1+1=3

To me it is nothing but an irritation for someone to do things for me which I am perfectly capable of doing for myself. As a case in point, the receptionist in the office insists on getting up and opening the door for me every time I go into the main building. (I work in an annex).

I know I should not be irritated. He takes pride in being punctilious in such matters, just as an old-fashioned butler would take pride in making sure that his master’s suit was properly pressed.

You see it in the supermarkets. People who are perfectly capable of pushing a trolley have someone to do it for them, and like to stand back and tell the person what item should be taken from a shelf. I would hate it if I had to do that, just as I would hate it if I was the person who pushed the trolley.

But wait a minute, would I mind pushing the trolley? If this was the difference between having a job and not having a job, I might be very happy to be a dogsbody hanging around my master or mistress and saving them the trouble of taking a jar of jam from the shelves.

The point was brought home to me when I had my hair cut. I was welcomed to the salon by a smiling receptionist who then passed me to a man I assumed would be the hairdresser. The man sat me down, put on a sheet to protect me and then left.

A few minutes later he returned, tidied up my covering sheet, picked up the scissors and gave them to - a Frenchman who had just emerged, and who was to cut my hair, and who was suitably flamboyant to fit the caricature role of a French hairdresser. The young man who had sat me down was nothing but the assistant.

Hairdresser’s assistant? That’s a new one, at least for a hair cut.

His job was straightforward. After each snip the assistant would brush my face with an oversized shaving brush, presumably to remove any stray hairs. Snip, brush, snip, brush. I couldn’t help smiling at this elaborate charade. Was this supposed to be the sign of a sophisticated establishment? Were they trying to elevate hairdressing to the professional level: was the assistant supposed to be like the dentist’s nurse who hands him the right tools and operates saliva-sucking machines and the like?

Then the penny dropped. Here was a case of making work. I’m quite sure that the French hairdresser employed the man in an act of sympathy for the unemployed. The young man clearly had no real job to do, but to salvage a little self-respect he had this job which he did with some of the same flourishes as his master.

And at some levels that is how the system works here. Wages are so low that there is a moral duty to employ two people even where one will do.

The only problem for me is that I can’t do it. I hate having half employed people hanging around: it make me feel guilty. It’s bad enough having a driver who usually works for less than two hours a day. So to the unemployed of Kinshasa, I have to say: I’m one of those horrible selfish do-it-yourself foreigners.