him where he was going wrong, nor assess him monthly. By the end, it got so bad, it was not worth fixing. And we resented him so much that most of the time we were in the car was marked by being huffy, brewing, silent. It's an awful existence--especially in already-maddening Delhi traffic. We didn't send him cups of tea or ask him to join us for dinner. But we did tell him we will give him a good recommendation if he wants. When we handed him his final pay and severance, his eyes seemed to brim a bit but he stayed stoic and gave Nitin a sort of half-salute, salaam and namaste all in one. Sad.
So we're trying to be better for the next driver and hope he will to us. He's a father to a 2-year-old so he he should "get" it. His name is Deepak, too.
Ten years later, I have made my first fire -- our driver Deepak.
We told him it is because of the communication gap; our Hindi is limited and his English is nonexistent. He's a Class 10 pass (that means he went up to 10th grade) but I don't think he reads signs so well--huge problem. Anyway, consider this week's problems alone: he got into a fender bender, he missed picking up Naya from school because he got delayed elsewhere, he watched from the front seat one day as I juggled Naya, her bookpack, her water jug, my laptop, my purse, a stack of newspapers, my tiffin and my red-hot temper as he just kept sitting.
I know I sound like an elitist but he just didnt get us and I don't entirely blame him. He is 23 and seems like he's never really had to work, didn't have the skills to get a job beyond driving but really didn't have his heart in it.
But who would? It's a job that requires waiting for people all day and having no idea what time you will go home that day. It must be the least empowering thing. I maintain that if India could put its millions of unemployed women to work as drivers, the sweater- and hat- and scarf-making industry here would be booming because they would find something to occupy their time all the time, in the name of multi-tasking, motherhood and survival.
I think we partly failed as managers, too. We didn't regularly tell him where he was going wrong, nor assess him monthly. By the end, it got so bad, it was not worth fixing. And we resented him so much that most of the time we were in the car was marked by being huffy, brewing, silent. It's an awful existence--especially in already-maddening Delhi traffic. We didn't send him cups of tea or ask him to join us for dinner. But we did tell him we will give him a good recommendation if he wants. When we handed him his final pay and severance, his eyes seemed to brim a bit but he stayed stoic and gave Nitin a sort of half-salute, salaam and namaste all in one. Sad.
So we're trying to be better for the next driver and hope he will to us. He's a father to a 2-year-old so he he should "get" it. His name is Deepak, too.
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