Dear Mimsters: What would you do if you were in my shoes?

An update on my driver who asked for a loan of 100k to allegedly balance his sister’s hospital bill tagged at N180k for an appendectomy surgery at the Jos University Teaching Hospital. What would you do if you were in my shoes?

While I want to help my driver, I don’t want to be swindled. I asked him for his sister’s name to carry out an investigation. Well, through the help of a Mimster who coincidentally is a doctor at the UTH and works in the same unit responsible for such surgeries, we found out that there was no patient in that hospital bearing that name.

The next day, my driver told me she had been moved from the UTH to a cheaper one and that the surgery was performed yesterday and she will be discharged today. He said he was given a 50k discount which brought the cost down to N130k. Again, I wanted the name of this new hospital where the surgery was performed but he said he didn’t know. I got weary and told him he’s not serious. He came back an hour later and said she has been moved to a General Hospital in one of the suburbs.

Luckily, this same Mimster had previously worked in this same General Hospital and still has some contacts there. She called a few people who said they have no recent patient going by that name and no surgery of that nature was performed yesterday. Besides, it was confirmed that an appendicitis removal there costs about 20k.

I started asking questions from workers around and found out that my driver is planning a wedding and has been under pressure to settle some bills, but he didn’t tell me. Planning a wedding isn’t a bad thing, so why should he hide this from me? Then I remembered one conversation I had with him during a drive about child marriage. I’d advised him to find an adult when he’s finally ready to settle down and that I will fire him if he marries an underaged girl known as (Yanrinya). Could this be the reason he’s not telling me about his upcoming wedding?

Well, I called him into my office and presented the facts to him and all he could mutter with a straight face was that maybe his mother lied to him about his sister’s illness and the bills. I couldn’t believe he could throw his mother under the bus like that, just to save his face.

Going on from here, how would you react if you were in my shoes? Would you still keep him or fire him?