Your "face" cost her $7740
You've lost your job, and you need to release your helper. What do you do? If you are a Hong Kong employer, you might explain things to your helper, thank her for her service, but you will NOT, under any circumstances, write down on the form used to inform IMD the following words: "I lost my job, so we need to terminate our helper". It does not matter that you are a Christian, or that you are generally very concerned about social justice and the plight of the poor. It does not matter that you deeply appreciate how your helper has cared for your family and your children. If you are a Hong Kong employer you think that writing down those 11 words will forever stain your reputation; cause you deep shame, and in some mysterious way that noone can explain, make it so you can never hire another helper.
Had you been willing to write down those shameful words, your faithful helper could have taken another employer and started a new job almost immediately. It would have cost her at most $374, and another Hong Kong family, who is in desperate need, would have been blessed by your act of humility. Now the helper has to return to the Philippines where it will cost her over $4000 to process her papers. She will also lose another $3740 in lost wages while she waits. Your face just cost her $7,740.
We have customers waiting who parents have had strokes, are being released from the hospital, and they have no one to care for them. We have other customers, whose helper's parent has had a heart attack and can no longer care for the helper's children. Their helper must leave on short notice, and they need someone right away. You could have been a blessing to both HK people and to your helper, but somehow the shame, the loss of face is too much, so you wimped out. Your faithful helper's children may have to drop out of university or private school for the rest of the year, but what is that compared to your loss of face?
I'm sorry you lost your job. It is a terrible hardship for your family, but you could have turned it into a blessing for another HK family, and blessed your helper also. Instead you thought only to protect your face. Congratulations, you saved your face. Was it worth it?
