Pay girl outta the bar (pay out discussion)

[torrenova]

FlyPapillon,

 

The staffing issue is a hard one. Have too few and people go to a bar with more girls, have too many and your wage bill is too high. The same goes for having a mix of girls. If they were all the same then it wouldn't work, either the same beauty or the same age. If I want 15 staff, I want 15 staff. If half get taken out, the chances of my getting more customers in the bar is reduced as the girls sit with customers etc. If nothing "suitable" is left, then I'm screwed. Barfines go some way to make up for this.

 

As for beer prices, I charge Bt80 for a Singha or Kloster and Bt85 for Heineken. Other more exotic beers are more but that relates to what I have to pay for them. We don't have a happy hour but I treat customers well and buy them drinks out of round when the situation merits it.

 

I agree that NEP is taking the piss and there have been heated discussions on this board and elsewhere about their price increases over the last couple of years. The worst offenders are indeed the bars near NEP such as Big Dogs and Morning Night who have jumped on the price increase bandwagon both in terms of beer prices and more importantly, barfines. As you rightly summise, they do not have the same cost base as the go-gos and thus are somewhat profiteering.

 

In context, I understand from talking to the girls in Morning Night, which I frequent regularly when in town, that their salaries are in the range Bt4-6k. They also find that apart from newbies plucking up courage to enter NEP, they are getting less barfines due to the higher cost.

 

I wonder though whether the Biergarden and other freelancers are actually the ones benefitting here. As guys look at the total cost (say LT 2k including 500 BF), they are now asking LT Bt1.5k rather than the Bt1k before ?

 

On a side note, I read on the FLB website that some bar and or go-go owners are looking to form an effective cartel and put barfines up to Bt1000. Something like this will happen and sooner than you think.

[Guest]

Torrenova, don't you think it is strange that 99.9999 percent of the businesses in the world do not put restrictions on their 'employees' as to who they can and can not have as friends?

 

Torrenova, are these girls really employees?

 

If they are real employees, are they not entitled to certain working condition regulations?

 

I think you know what kind of business you are running and that every aspect seems to smell of scam.

[limbo]

MightyMouse said:

Quote:

"As far as I know nobody is forced to pay anything if one doesn't want to. And if the scene is above one's budget than don't participate.

 

As to other, more regular jobs. There is indeed no "bar" fine. However, in many cases there is a sum to be paid in advance as a guarantee. If an employee leave without due notice, this money is forfeited.

 

Crap, and more crap. I never paid an employer to work for him before I started work nor have I heard of anybody else doing so. Such pracices fall in the realm of trying to get a person to work as an indentured servant.

 

 

 

Sorry to let the air out of your balloon, but in Thailand it;s very common to ask for guarantee fees for staff.

Most big hotels in resort areas easily ask for a 20K deposit of their staff when they are cashiers.

The money will be handed back if they leave the company on a friendly base with notice given. The money isn't sometimes returned untill a month later, when the bean counters have checked everything.

 

Get your facts straight mate, I thought you have such an indepth knowledge of the LOS. In this case you're severely lacking.

[torrenova]

MightyMouse said:

Torrenova, don't you think it is strange that 99.9999 percent of the businesses in the world do not put restrictions on their 'employees' as to who they can and can not have as friends?

 

Torrenova, are these girls really employees?

 

If they are real employees, are they not entitled to certain working condition regulations?

 

I think you know what kind of business you are running and that every aspect seems to smell of scam.

OK, last reply to you MM.

 

I see that despite your relatively large number of posts, you seem to know jack shit about the business or Thailand for that matter. Have you ever been there ?

 

You appear to have an alterior motive and I will not bite.

[pattaya127]

Torrenova, don't you think it is strange that 99.9999 percent of the businesses in the world do not put restrictions on their 'employees' as to who they can and can not have as friends?

------------------------

I disagree. many businesses in the world warn or terminate their employees if something in their life barges on their productivity, affects the others working with them, or is considered wrong in behaviour (that's why they have all these laws against discrimination)

 

Someone posted about 2 farangs sacked in BKK, after one too many bragging about P4P outings.

 

For each business, the reasons might be different. In the Nightlife, i can see it may have to do with the guy or guys a girl knows outside the bar. If it makes problems, it may terminate her employement. Just talking in general, since I am totally against the practices mentionned in the original thread (getting confused here, i admit, 2 "outta.." threads?).

 

 

[MooNoi]

Hi Torrenova,

Thanks for your detailed responses and thoughts.

Whilst I still do not agree with BF's and a lot of what you have written, at least you have written your posts with dignity and a lot of restraint, and have also explained things to me that I didn't know - which is the whole point of this board for me. (Apart from the "fun" aspect). Appreciate your honesty. Thanks for not flying off the deep-end too much!

Fly P.

[shygye]

[color:"green"] a bar does also give a certain protection to the girls working there. it is rather obvious that life as a freelancer is vastly more dangerous for the girls than as an employed bargirl. not all customers are some nice blokes who just look for company and a vanilla shag, there are also some very sick people around. [/color]

 

I know of a few gogos that FORCE the girls to go with customers they dont want to be with. So that protection is at best an illusion.

 

Paying 10K to get a girl out of a bar certainly falls under the UN definition of human trafficing.

[Guest]

Hi Limbo,

 

>>>>>Sorry to let the air out of your balloon, but in Thailand it;s very common to ask for guarantee fees for staff.

Most big hotels in resort areas easily ask for a 20K deposit of their staff when they are cashiers.

The money will be handed back if they leave the company on a friendly base with notice given. The money isn't sometimes returned untill a month later, when the bean counters have checked everything.<<<<<

 

Limbo is very correct. And not even just cashier's. Zenith Hotel on soi 3 wanted my g/f to post a 10,000 Bt bond on a 9,000 Bt a month front desk/customer service job. I think was to be handed back after a full year of employment. And not the first time she ran into that, during her job searches. Appearently, quite a common practice, that I was at first shocked with. But it is just the way it is there, with many positions. Just their answer, I guess, to many bad problems in the past.

 

HT

[Guest]

>>>I know of a few gogos that FORCE the girls to go with customers they dont want to be with. <<<

 

 

i said already that not all is nice and shiny. what i said is that comparably, over all, this is the least detrimental scene businesswise for hookers.

 

 

>>>Paying 10K to get a girl out of a bar certainly falls under the UN definition of human trafficing.<<<

 

how so?

the 10K fee does not give the client any right whatsoever over the girl. she can still do whatever she wants. and if she decides to leave him the next day, there is no contractual or legal or whatever claim he has. and i do know of cases where the girl has done exactly that.

now, if in some individual case some barowner uses untoward pressure towards the girl to press out of her that fee, if he hands over certain rights over the girls body or spirit to the client, that would indeed be considered human trafficing.

 

as though this 10K buyout fee is handled completely different (or not practised at all) by the individual barowners, one cannot simplify and generalise that the 10K fee is automatically indenture.

 

so, lets look at proven examples of individual cases (and i don't mean just proven by what the client says, he often gets just a tiny part of the whole picture, but also by what the girl and the barowner says).

 

a mate of mine fell in love with a girl from a bar who has the fee. the owner asked him about the fee, my mate told him to fuck off (in a friendly way as the owner and my mate were mates), the owner only laughed. no fee paid. and the girl left owing the bar considerable money. she can still walk into the bar any day to visit.

another bloke i know paid the fee to the amusement of the owner, he just got away with getting 10 grand out of the guy.

and another bloke i know wanted to pay, but same owner just handed the money back to him, telling him to fuck off with his 10K and have a nice life with his girlfriend.

as to girls in that particular bar who left with a guy and did not pay the fee, well, lots of them were back in the bar after some time, no hazzles. pretty girls who make good money for the bar are always in high demand, and a girl who averages 10 lady drinks a night, plus two barfines is far more important to the bar than lousy ten grand. logic, isn't it.

girls who don't make much money for the bar are not that sadly missed by the owner, so i doubt that he will be overly anal about a ten grand fee. logic as well?

 

it's all individual cases here. cannot generalise as this fee is simply not dealt with along some strict rules.

[Guest]

Hi torrenova,

 

Hey....when did this happen? Have you been a manager long? First I've ever heard you speak of it.

 

Anyway, thanks for being candid here, willing to 'take some heat'. I think great to have someone here in that position, willing to give first-hand insight into the inner-workings/policy's of a Thai bar. Top Cat has been very informative here, also. Don't let a few throwing rocks at you, keep you from sharing your experiences. I get tons of people throwing rocks at me, and I don't even run a bar. Just put up the metal shield, and charge foreward. Hell....I might even come at you with some issues.

 

But your sharing here is appreciated. Thank you for that! And as others have noted, 'good on you' for keeping a cool head about you.

 

HT