Thais are useless!

[Guest]

Originally posted by UPSer:

[QB]pasathai -

Yes, it does pay pretty good... I know their daily base wage (for a 9hr workday) is B855. However, if they make certain "goals" like all pkgs delivered on-time, etc. then there is a daily bonus paid as well.. Some of our drivers make in excess of B1600 daily.

I worked for the United Prick Service for 15 years and although the pay was good, you had to sell your soul to earn it. Do they still send the managers (to what the manager's themselves formerly called it) "prick school"? We used to see some pretty good guys go into management and end up totally brainwashed and with a nazi attitude.

Some of the wankers I used to work for used to pick out a "driver of the week" and nitpick anything they could find. If they couldn't find something, they'd make it up. All in the interest of keeping a driver on his toes and constantly vigilant.

Worst of all, it was no secret that management was fucking a few of the female customers and fooling around on company time. Christ if they get away with that over here in Canada (and a buddy from the USA says it's the same there), then it's a miracle you guys in Bangkok get any real work done over there.

Do they bust the drivers in Bangkok for picking their noses on company time?

[pattaya127]

quote:

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Originally posted by Wagner Svinja:

I was trying to initiate some introspection so that the (Western) readers would realise that they actually have a bit of the "Western work ethic" embedded in their minds. If work as such is not important, why would you prefer to work, when you can get everything you need and have fun without it?

I could speculate that Thailand works, because the culture traditionally works in terms of large extended families in which everybody has the same "sanuk" attitude. As a result, the necessary work (starving really gets in the way of sanuk...) gets spread around and nobody gets encumbered too much, because all are playing by the same rules so things tend to balance out.

Wagner

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Never said work ethic did not exist in the west. Only that probably the majority of the population goes to work without a strong sense of it. Just to hear my parents and grand parents talk of their commitment to work and compare it wuth the behaviours around me tell me it is so. me too, i like my work, and i would feel like shit if i was loafing around, or just going thru the motions. But i know that in france or Italy, the numbers of hours wasted on "sick leave" (and you know what that means)is substantial. And the routine or discipline to go to work is not exactly work ethic.

 

Also, you again make the common mistake. We on this board co-opted the word sanook as fun play and not work. But sanook for thais is a sense of putting fun in what you are doing, and so, if it can happen at work, it is still sanook. which is why (if less and less due to western trappings) sanook is a word you hear often, and can be applied to a lot of activities.

Not arguing now, but if thais had a sense of sharing the fruits of the country's wealth, instead of subsisting, their work ethic would change. Most of the business and political forces for the last 50 years have just been a huge wealth siphoning vacuum, and the country a huge warehouse for ever-invading western good and ways. If we look at the countries in Europe that had a repressive and backwards type of governement at some point (Spain, Greece, Turkey), we'd see, i am sure, an improvement in work ethic after these regimes collapsed. Digressing....

[cardinalblue]

Pattaya127,

You might take a look at Mont Redmond's chapter on work in his book "Wondering into Thai Culture".

After I had read it, he had hit the nail on the head. He elogantly discusses how the thai language itself defines and views work. And it ain't the same as western cultures.

"Work in Thailand today is a necessity whose valued is measured not by its virtues or utility but its success. Few Thais work for the love of honest toil itself or because they feel an innate obligation to work. Thais are obligated to persons, not things or concepts................"

My earlier point was not to say we are better off or Thais are less than us. How and why we value work is just so different than on how Thais look and value work.

My Thai friends, knowing my background and situation, laugh at me and can't understand why I am "working" as a teacher here or even working at all. Either they don't get it I don't get it but the point being is we (Thais and me) completely have different takes on what the concept of "work" is all about.

Cardinalblue

[pattaya127]

thanks for the input, Cblue and Wagner. I can't disagree with you, but was a bit put off by the title of the thread and land of Scams saying thais are mentally retarded. Not that i did not catch myself saying it when i am there and being frustrated by TITs, and need to steam off. But only then...

[ranma500]

I am interested by the original thread.

I have been asked by two different Thai students at different times to help them get student visas. They both were very keen to visit another country, and had their hearts set on it.

They were also both intelligent, educated people.

What was strange was the way they went about it.

I went through the forms with both, explained exactly what was needed, how they could get hold of the documentation, etc.

In both cases, there was some information missing, either their university degree certificate, or their financial statement etc.

When I pointed this out, they would look helplessly at me, shuffle through the papers for a few seconds, then say 'Maybe that isn't important.'

I could only go through it all again, try to help them find ways to get this bit of paper, and really insist that they understand that without it they will not get a visa.

Well, both of them were denied visas because they did not present all the required documentation.

I understand the original poster's frustration. I spent many hours helping each of these students, and it seemed like time wasted.

They were both very upset to be denied a visa, and didn't quite understand it, in spite of the fact that I had told them both repeatedly 'If you don't get this (whatever bit of paper), you will not get a visa.'

And, the bits of paper were comparatively easy to get hold of.

I love Thai people, and for every generalisation I could make, I have found numerous examples to the contrary.

But some things about them I still don't understand.

Having dealt with Thai bureaucracy, I suspect the following:

All official bodies ask for a million forms and documents for even the simplest thing. I once spent a couple of months working to get a piece of paperwork. I handed it over, and a week later they had lost it. Then they smiled, shrugged and said maybe it wasn't necessary after all.

I think that maybe Thai people aren't used to a system that is unflexible.

The other thing that I have found quite often is that Thai people have not been trained to use their initiative. I think this could be a result of their schooling methods.

Whilst they are extraordinarily good at working around problems when dealing with their hands, engineering repairs, plumbing, etc., they don't seem so experienced at dealing with organisational roadblocks.

I have lost count of the number of times, I have asked someone to call the airport, railway station, shop, etc., and got a blank look back. They then explain that they don't know the phone number. I have to suggest that they ring directory enquiries.

And yes, sometimes asking for someone's full name and address can take a long while.

BUT, as bemused as I get at times, frustration is both futile and ultimately a sign of one's own failings.

The original thread kinda got abandoned, but I would be interested in hearing whether others based in BKK experience these obstacles, and how they tackle them.

[JAYBLOOM]

I don't know why you would say that Thais are useless. Every time that my Issan wife pulls the car out she either A. hits the side of the garage and/or B. drives over the lawn leaving tire tracks and/or C. shifts the car from Reverse to Drive while the car is still in motion which kills the automatic transmission. Thais aren't useless. They are very usefull in driving the farang completely nuts!

[Pescator]

Have you GF write the address in thai and make a number of copies of it to stick on you letters/packages.

In that way you will have a much better success rate.

 

Cheers

Hua Nguu.

 

[jasmine]

Hi,

Now, useless is quite harsh, not all Thais are the same as the ones you met!!! ::

Most birth certificates have been straight for the past 60 years in most provinces in Thailand. It sounds like you are dealing with people up-country with not much education (no insult intended here) more than the ones in provinces. However, as far as I know, those records have been updated and current.

 

Not all Thai people want to leave Thailand, as my mother and brother will never think of leaving and believe me, they are far from the word "useless".

 

Cheers!

[jasmine]

[color:"red"] These are some of the hardest workig guys I've ever seen. Lazy, not even close! [/color]

 

Thanks for the positive answer.

 

Cheers!

[los]

I can not believe you actually allow her to even get behind the wheel of a car. I recently took mine to an amusement park where much to my surprise she took a liking to the bumper cars. After listening to an hour of whining, I relent and let her go for a ride. After 2 minutes of her getting in the car, it was totaled. The manager said in all his years in the business he never saw anything like what she did.Words cannot describe it. It could be a feature presentation on Ripley's Believe it or Not. Thank God she is ok, but get this. Now she wants me to send an e- mail to her ex boyfriend to send money to pay for it. Go figure. I guess she is still adjusting.