When Saving Face Becomes Impossible, Just Save Yourself

I recently came across an article on bad Chinese translations of common American words and phrases from the early days of industry trade between the two nations. One particularly bad and funny translation was for the term to save face, which should have been much simpler based on the ancient Chinese sense of honor.

The phrase’s spent its early life in a Chinese dialect that translated back to English as not to lose head.

The weird coincidence of me coming across the article and that translation in particular comes from an recent attempt to fire a customer. Our working relationship wasn’t working, and I was trying to bow out and shoulder a good portion of the blame that I was not to blame for in order to allow him to save face. In return, he was doing every thing he could possibly lose his head, in this case, put some serious tarnish on his reputation, by forcing a few issues that didn’t need to be forced.

So what did I do? I following the sage advice of Mötley Crüe. I didn’t go away mad at the person or situation. I just threw my hands up, and went away .

There will be times in business and in life where the people who need to break away from will do everything possible to keep that from happening, to their complete detriment. That does not lessen your need to break away.

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