20 Baht

We get quite a few visitors to squint central these days. Last week two Chinese engineers arrived to work with us on one of our projects. They are staying at a hotel near the beach and take a taxi into work each morning. The trip is a few minutes and costs around 25 NIS ($6.50). Yesterday they took their taxi as usual and gave the driver a 50 shek note. He gave them a few coins and a 20 Baht note change. They only noticed this a few hours later when they went to pay for something and no one would take their money. The 20 Baht note is worth about 2.30 NIS ($0.60). Our admin (what we used to call secretaries in the old days) was pissed. The receipt they got from the taxi had his licence number, and with a bit of detective work she tracked him down.

She called him. He was rather put out by the fact that we thought he had tried to rip them off. Clearly it was a simple mistake. No, not for a moment did he think they were simple, helpless Chinese foreign workers come to work in construction. And no he was not interested in coming to return the money. Now, no one messes with our Admin. She is like a terrier when she gets her teeth into something. She hounded him with repeated calls and finally called his station manager. Still he was too busy. He promised to return the money today first thing. He called her this morning and stated tongue in cheek that he never slept a wink last night worrying over the 20 sheks. It appears he went to find the Chinese guys at their hotel and gave them back their money. They said after he begrudgingly handed over the twenty, he dismissed them with a double backhand flip - the kind you use to brush crumbs off your shirt. Nice guy.

At one point when he was asked why he gave them the 20 Baht instead of 20 shekels, he claimed it was the only change he had. This really pisses me off and we will follow this up (apparently there is somewhere you can officially complain about taxi drivers) and make sure something happens to this idiot. Avoid Moniot Pituach (Pituach Taxis). This is so 80%. If you are going to rip people off, why do it for 20 Shekels and then give them a receipt with your licence number?