I Am Not Sorry To See You Go

I have a female staff who travels 2+ hrs just to get to work and then the same amount of time to get home everyday.

It doesn't make sense to have my staff waking up at 4am just to get to work and almost 11pm if she returns home after dinner in the Capital. Worse, if she stayed behind to join us for staff dinner gatherings.

So I thought it would be helpful to arrange accommodation for her at our warehouse where there is a built-in hostel facility. I was initially surprised when she turned down the offer and one day but chance, I found out why.

She was molested by the gatekeeper of our warehouse.

She was reluctant to divulge this incident which has been eating at her for the past few days. It is the Ch1nese culture to keep quiet about these things as it is a big lost of face for the womenfolk here.

I had a close-door session with her addressing this issue and agreed that reporting this to the police is not an option as she does not want to risk this leaked into the open i.e. news media.

Besides, it was a case between her word against his. I think I would risk aggravating the situation if the police dismisses the on the ground of lack of evidence or worse, the police refusing to handle the case.

At the end of the discussion, I made the decision to dismiss the 60-plus year old gatekeeper. I am not sorry to take away the livelihood of the man who needed this meagre salary to survive his twilight years. Firing him also mean kicking him out onto the streets. He can go sleep in the streets for all I care. Again, I am not sorry.

Granted the case was resolved swiftly, the damage was however, done. Though not physically but the mental scar will be with her for the rest of her life. I am doing all I can right now to help her heal and hoping that the scar will be kept to the smallest possible.

I am arranging for other staff, though a series of gatherings, to keep her company and to minimise her alone time in case her mind wanders out of control in the negative sense. It is a tricky arrangement considering that the other staff must not know what happened but I felt that at this time, she must be surrounded by good trustworthy people.

In a way, it was most unfortunate, but looking at this from another perspective, she is also lucky at the same time.

It could have been worse.

Still, any infraction, regardless how minor, must not be dismissed as trivia and most certainly not be tolerated.

Image Credits: http://43tigers.files.wordpress.com

- Voxeros