Thais are useless!

[Guest]

UPSer:

"no, I have not seen and BG's with UPS clothes... Most don't know what it is..

But I suspect that in the future there will be a few running around with UPS

shirts!"

 

I think some of the soapy places may add the ups uniforms to the selection soon.

\

too bad the IRS does not have a uniform, bet lots of guys from usa would like to do it to someone wearing that uniform, since the ( irs) do it to us so often.

[Hidy Ho]

Any thoughts about opening a UPS a-go-go.

Then maybe DHL will open one too. It could start a trend.

An english person could open a Royal Mail a-go-go.

[cardinalblue]

Thais work hard if they see an immediate fiscal or other reward.

They don't work hard because they value work itself as an instrinic value. They will do only what they have to do and nothing more.

Work is not an end in itself in the Thai culture but only a means to itself.

Someone I know will argue with me that we westernerns do the same working for external rewards.

But I will conclude work is not interpreted as the same in our two cultures. We value work as something as good, something good for the soul. My take is the Thais culture overall does not. I will go out on a short limb and say Thais do not have a stong work ethic even though they may work hard in their job or on a task or in a project.

Yes, there will be individual exceptions and examples but it is not institutionalized or valued like the West.

People who have worked extensively in both cultures will need what I mean!

cardinalblue

[cardinalblue]

Sorry for some typos: intrinsic, strong, "know" instead of "need".

But I am in a rush to get to work. Can't be late, right?

Cardinalblue

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by UPSer:

We have a staff of about 45 drivers in our UPS Bangkok operations... These are some of the hardest workig guys I've ever seen. Lazy, not even close!

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In my observation UPS, FedEx, etc, do run pretty well and tend to disprove the assertion that ALL Thais are worthless. But even that good, non-lazy service can't escape being in Thailand.

Recently I used UPS to send a VERY important package. I sent it through the UPS agent near Baiyoke, on a Friday afternoon. After a couple of days I still could not track the package and was starting to freak out. Turns out that the driver had personally driven my package to the airport instead of following the normal and proper procedure of calling UPS to com fetch it, so no origin scan was ever done, etc, etc.

Would have been better if he had been lazy!

[Guest]

Boy, Pasathai and UPSer really hijacked this thread! Probably for the better. This has been an interesting discussion

[pattaya127]

quote:

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Originally posted by cardinalblue:

But I will conclude work is not interpreted as the same in our two cultures. We value work as something as good, something good for the soul. cardinalblue

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Here I come, veevee!!

Most of the work ethic in the west is just peer pressure ("if you don't work your ass off, to buy car, house, etc... you won't belong") I will easily find "in the West", especially european countries,people who see work as an evil you have to go thru til' retirement. The "work ethic" works only for people who can see an individual reward (promotion, achievement) or even collective, in their task. There is a huge number of people in the west who, like many thais, have very little reward from their jobs, or feel too insecure about keeping it to adopt a strong ethic about it. The most likely ethic is mostly concerned about not losing it. But here, we lose sleep over it (have to pay the mortgage, the car, the CC etc...), and the thais respond with the famous Mai pen rai. For the thais you mention, the rewards of work are not enough that losing it becomes a life crisis as for most in the west. And that's my point. Just to read the posts on Nana tell me that guys are totally unhappy or unfulfilled in the strong work ethic world of the West. They all crave for the sense of sanook and lightness of being they can pick up from the thais. Just a different way of getting up in the morning, I would say, and i thank thais for that difference.

[ November 29, 2001: Message edited by: pattaya127 ]

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by pattaya127:

Just a different way of getting up in the morning, I would say, and i thank thais for that difference.

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Hmmm. When I read cardinalblue's remarks, I thought he was getting at something different. Let me put my own spin on it for a sec.

Look around you in Bangkok and elsewhere in Thailand. Examine the trappings of modern life, and the major infrastructure. The machinery, the computers, the highways, the transportation system, etc. How much of it was conceived, designed, and built by Thais for themselves?

Now go to a western city and do the same.

[Yes, it is true that for example a lot of high-tech machinery and so on in the west is from Japan. But in many cases there is also a western maker of the same thing and in any case the importation is done on a much more coequal basis than in Thailand.]

The point is that the "western work ethic" or whatever you want to call it, when taken as a whole aspires to a level of energy and commitment that drives its own societies and the world forward. Mai ben rai, on the other hand, aspires to eat noodles when you feel hungry.

[Guest]

no one is useless at everything....

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by pattaya127:

Most of the work ethic in the west is just peer pressure ("if you don't work your ass off, to buy car, house, etc... you won't belong") ... The "work ethic" works only for people who can see an individual reward (promotion, achievement) or even collective, in their task.

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Peer pressure cannot be the whole story. Who has not heard the stories about guys who retire and then go to pieces when they cannot work any more? Why so many retirees put vast amounts of time and effort into home improvement and other 'non-sanuk' activites? They not getting any rewards, so why do they bother?

In my home country in Europe we have a proverb that translates roughly "A job done is its own reward"; there must be a similar real English saying. You claim that the "work ethic" works only for people who can see a reward. Yes, but in the west people can get satisfaction (are mentally rewarded!) from getting a job done well. That includes already two dimensions - a definite finish and high quality, which both IMO are quite at odds with "mai pen rai".

quote:

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Originally posted by pattaya127:

I will easily find "in the West", especially european countries,people who see work as an evil you have to go thru til' retirement.

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You can also find easily the opposite kind of people. There probably are major cultural differences within Europe, too. Back home we have the concept of the "Lutheran work ethic"; I suspect that people in the (Catholic) countries in Southern Europe are more oriented towards sanuk than the tight-assed Northerners.

There appears to have been also a major shift between the generations. My grandfathers would have found not working inconceivable, while now you can indeed easily find people in their twenties who are happy to pocket the subsistence income given by the welfare state and just spend their time hanging out.

Another spin on the topic are many African cultures. When Westerners look at them they are horrified that the women do also all the back-breaking physical labor, while the guys only hang out. Conversely, the African guys think the Westerners are total idiots when they actually seem to want to work.

Now, how many of you and your acquaintances would bear to live off his wife/girlfriend and spend his time sanuking lavishly? I think we have special words for those guys, such as "pimp", "gigolo", etc. Is that your dream role? Maybe there is something in this Western work ethic thing, after all.

Btw. does Thai have a word that is really equivalent to "pimp"?

Wagner