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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...
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The Helpless Farang...

We've been back in Thailand for just over a month now and it seems the initial post-holiday blues have subsided and we've settled back into the normal routine, or as normal as it can be! A Fresh Perspective Returning to Thailand after even just a very short break almost feels like starting again. There are things that I now notice that perhaps weren't quite so obvious before, maybe I'd become desensitized? One thing I have noticed a bit more is how Farangs are sometimes treated by Thais at work. This doesn't happen all the time, but quite often I find that Thai colleagues go so over the top in terms of being nice to me, I can only describe it as being fawned over. If I look back through my time so far in Thailand, I initially saw this behaviour as a way of making me feel welcome in a new and unfamiliar country. Making sure I knew where I was going, had everything I needed etc. But now nine months in, it does seem strange that I still attract this level of...
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Money, Money, Money...

Like many expats in Thailand, we still have some financial commitments back in our home country, so there comes a point when the pounds start to run low and you need to send some of those hard-earned Thai baht back to the UK. Background Research I’ve read many Facebook posts on this topic, with people seeking the most cost-effective or ideally free way to transfer money internationally. Options available range from using a third-party company, to posting your Thai ATM card to your home country and getting someone to withdraw cash. We concluded that the safest option is probably just to do an international bank transfer. And so, the fun begins! Banking in Thailand is a bit weird. I’ll admit that I don’t fully understand it, nor can I be really bothered to research it. There are several different banks to choose from although I was told by my employer that I had to open an account with Bangkok Bank if I ever wanted to get paid – the HR team marched me in there before I had time t...
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The Men with the Whistles

In my last blog post, I touched on what is likely to become a recurring theme; jobs that probably wouldn’t exist outside of Thailand, either because they aren’t really required, or the labour cost in other countries would probably outweigh the benefit. I get a sense that people generally want to be doing something in Bangkok; no matter how menial or superfluous the task, or how little they are paid, working is better than not working. To facilitate keeping people busy it seems as though various inexplicable job roles have been created. Directing Traffic I have grouped several similar job roles under one umbrella and have christened this group as “The Men with the Whistles”. By clustering these roles together, I will no doubt cause offense by failing to comprehend the relative differences in rank and social status, but they all pretty much do the same thing. They’re not all completely pointless tasks either, they are small cogs in the big Bangkok engine that must be kept moving, it’...
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Wild Times in Bangkok

When you move 6000 miles across the world to a different continent, it’s probably to be expected that you might encounter some unfamiliar flora and fauna in daily life. Bangkok has what’s described as a “tropical monsoon climate”, so the first difference is that we have giant versions of the indoor plants we had in the UK growing in our back garden. I’m not even sure there is a difference between an outdoor and an indoor plant in Thailand! But even though we get to take in the striking colours of plants like the Hanging Lobster Claw, which I believe is native to Hawaii, there is also no shortage of the much more familiar marigold plant, thousands of which were grown to honour the late King. Snakes in the Garden? The exotic plants have so far proved harmless and easy to adapt to, so I shall switch focus to the ‘fauna’. Before we moved here, I had heard horror stories of pythons crawling out of toilets and biting people in somewhat delicate places. If this scenario ever does present ...
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Raining Cats & Dogs

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After almost 2 years living and working in Thailand, I thought I was beyond the farcical mishaps I had encountered in my early days. I thought experiences such as my first ride on a  motorcycle taxi  were a thing of the past. But it seems that when you start to let down your guard and relax, Bangkok is still there waiting to take you down. Packing Up, Moving On The focus of this week was supposed to be the big packing up process. And as far as Monday and Tuesday were concerned, it was. We'd spent weeks organizing and decluttering, and now we were ready for the small army of Thai movers to descend on the house. And this all went on pretty seamlessly for two days and then that was it - empty house! At the completion of this milestone in our relocation plan, we were now looking forward to enjoying the last few weeks in Thailand. An Unexpected Visitor Part of our general merriment plans included trying to eat at all the restaurants, cafes, food vendors that we'v...
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