Batgung - Domestic helpers

Can you have too much domestic help?

mrb — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:10:01 +0000

At lunch last week, we saw a young boy (5-ish) eating his lunch. At regular intervals their helper would lift the cup of water to his lips so he could have a drink. Ok it was 'helping' him drink, but it didn't seem like much help towards growing up.

Or what about the older boys I see who stand a good foot or more taller than their helper, and yet the helper is carrying their school bags.

How much help is too much?

MrB

PS As Gweipo notes, sometimes it's not just children that can have too much help!

Domestic helpers update

Mr Tall — Thu, 03 May 2007 01:00:00 +0000

I’ve written several times about hiring and managing domestic helpers here in Hong Kong, but not for quite a while. There’s a reason for that – or, rather, a couple of reasons.

First, after employing a couple of decent helpers, we had bad luck and employed one we really didn’t like. Then, after she left, we found one we liked very much indeed. I was so worried about jinxing the whole deal I felt constrained from mentioning it!

I hope I’m past the jinxing stage now, as I’m going to add a few comments that I again hope might help out those of you who are either already employing helpers, or may be planning to when you arrive in Hong Kong.

A history of the Tall family’s experience with domestic helpers

We first hired our first helper about five years ago, when Mrs Tall was gravid with Daughter Tall. We found one we liked, assumed she’d be able to start immediately because she’d just been dismissed, but on the grounds of her employer’s financial difficulties. Then we found out the Immigration Department rejected those grounds (her previous employers had hired and fired several maids within months, using the same excuse), so our prospective helper had to go back to the Philippines anyway. She started work the day before Mrs Tall gave birth, so I guess it all worked out, but still! Anyway, she had some very strong points – experienced and good with babies, which of course was our first priority, and a fantastic cook – and some bad points, e.g. she cut corners like a Formula 1 driver when cleaning, and she regularly cooked the books when accounting for her household spending. But overall, she was not bad, and we were surprised and disappointed when she suddenly left HK after just over a year working for us.

Our second helper had finished a contract when we hired her, so she at least was able to start working for us sooner (crucial, given our previous helper’s rapid retreat). She was again excellent with Daughter Tall – she essentially potty-trained her in a week, for example – and was also similar to Helper 1 in that her cleaning could be haphazard. She was a rotten cook. But whereas our first helper had been a bit moody and standoffish at points, Helper 2 was easy to get along with, and we were again surprised and disappointed (queue theme music) when she suddenly resigned after just over a year, because she’d taken an offer in Canada. Can’t blame her for that, as the working hours and pay are far better.

Then came Helper 3. We hired her on a strong recommendation from one of Mrs Tall’s colleagues – a really strong recommendation. In later, bitter reflection upon the day we hired her, we realized how cavalierly we’d conducted our interview with her, and how many potential problems we’d blithely overlooked – all because we’d already had a positive disposition to her in advance.

So what went wrong in the just-over-a-year in which she worked for us? Nothing huge. She didn’t incinerate our kitchen, or leave Daughter Tall out in the street, or anything really bad. She was also a bit of a book-cooker, but that’s pretty common amongst domestic helpers, so we generally let it ride. It was instead a string of little things. Forgetting instructions that had been made over and over, and often written down. Angrily claiming she understood something when having it explained to her for the umpteenth time, then proving she still had no clue by messing it up. Constantly undermining our approach to discipline with Daughter Tall, because it was easier to spoil her than to keep her in line. And on and on.

We realized after just a few weeks that we’d probably made a mistake in hiring her. But since it was hard to justify immediate dismissal – no big disasters, remember – we let things go. We reached a point at which were almost hoping she’d cause a small-scale disaster so we’d have our grounds for dismissal. Eventually, she decided to leave of her own accord, citing family concerns back in the Philippines. We did not ask her to reconsider her resignation.

Anyway, after hearing all this, I suspect you might want a few general conclusions that might help you in your own hiring/managing of a helper.

Signs you’re having trouble with your helper

Note: I don’t mean this list to be funny or ironic. This is really how it goes when it goes bad . . . .

You find, in idle moments, your brain returning over and over to your lack of domestic tranquility.

You and your spouse talk about your helper/domestic arrangements on a daily basis.

In a primal part of your brain, you find you cannot avoid resenting your helper’s presence in your flat, even though you know rationally you’re paying for her to be there.

You suffer helper-specific logorrhea anytime you’re talking with other people who employ helpers (this is particularly bad, as it’s also a moral hazard (see point 9).

You start to think life would be easier if you could just do your own cooking, cleaning, washing and dishes.

You find that you are actually starting to take over some of those tasks yourself because it’s easier than trying to get your helper to ‘do them right’.

A happy ending?

I’ve waited till the end of this article to tell you about Helper 4. Mrs Tall and I broke one of our cardinal rules when we hired her: she was the first, and only, candidate we interviewed. We liked her so much we didn’t bother seeking other candidates even when we found ourselves mired in yet another weird mess with Immigration over her status in Hong Kong, and discovered she’d need to go back to the Philippines for six weeks. (See below for a rundown of this – it’s something anyone employing a helper should know about.)

Why were we so confident? More than any other candidate we’ve ever interviewed, she seemed calm, competent and quick-thinking. She had an unblemished work record here (all contracts finished; one had been renewed), and good references. She readily agreed to our request to talk to her current employer, and had a working telephone number for him at hand. And perhaps most of all, Mrs Tall and I agreed after the interview that we’d really enjoyed talking with her. We had that ‘comfortable to be around’ gut feeling that living under the same roof for two years would work out okay.

And it has. She’s been with us now for over half a year, and she’s by far the best helper we’ve had.

So if you’ve been having trouble finding a good helper, or simply have heard that it’s impossible to ‘find good help these days’, take heart. It’s possible for things to work out, too.

Postscript on Immigration notification

The Immigration incident with our current helper was so bizarre and seemingly unjust that it took me quite a while just to grasp it. Here’s what transpired.

Our helper was coming to the end of a contract, and she and her employer had mutually agreed not to renew. As that contract was winding down, her employer went on a longish holiday. As he and his family wouldn’t return to Hong Kong until after the current contract had expired, he simply gave our helper the last two weeks of her contract off to look for a new job. She interviewed with us just a day before the end of that time, but that was fine – she could go to Immigration the next day with signed contracts, and she should be allowed to begin right away working with us because she’d completed a contract. And anyway, helpers are allowed two weeks after their contracts expire to find a new employer. Although we thought we had plenty of time, we asked her to take care of everything as quickly as possible so that she could start work for us asap.

The next day we got a tearful call from her – she had indeed gone to Immigration, and she found out she had 48 hours to get out of Hong Kong. She was being deported – even though we had hired her, she had been told she had overstayed her visa, and would absolutely have to return to the Philippines. It would now take the normal 6-8 weeks before she could start working for us.

I was beside myself: what could possibly have gone wrong? We met up with her, and took a look at her work visa. It didn’t expire till the next day. And then there were still the two weeks’ grace! So I accompanied her back to Immigration, and together we finally got the whole story.

When her previous employers had left for their holiday, they faxed a letter to Immigration informing them that their contract with our helper was not being renewed. This is perfectly normal – it’s required, in fact. But their letter was dated just over two weeks before the end of the contract – and, according to the Immigration officer, there was no stipulation in the letter that our helper would be continuing her employment until the end of the contract (truth be told, of course, she was not). Therefore, her employment visa was ended the minute that fax was received, and the clock on her two weeks’ grace period started ticking immediately. It turned out she ‘overstayed’ by just eight hours. Immigration even has a special name for this kind of case, which I can’t recall exactly, but it’s essentially a ‘special termination’. That is, they don’t count it as a real termination, in which case it’s very hard indeed for a helper to avoid returning to the Philippines, but they also don’t consider the contract to be ‘completed’, and hence the early commencement of the grace period.

So there’s a structural problem in this notification system that employers need to watch out for. No one really was ‘at fault’ in our helper’s case – her previous employer most likely didn’t realize he was actually cutting short our helper’s time to find a new employer rather than extending it. Our helper had no idea when her previous employer was sending that fax, or what was in it. Mrs Tall and I were utterly innocent of the intricacies of this process. And the Immigration officer who handled the case was actually extremely nice. He said he simply couldn’t extend our helper’s visa no matter what once she’d exceeded it, and I believed him. He also said he could have had her prosecuted for overstaying and he didn’t, which is of course true, and he gave her as long as he possibly could (i.e. 48 hours) for her to leave HK.

So if you are finishing a contract with a helper, or releasing her for whatever reason, pay attention to when you inform Immigration, and to what you put in that letter. Your actions and words may have a profound effect on your helper’s chance to find another job.

Should I hire a domestic helper?

batgung — Wed, 01 Sep 2004 09:56:06 +0000

Question: I've heard that lots of people in Hong Kong hire domestic helpers. What does that involve? Are all domestic helpers from abroad and live-in? Is it possible to employ a local staff on a permanent basis who works a 40-hour week and who live by themselves when they are not at work?

Mr T replies: What you've heard is certainly true. There are more than a couple hundred thousand domestic helpers working in Hong Kong, and many families (including the Talls) employ one. They are overwhelmingly from abroad. In the recent past, the vast majority were from the Philippines. Filipinos still predominate, but the numbers of Indonesian helpers is rising very fast, and there are also helpers recruited from Thailand, Sri Lanka, and other Asian countries. I've written three articles on what it's like to employ a domestic helper if you'd like to read more; links are here, here, and here. According to current regulations, your domestic helper must live in your home if she is from overseas. This requirement doesn't apply, of course, to helpers/housecleaners/babysitters, etc. (almost universally part-time) who are from Hong Kong.

Mr B adds: It's also definitely possible to get live-out domestic helpers [but only if they are HK residents}. I don't like the idea of someone living in permanently, as I feel it will really cut into my privacy. We just have someone in on weekdays to look after BabyB, and help with some of the housework.

A reader adds: Yes, it is possible to hire local people to work a 40 hour week for you, but it will likely be more expensive than hiring a foreign domestic helper.

The batgung add: The Hong Kong Immigration Department provides a great deal of information on employing domestic helpers.

This page is a good place to start if you want to find out more about the regulations related to hiring a local domestic helper.

Here is a sample contract for DHs.

This pamphlet (note that it's a .pdf file) is a more readable guide to employing DHs, and it includes samples of various receipts and letters you might well find useful.

This page has a long, long list of FAQs on domestic helpers, covering just about any imaginable eventuality.

If you are actually looking to begin the hiring process and want to search ads for helpers available in Hong Kong, here is a good place to start.

Domestic helpers, part III

Mr Tall — Mon, 05 Jul 2004 05:22:23 +0000

Allow me to preface this piece, which tries to describe some of the common difficulties that arise between employers and domestic helpers in Hong Kong, by saying that I don't just think that many DH's in HK are exploited and oppressed by their employers -- that many are is simply a fact. My church has hundreds (possibly thousands; it's hard to keep track) of members who are DHs, and I've gotten to know many of them, some quite well. I've heard many ugly stories, and have no reason to doubt their veracity. Mrs Tall and I have also heard HK people who employ DHs bragging about how hard they're able to work them, how deeply they've been able to undercut the minimum salary they're legally obligated to pay (this is a disturbingly common practice, especially with helpers from Indonesia), and how little they spend on the food their helpers eat. There's no doubt that many -- maybe most -- DHs toil in bitter anonymity, sacrificing their own happiness for their families' well-being.

But then why are so many people in Hong Kong perpetually trying to find new helpers? What goes wrong, even for decent employers who sincerely want to pay a fair wage, and who believe themselves to be fine, tolerant, liberal-in-the-very-best-sense, just generally nice people? I think there are several basic problems that come up again and again, and I'll try to classify them here.

First, one big source of trouble is that domestic helpers comprise a group of human beings. They are not housework machines, nor are they de facto saints. It sounds stupid and condescending to say this, but it really has to be said -- perceptions of DHs tend to veer wildly toward one or the other of these poles. For example, in my first article on DHs I mentioned the ugly tendency of HK expats to use their DH's perceived shortcomings as fodder for small-talk; this is just the tip of the iceberg, as the many examples of ill treatment of DHs I've already mentioned attest.

But it's also dehumanizing to fall into the great trap of identity politics, i.e. to attribute to the group of DHs a certain set of characteristics -- even if they're generally positive ones -- instead of treating them as individuals. I've seen this in many stories I've read on the HK DH scene, as well as in conversations with other expats. For an excellent example, originally spotted by Chris at Ordinary Gweilo, if I recall correctly, see this Economist article. It's certainly informative, accurate, and even moving, but it's also utterly one-sided. I'm not blaming the writer for this, by the way -- a hagiographic account of DHs' self-sacrifice in the face of oppression writes itself; it's got photogenic and quotable protagonists, and nobody in London or New York really wants to hear the other side of the story. If I'd been given this assignment, I'd probably have written it much the same way, although maybe I'd've held back on that line about DHs 'often' living in 'virtual slavery under their Chinese or expatriate masters'. Just a little over the top, that, in its demonizing of a non-PC group.

The point is, there certainly are 'saintly' DHs, but there are also quite a few who are dishonest or idle or cruel. When you're hiring a DH to come and live in your home and take care of your children, you can't just gloss over this. No matter how self-sacrificing and noble your DH may be in the abstract, if she's whacking your kids while she's alone with them, or verbally abusing them (I've seen this in progress out on the street more than once) she's got to go. This kind of behavior isn't the norm, but it certainly does exist. And some DHs do steal. And some do spend hours on their mobile phones while their young charges run wild. They're human beings.

A more common problem that leads to misunderstanding and bad working relationships is mismatching between employers and helpers. Finding a 'good' helper is not unlike finding a school for your child -- different helpers are going to have different strengths and weaknesses, and you do yourself no favors by viewing all the candidates you interview as essentially interchangeable (see point above). And don't forget that helpers are sometimes also disappointed in their employers, too, and not just for how they're treated. For example, when Mrs Tall and I were interviewing earlier this spring, I was calling up potential candidates who'd advertised on Asiaxpat (I think amahnet.com is better, but their site was down that weekend). I called up one woman who had been working for a family in Tai Tam. She sounded great on the phone -- experienced, quick-witted, friendly. We were in the process of setting up an interview, and I started explaining how to get to our flat. I mentioned our MTR station, and she interrupted me: 'That's not on Hong Kong Island, is it?' Her tone suddenly dripped contempt, as she grilled me about the outrageous inconveniences she'd need to endure crossing the harbor via public transport. Changing trains. Finding a station in Kowloon -- well, all right, the New Territories. Whatever. I eventually suggested we not waste any more of each other's time, and she expressed her agreement by hanging up on me. She obviously had expectations the Talls couldn't meet, so more power to her if she could find an employer who did. The point is, it's just as well to find out about potential mismatches before you hire someone.

This is easier said than done, of course. For one thing, when Mrs Tall and I have interviewed DH candidates, it's hard not to sympathize with some of the women who are desperate for a job, or who are looking to escape an abusive employer. But if you sense it's not likely to work out in the long run, are you doing her -- much less yourself -- a favor by ignoring your best instincts and hiring her anyway? That's why I recommend interviewing at least three or four candidates in quick succession when you start your DH search process. If you interview just one or two, it's more likely you'll be swayed by your emotions and end up with a mismatch.

Many other mismatches can be written off to cultural differences. For example, methods of food preparation are like religious rituals in the way they're rooted in particular cultures. But many of these cultural differences are quite obvious, and my guess is that most DHs quickly learn to look out for them, and smooth them over without their employers even knowing. There are some mismatches that simply can't be avoided, however, no matter how straightforward and careful both of you are. The problem is, a domestic helper by definition is helping you with rather intimate tasks. She'll soon know more about your peccadilloes than your close relatives and best friends do. And the intimate details of people's day-to-day lives vary enormously. In many cases, you can accurately adduce all sorts of things about someone just by meeting him and talking to him briefly -- his politics, his religious beliefs, his economic/social status. But you'll never know that it bugs him to death to have his sports shoes and work shoes stored on the same shelf in his shoe cabinet, and that at home where no one's looking he actually likes his pasta nice and squishy instead of al dente, and that he wants the bottles of toiletries to be wiped of and lined up daily, while he can't tolerate the random-looking stack of DVDs next to the TV being moved at all, and so on.

In other words, by adulthood each of us comes equipped with a full set of personal foibles guaranteed to bemuse our fellows. Most of these develop when we're kids in our parents' homes, so they seem utterly normal to us; they only start to sound odd when you try to explain them to someone else. Married couples are supposed to work through these issues in an attitude of mutual respect and desire for understanding: that indulgence isn't going to be there for a domestic helper. If you don't make clear to her what your little non-negotiable preferences are, you must accept the way she does things, which will of course seem equally idiosyncratic to you. This inherent cause of mismatches can be overcome, but you'd be surprised how grating it can be if you're not prepared for it. I suspect it's behind many unhappy DH situations in which an employer complains of 'things just not going well', or 'she just can't seem to get things right'. If you're in this situation, think about it: how many of your dissatisfactions with your domestic helper stem from petty incidents in which it's likely she'd have needed to have read your mind to have done what you really wanted?

Finally, there are a number of what I'll call 'structural' problems that make it tough for DHs and their employers to see eye to eye. An excellent example is the discipline of children. On the one hand, as an employer you don't want your small children to set the tone with a helper. Children are human, too, and they'll eventually try to push behavioral boundaries. You can tell your helper to clamp down, and she can try her best. But if, in the heat of battle, as it were, she went as just far as you would in disciplining, she'd likely be in danger of immediate dismissal. You might give your child a smack if she's out of control, but do you think your helper would? Or should? You can see the built-in gap here between your authority and hers -- and so can your kids. So on one hand, your children may behave differently -- very possibly worse -- in your helper's care; on the other, what can she really do about it? She's going to err on the side of caution no matter what you say. Other structural problems revolve around the difficulty of evaluating a helper's day-to-day performance (in most cases you, as her supervisor, simply can't be around in her workplace that much, unless you stay/work at home yourself), and the frustrations of trying to get through the actual hiring process, which I commented on in Part I.

As always, we'd appreciate comments and tips -- this is part of life in Hong Kong that so many of us expats are inexperienced with, and the stakes are pretty high.

Domestic helpers, part II

Mr Tall — Mon, 10 May 2004 05:24:52 +0000

I've been motivated to revisit the issue of hiring and living with a domestic helper because Mrs Tall and I have recently had to hire a new helper ourselves.

I'm intending this article to be a follow-up to my previous one on this subject, which you can find here. If you're interested in this subject, you might want to go back and have a look at that article first.

Here in Part II I'll address the often-perplexing bureaucratic process of hiring a helper, and consider some of the psychological barriers to hiring a helper that might not be serious impediments after all. Then in Part III I'll touch on some more issues you as an employer of a domestic helper may need to resolve. Let me say here that readers should use my recommendations/information completely at their own risk: I'm no expert on immigration law in Hong Kong, and the rules change all the time, so don't take my word for it on technical issues -- look them up yourself! (See link a bit later on.)

When Mrs Tall and I first started looking for a domestic helper a couple of years ago, I thought it would be easy -- I made the stupid assumption you could approach it from a rational, economic point of view. Point 1: there exists an enormous oversupply of women (and some men, to be fair) from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and other developing Asian countries who want to come to Hong Kong to work. Point 2: as a middle-class family, we could easily afford to pay one of these women the going rate. Ergo, it's a hirer's market.

But then why did hiring our first helper take several months, numerous trips to the Immigration Department, a couple of fraught meetings watered with our potential new helper's tears, and the growing need to stave off panic as Baby Tall's delivery date grew closer, with nothing resolved?

Hiring a helper is relatively complicated bureaucratically, so it can take a long time. The tangle of regulations and paperwork you and your helper-to-be must negotiate can be thick and thorny. The Hong Kong Immigration Department is much better than it used to be (don't let me start telling my old work-visa-renewal stories here, Mr B!) but it still erects formidable barriers against a DH having the remotest chance of staying in HK for a minute longer than the ID deem necessary. I'll not bore you with the gory details -- if you need to wade through them, there's a full and official set of guidelines here.

A problem with these Immigration Department regulations is that they're geared at making a DH go back to her home country before she can start work with a new employer. That doesn't sound so bad, especially when you consider how desperately some overworked helpers need a break. In practice, however, this policy can work deeply to a DH's disadvantage if she's seeking a new employer, when you couple it with the fact that she gets only a 14-day extension to her visa in which to find work. That is, a DH who's been dismissed, or who's come to the end of her contract, has only two weeks for interviews and, in case she actually can find a new employer, for getting the mountain of paperwork for a new visa application in order. If she doesn't get this done before her visa runs out, she has no choice but to leave Hong Kong and return to her home country. Then, if she wants to come back to HK and find work again, she's got to start at square one back at home, typically at a far higher level of trouble, time and expense.

As you can imagine, a DH who knows in advance that her contract won't be renewed has an advantage. She at least can use her weekly day off to attend interviews, and she's likely to have all her friends and relatives working here looking out for opportunities as well. Of course it can be hit-and-miss: many DH's employers won't give them time during their working week to seek a new post, and some won't even allow them to take phone calls from potential employers. This cuts down the job-search strategies you read about in business communication books!

But many DHs have an even tougher time. Often they receive no warning that they're going to be dismissed, so they'll have had no chance to get the word out that they're looking for a new employer. And there's no compromise on the 'return to home country' question for them. In fact, if a DH finishes a contract and is then rehired while she's still in Hong Kong, she and her new employer can arrange to defer her leave until after she starts her new contract. A DH dismissed because of her employer's financial hardship can also get permission to stay on in Hong Kong. But a straight up dismissal -- which requires no grounds; just one month's notice -- means a definite trip back to start the whole process over.

Well, an observer might argue, no one would want to hire a maid who's been dismissed anyway. But the fact is that those looking to hire a DH would do well to avoid writing off DHs in this situation. The reasons for dismissal are often so trivial, and sometimes so outright cruel, that they end up being no problem at all to a new employer. Just to give an example: our now-departed helper was in fact dismissed by her previous employer, who sacked her on ridiculous pretexts: e.g. when her employer's friend brought over her five-year-old son, and he misbehaved, our soon-to-be DH 'looked at him in an unhappy way'; other complaints had to do with her inability to iron the underwear properly, and so on. These complaints were so trivial we in fact took them as a positive sign: an employer so obviously neurotic, who couldn't find anything more substantive to complain about, was in fact offering quite a convincing, if left-handed, endorsement!

So, to sum up this part in a couple of brief words of advice: if you're planning to hire a domestic helper, start early, and make sure you cast the nets wide enough! In my next article on this topic, I'll look at some of the reasons it seems like everybody's always looking for a new helper all the time.

Domestic helpers in Hong Kong

Mr Tall — Fri, 09 May 2003 05:38:05 +0000

A revelation for many expats in Hong Kong is the expectation that they'll employ a full-time domestic helper. I use the term 'expectation' intentionally. Most expatriates -- especially families -- are likely to make far more money than is needed to afford this arrangement. Tens of thousands of local Hong Kong Chinese families also employ domestic helpers as well, of course.

For most of us expats, having someone living in your home who does the cooking, cleaning and childcare is a huge adjustment. It's a marvelous luxury, but it brings up a number of issues and problems you might not anticipate that can cause big problems.

How do you go about hiring a helper? There are a lot of other sites that set out the mechanics and provide you the chance to pick through hundreds of potential candidates (see amahnet.com, for example), so I won't get into that. But I will try to set out some more general guidelines that I know Mrs Tall and I would have found helpful before we hired our helper. Some of these are just common sense, but you'd be amazed at how often even these are ignored:

1. First, get yourself used to the idea -- think about it seriously. Your life with a helper is going to be easier but, depending on what you really value, you might not find that it is really better. For example, you must be ready to adjust to a much lower level of privacy. Hong Kong flats are small, and having an extra person living there means you may feel as if your domestic helper is 'underfoot' all the time. And current Hong Kong Government regulations require that your helper live with you if she's from overseas, so there's no question of you renting space for her to live out.

2. Prioritize your expectations. Cooking? Childcare? Party planning and flower arranging? You're not going to find a 'perfect' helper, so you'll need to be ready to put one area of responsibility first, and compromise on others. When Mrs T and I were interviewing helpers, we made it clear that taking care of the imminent Baby Tall was paramount. This really helped focus our interviews, both for ourselves and for the interviewees.

3. Learn the rules. This is no fun at all, but you're going to have to learn some things about immigration regulations and procedures, insurance, contracts, labor law and so on. If you don't, you'll almost certainly by forced by circumstances to do so at some point. Don't trust an agency to get everything right! You might want to see this artticle for some suggestions for ways to start on this.

4. Interview carefully, and leave plenty of time for it. Take notes, or you'll forget who's who. Compare and evaluate the skills your candidates have to offer, but remember that there's no good way to verify a lot of what you'll see and hear about any given helper. By all means, take up references, but don't expect complete transparency from previous employers, either.

5. Think about the kind of person you want to hire, not just what skills you want your helper to have. Would you prefer that's she's married or single? Young (and possibly inexperienced) or older (more likely to have health problems, more likely to be set in her ways of doing things, etc.)? Worked as a helper before or fresh from the Philippines or Indonesia? You've got to try to anticipate all of the consequences of your hiring. For example, Mrs T and I really didn't want to hire a domestic helper who would be leaving her own small children to come to Hong Kong to take care of ours. We made it a point simply not to get into this situation.

6. When you've got some real possibilities lined up, make the actual choice based on your gut instincts. You know you are going to have to live and get along with the helper you choose, so hire someone you're comfortable being with and talking to. If there's an edginess between you at the interview stage, what's it going to be like after six months' co-residence?

7. Once you've hired a helper, clarity is the watchword when giving instructions on how you'd like things done. Achieving and maintaining such clarity feels funny to most of us expats with limited-to-no experience issuing domestic orders. You want to just say 'Okay, now if you've got time this afternoon or maybe tomorrow, could you have a look at the windows in the guest room?'. But vague instructions usually lead to misunderstanding and irritation on both sides.

8. Be scrupulous in little things, such as getting receipts for monthly salary payments, keeping track of cash for marketing and household expenditures, setting requirements for working hours, and so on.

9. Watch out for moral hazards. For example, when you're out with friends, you may catch yourselves deep in a conversation about 'how hard it is to find good help these days' that sounds straight out of a Victorian novel. You may find that your explications of your domestic helper's performance devolve from talking about real issues to a kind of schtick you use to make small talk with your expat friends. This is not just boring, it's a violation of my final point.

10. Never forget: her life is just as important as yours. Enough said.