Never Underestimate the Feeling of Normality

Something strange has happened to me. Well actually nothing has really happened, just something has changed, things are not quite the same.


Slow Progress


After the novelty of the first week of working in Thailand last December, I've spent the last 9 months feeling quite unsatisfied by my job. Yes, I've enjoyed some of the new experiences and have made friends, but I've found that no matter how hard I've tried, not a lot has really progressed, or not quickly enough to notice!



I'm not exactly sure when things did change, whether it's been happening gradually or there was a giant thunderbolt, but this week I noticed that I wasn't counting down the hours until I could go home from work. And I wasn't waking up in the morning desperately wishing it was the weekend. I wouldn't say that I've been enjoying myself but it's definitely felt a lot less painful. Things have actually been happening as a result of my actions!


How did this happen?


I can’t really explain what I've done to make this happen. I don’t believe I’m doing anything differently but work definitely feels more productive.  I think I might have reached a point of balance between my direct, proactive, 'type A personality' farang style and the more relaxed 'sabai sabai' Thai way.  It's not that Thai's don't make effort or don't care, far from it, they just don't seem to respond well to their farang boss springing into immediate action! There's just a different route to the end result and maybe I've figured it out? I think it’s a case of not being too pushy but when you get a glimmer of enthusiasm and cooperation just grabbing it. Who knows? I just need to keep it going!



Anyway, actually making a teeny tiny difference at work is a nice feeling! Even if it is what you should normally expect from your job, you can’t underestimate how much better it is than pretty much wishing your life away trying to get through each day.


Part of the Family?


Another piece of evidence that suggests that I might have 'made it' in Thailand is that I have been invited to lunch at the family home of one of my team. She said her family wants to say thank you for all the support I’ve given her, although I also suspect the novelty of having the young Farang lady boss round to lunch has also played a part!



It’s a very nice gesture and I’m both excited and terrified at the same time! It’s a whole new environment for me to make a complete fool of myself and commit many cultural faux pas! More on that next time!

Comments

Post a Comment

You also might like...

A Weekend in Siem Reap - Culture, Relaxation, Indulgence and Debauchery!

As I sat in Siem Reap International Airport watching the various travellers preparing to depart on the next stage of their adventure, I couldn’t help feeling as if I was living life in a bit of a strange order. I don’t think I’ve regressed exactly, despite my new found interest in travel my 35-year-old body does demand a certain level of comfort that a hostel can’t provide. But I do seem to be retracing the steps that my friends took in their early 20s. Weekend Break So last weekend we visited Siem Reap - the novelty of being able to hop on a flight on a Friday night to visit somewhere that previously seemed remote and exotic has certainly not worn off! I’d pre-booked a 2-day tour -I use the word ‘tour’ is used in the loosest sense as it was essentially a driver and a car who drove between the various attractions and gave us water. That being said it did take away all the thinking about where to go, where to get tickets etc., and as it was insanely hot getting into an air-conditi...
Read more

The Cross-Cultural Challenge - Part 2

Having now completed the Cross-Cultural Management course, and being presented with a certificate to prove this,  I am obviously totally proficient expat manager in Thailand. I no longer make cataclysmic errors in how I talk to people that result in blank stares and a wall of silence, and I have been able to influence my team’s thinking so that they anticipate issues and plan! Well maybe not, but the course did throw up a few interesting points. Nervous Anticipation After an intense, yet unusually productive two days at work, it was nice to have a change of scenery in the form of a swanky central Bangkok hotel, endless coffee and a seemingly never-ending array of deliciously tempting food. I felt quite nervous about the course, slightly afraid of how I might uncover previously unregistered, heinous crimes against Thai culture and feel truly mortified. But I was also excited to gain some knowledge and hopefully some useful techniques to make me a whole lot more effect...
Read more

Gossip, Respect & Office Politics

Workplace gossip is pretty common. There's always a rumour floating around about what someone got up to at the Christmas party. But in my experience it's normally harmless fun and indulging in a little gossip is a nice interlude. In Thailand, it's so much more than this. It genuinely seems to determine the effectiveness of your entire team. No matter what you're doing to manage workload and engagement,  the complexities of the individual relationships actually make the real difference. There is so much going on behind the scenes that Farang managers will never know about, nor understand. Right now, there are so many people within my extended team who are not speaking to each other I'm surprised anything is getting done! A Little Respect... From what I've observed so far, it all seems to boil down to respect, or lack thereof. As a Farang, I feel somewhat protected from the 'respect' conundrum in Thailand. During the  Cross-Cultural Management cour...
Read more

The Cross-Cultural Challenge - Part 1

Now that I’ve been here for 6 months, work has decided to send me on a two-day cross-cultural management course to learn how to work with Thais. Fortunately, I’ve been lucky enough not to have to interact with many Thais on a regular basis, so haven’t needed any guidance on this up to now…oh wait! Flailing Around By all accounts, it is better to have spent some time here before you attend this type of course so you have some real-life examples that you can reflect on. As I’ve been left to flail around, committing social faux-pas and offending people for several months, I have a lot of examples that I hope will be given some context. Hopefully I will feel completely enlightened by the whole experience and return to work as an effective expatriate manager, however, I fear it might be slightly more complicated than that. We’ve been issued with some pre-reading ahead of the course, and it appears the cultural differences run a lot deeper than I’d originally thought. The aim of the ...
Read more

Food, Farewells & Karaoke!

There doesn't appear to be much sign of any Thai lessons starting through work any time soon - I really wish I'd had the thought earlier! The Basics But anyway I've decided to try to expand my knowledge of basic, everyday Thai phrases. I quite quickly learned the various greetings, the numbers and how to say left and right, which essentially qualifies me to get a taxi and buy things! Actually, this basic level of Thai has served me well so far, but there are a few more things I'd like to be able to say. So this week I have learnt to tell the time in Thai. The main reason for this is that I have a daily conversation with Chaiwat, my driver, about what time we need to leave the next day, or when I need to be picked up. He's managed to learn how to tell the time in English and actually since I've known him he's definitely made an effort to learn more English words. I at least need to maintain the same equivalent level of Thai as Chaiwat's level of Eng...
Read more

Ten Things to Do in Kanchanaburi Province

We spent a long weekend in Kanchanaburi province recently and it was awesome! I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Thailand - even a day trip from Bangkok is possible. I would say it's a place that has something for everyone - history, landscape, activity, relaxation and great food! Here's a summary of our favourite parts of the trips: 1 - Bathing & Feeding Elephants This was our activity on the first afternoon in Kanchanaburi and it was pretty indescribable. I had not really seen many elephants first hand before, I can only remember the elephants in Parc de la Tête d'Or in Lyon which, to be honest, looked pretty miserable in their concrete enclosure. I have since learned that these elephants ended up being rescued by the Monaco Royal Family after being condemned to death for suspected tuberculosis. They didn't have TB in the end but one of the elephants has since died of chronic kidney failure. Anyway, our afternoon was spent at the Elephant H...
Read more