bowerboy

11 minutes ago, jaffas21 said:

i have often been talking to thai teachers in my school, when they begin ignoring me and look at their phones .. .. its funny ... i just limit my conversations now and never when they have a phone close by them

I too keep conversations with Thais as limited as possible.

I mostly just give direct orders and yes or no responses.

I haven’t always been this way.

I have learnt over 15 years of working here that is the best and most efficient way.

When I first came here I did the whole polite foreigner thing. But if you start managing Thais that approach absolutely does not work. Don’t believe me? Just watch the Chinese Thai managers that run pretty much every company in this country.

if you are typing from a bar stool and have not had any experience of working or managing Thais then your response means nothing in my opinion.

To the OP it is a shame about some of the response on this thread.

You are absolutely correct...Thais have an incredibly rude way of trying to talk over you and it has absolutely nothing to do with language...it is pure rudeness and inconsiderate Thai behaviour.

I am the GM of a Multinational company in Thailand and my management team all speak excellent English and they often interrupt me when I am talking.....it’s not interrupting me to make a point....it’s interrupting me to just say whatever is on their mind. I tell them very directly now to stop talking and wait until I am finished.

Its not just the talking either. I will be in a closed door meeting meeting with important people and someone will come to ask me to sign some documents or whatever. I tell them to go away and come back after the meeting is finished but they still persist. I more or less them to “get out NOW”.

I have noticed this time and time again over 15 years Thailand happening in all companies I have worked in  have worked with to all Manager I have worked with

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I wanted to write more buyback but gave up I ip his forum being so slow forum so slow and frustrating to type on.

7 hours ago, mstevens said:

I moved back home in my mid 40s after 15 odd years in Thailand. I was lucky and things worked out ok, but that's not to say it was easy.

 

The cost of relocation and setting up a life again back home was steep, as was the cost of setting up a new household. I was lucky in that I had done ok financially and had some reserves. I cannot imagine what it would be like returning home without much in the way of savings.

 

There is a huge opportunity cost staying in Thailand a long time if it's through your prime earning years. If you're in a professional / well-paid position AND you don't lose sight of the need to save for the future, you should be ok. But if you don't plan for the future, you might find yourself stuck in Thailand. And given how many seem to fall out of love with Thailand and / or face visa issues, that's a very scary prospect.

 

Having been there, done that so to speak, I'd say make sure you always have a number in mind and if your finances get down to that point, then get on a plane and go home. That number should be an amount that allows you to set up a place to live back home and live for a few months without employment + income.

 

 

Yeah that was a key learning point for me when going back to Australia....you need a fair bit of cash to get set up even if you do have a job already.

Also you have no rental history which makes it harder to rent a place if others are also trying for the same place.

One problem also for us is that in Asia most houses come fully furnished and so we literally have no furniture at all (just the kids beds and other small stuff). So you have to factor in buying a complete house full of furniture. Then obviously with family you need a car.

In my view (moving back to Australia) I would need $75k to allow for car, furniture and probably 6 months rent in advance to ensure you get the place you want. $125k if you don’t have a job to go back to.

Obviously you could do it on less than the above but that would be comfortable.

One thing I would suggest to people coming to Thailand is to keep your home country credit cards. Luckily I did that and have.a credit history in Australia ever since I was away (and it is a good rating).

20 hours ago, Isaanbiker said:

 

    

 Would you prefer to be miserable, lonely and sad, leaving your family, car, bike, etc. here and start to live off social welfare in a country where you have not much more in common than perhaps the language the people in this country speak? 

 

  When I moved to LOS 17 years ago, it was a lovely country to live. 

 

Many things were different, Thais usually loved to have a chat with foreigners, it was much cheaper, and I could buy way more for my salary than I can afford right now. 

 

Wages didn't go up, but pretty much everything else did. I had 3 K more per month ten years ago. 

 

Thai people, in general, were a lot friendlier back in the old days than they are now and that's not only the colleagues at schools.

I can sense that almost everywhere. 
 
If I'd be single, I'd not be here anymore and would have left some years ago. But I can't take my family to the place I once called my home, and I'm too old to get a decent job. 

 

Not having enough income and I can't get my family to Europe. Some good friends have passed away, and others moved away. 

 

Start over again and being alone? I never lived alone and was always in a relationship. 

 

My apologies, but it's a bizarre situation. 

 

Besides that, I've never taught my family the language they'd have to speak in Europe, and they'd have to pass a language test in verbal and written form. 

 

Teaching them a third language would take a while and I don't even know if they'd like it there and I know that I can't live there anymore. 

 

  The topic is indeed fascinating, and there must be many foreigners who are definitely "stuck" in a situation where they can't move forward, and they can't go back. 

 

  I've had a few million baht when I came to this country and spent every baht of my salaries. I've always paid my income tax, got my police clearance, never did something wrong, not one day of overstay. 

I know that schools can offer a three-year contract, but that never happened to me. 

 

Laws didn't get more comfortable for us, so what's the understandable reason for living here other than supporting a family?

 

Even my teacher's license doesn't seem to help me much because I'm too old for many school superiors who believe that a foreign teacher shouldn't be older than 45 and that's the maximum for some of them. 

 

A 20-year-old backpacker without a degree might have better chances of landing a job than I do. Let's face it; it's not about the experience here; it's more about the appearance.

 

Nobody cares when people have a TOEIC score of 399 if they are young and good looking. And it seems that nobody gives a flying kangaroo if the students learn something or not. 

 

I'd never have thought that I'd ever work for an agency again, but shit happens, and I do not want to send money to my family living and working somewhere else in another province.  

 

It's pretty much complicated to say if I'm stuck, trapped, or just fuc_ed? 

 

That's my honest answer to your question, and I'm confident that I'm not the only one.

Thanks for sharing....this is the point I was getting at....it can easily creep up on you I think and has probably happened to a fair few.

Could happen to anyone and it’s not an easy situation to get out of...

I was hoping this could be a constructive thread given how many people nowadays are talking of relocating. I was hoping it might give some ideas and provoke some thoughts.

I do feel blessed that I got that bolt out of the blue job offer that allowed me and my family a way out if we ever need or want it....but I just think a lot of people underestimate just how hard it can be to relocate. At the very least (and especially from UK as many are) you can expect your family to be apart for a very long time and to have to support 2 households at a time when you probably need that money the most.

Again this is mainly for families that have been here a long time....if you live in your home country already and met a lass and started a family then different story entirely.

5 minutes ago, madmen said:

Not according to your 3rd paragraph. Care to explain ?

No. I have got better things to do than explain anything to a bitter keyboard warrior that I assume is probably stuck here judging by their tone.

15 minutes ago, madmen said:

Bye your own admission you failed at your attempt to live in oz even with a "Good job" under you're belt so you ran back here. Why put you're family through that drama again !

Family stayed here in Thailand (didn’t leave their international school and didnt move home)....I was back here almost every month and they came down every holiday....there was no drama.

The job in Oz was good but the job here is exceptional and is a huge Australian company with the idea to relocate me back to Oz in the future.

Your not stuck here are you? ????

Seven and five years ago I had children with my Thai wife and at that time it crossed my mind to move back to my home country but it wasn’t high on my list of priorities.

3 years ago I started to look into going back to England or Australia (I am a dual citizen and so are my kids) as an option just out of curiosity and started to realize how incredibly difficult it could potentially be especially if you fell on hard times or didn’t have particularly good employment prospects. This realization of how hard it would be started to worry me.

To cut a very long story short I got offered a good job back in Australia and took it with the main purpose of getting my wife permanent residence and even moving back permanently. It took about a year but my wife got her Australian permanent residence but we moved back to Thailand for various reasons (age of the kids, day care costs, lower total salary package than I first thought, great job offer back in Thailand).

So now we live in Thailand and my wife has permenant residence in Australia and I feel incredibly lucky that we could go to Australia anytime at the drop of a hat (at least for the next 4 years as that is how long is left on the visa...permanent doesn’t actually mean permenanent). We will definitely go back within those 4 years but exactly sure when.

I have always been here on a work visa arranged by my company and always through that one stop service which makes things easy. But with all the changes that seem to be happening and the complaints it seems many would like out of Thailand (some not all).

I know now how hard it is to get out of here and back home unless you have good money behind you, are already well set up in your home country or have a good job offer (but who wants to employ someone from Thailand when there are easier options at home). Moving to another country in the South East Asia Region with family would seem equally hard if not harder (unless a good job offer was on hand but the days of relocating families are all but over for most companies).

If you are say 45 years old and have been working here for 15 years on 100k per month (or less) then how on earth could you ever manage to relocate to home or anywhere else for that matter. I imagine you could very easily become completely stuck here with little or no other options.

Am i wrong to think that way? Is it being overly pessimistic to think you could get well and truly stuck here with no realistic way out. To be clear I guess I am really referring to Farangs with Thai wives and families (for A single person there is onbviously nonissue at all).

How many are plain stuck here with no way out??

7 minutes ago, SteveK said:

If I had one baht for every time someone in a shop, bank, restaurant, bowling alley, cinema etc told me "mai mee" or "mai dai" I reckon I would have about 117 baht.

 

Last time I was in Bangkok I went into a shoe shop close to the victory monument, and needed a new pair of flip flops. I asked the lady (in Thai) if she had size 10s, "mai mee ka" she said. As I was walking out I saw a pair labelled as a 10, but she obviously couldn't be arsed to help me so I bought some in a shop a few doors along.

I have literally reached a point in Thailand where I can no longer ask shop staff if they have something...I mean 100% serious I cannot do it any more....because I know that the situation (after 15 years here) infuriates me so much that the next time someone says “mai mee” to me in a shop I am going to smash their face through the wall.

You wouldn’t mind so much if it was a polite cheerful mai mee...it’s something about the way they purse their lips and screw their face up like you just asked for the kidney of their first born child that winds me up so much.

We recently relocated to a new office and had to buy several new sitcom units (from Home Pro). Our office is in a row of new shop houses all of which have air con fitted.

I was out of the office and office manager calls me and says Air Conditioning cannot be fitted because of the position too far from the door. I am not happy and come back to the office and quickly see the air con guys are talking utter rubbish and that the Office Manager is in complete pathetic Thai mode (unable to work out what is logical in the situation).

i go Berserk and frog match the air con guys and the office manager to each of the shops in our row of shop houses and show them the installed Air Con. Obviously if they can install it then why the truck can’t you???

They installed it. Problem fixed. No further issues (lost my cool, went berserk, shouted, made everyone lose face, and got the job done...no repurcussiins no comebacks)...don’t believe the rubbish you hear about losing face (within context of course).