One of the perks of living in India is being able to afford a good chauffeur at about Rs. 8,000/ $150 a month. I have been traveling a lot lately, so I thought I would cash in. I spread the good word around for friends and colleagues to pass on recommendations.
Half a dozen auditions later, I found one I liked who drove well, dressed clean, people from work even referred to him as someone who could have been packing heat. I thought that was it - he would be my man friday for the next 5-10 years. 4 weeks later I had had enough and asked him to leave. Every single trip he accompanied me on had a flavor of theft - money for toll, lunch, stay, gas. This one time, he admitted to having faked a hotel bill for 2 nights with a 100% markup to the original rate and said it was perfectly ok to do that at his last employers.
I have read about similar experiences with maids, other help, and even ridiculous pay grade jumps employees get when they switch jobs every quarter. I am all for competitive salaries, but this sort of attitude usually meets its ugly fate sooner or later. You are going to be caught cheating at some point, or someone will tweet about your plagiarized UI, your sloppy code or artsy-fartsy resume that never went beyond showing total experience years in a pretty typeface.