Paciência

I've never had alot of paciência but living here in Brazil has forced me to chill the f**k out! haha, I have to laugh at myself because I can get myself so worked up about the smallest things that really don't matter.... 

• my nanny arrived 15 minutes late today when I wanted to go out and run some errrands. I asked her if there was a traffic accident and she simply said 'no, I was just delayed' and i irritated myself even more but saying 'sorry, i have to leave', why was I sorry?!!
• traffic jams and taxi drivers saying they know where they are going and really have no idea (though I've heard Rio cabbies are worst, it's all relative right?)
• none of the card machines were working at the Pao de Açúcar checkout yesterday so everyone had to queue to use the ones that were sort-of working. I didn't realise what was going on until I was ushered into the queue which took 35 minutes (of course I timed it). so irritated as I had cash!!
• today i decided to go to Carrefour but of course the one queue I was in had another machine that didn't work!

But today me and Juliete, our babá, had cause to celebrate. We are her first job so we had to do everything from scratch - including registering her. I knew I had to pay INSS and when I worked it all out, plus backdated pay, and tried to pay it at bank they said they needed her INSS number. We were advised to go to a Posto Atendemento to register her but this was right before our month away in November so I asked Juliete to go and do it herself. When we got back it turned out I needed to go too (I found out today it was because I've signed her 'data de saida' - which is only when you fire someone!) but then Christmas came around, and then Juliete was sick for 2 weeks.

Yesterday we were advised that she needed a PIS number which we could get at the bank Caixa Electronica Federal. So we went today but were then told she doesn't need one - only people who work at a company need one but a domestic worker doesn't require one. The lady told us to go to a Posto Atendemento, or go on the website http://www.previdencia.gov.br/ or call 135. Juliete spoke to the people on 135 and managed to register over the phone! YAY - half way there.

So now we have 24 hours to use her new registration number (like a social security number) so wish us luck. I have 8 months of backdated INSS to pay plus the fines whatever they are tomorrow at the bank. I will blog about all the nanny laws / websites / information I have collected over the past couple of months once this issue is closed - fechado!