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Valjean
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Posts posted by Valjean
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There's a nice park just north of Chatuchak Weekend Market called Suan Rot Fai (Railroad Park). You can rent bikes for riding, there's a playground and lots of area to run around. It a retire golf course. You could rent a bike with a baby seat or push the stroller - good roads for bikes and walking.
There's also Chatuchak Park across the street, there's a big playground there. In that same area is the Children's Museum.
Central Chitlom has a nice inside play area by the toy department
On top of Central Bangna is a water park that has pools that are good for toddlers to splash around in.
Have fun
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We manage websites for several hundred companies in English markets, and create 30+ additional one each month. We do this in one vertical segment. Our approach is very structured with design and content templates.
We need a native English speaker with strong copywriting and editing background. This is a freelance position, you could be anywhere. There are some advantages to having someone in our time zone and available to come by the office for training on our WordPress system. Much of the edit and customize work will be direct in WordPress.
Pay rate depends on background, experience and writing samples. Background in IT and technology very helpful.
If you’re working in Thailand you’re responsible to make sure your work permit is in order, this is freelance.
5-10 hours per week of work. Could be more if you’re good and reasonable on cost. Today we work with about 7 writers around the world who get weekly projects, the work load can shift around to take advantage of the strongest writers & editors.
Please native English speakers only with extensive experience in writing and editing.
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Pronto Marketing is a fast growing company that manages online marketing for hundreds of companies around the world in English markets. We have a fun working environment in Bangkok, with a young and growing team of 17. We have an immediate opening for a Client Services Lead.
In this position you will be working directly with clients on the production and updates to their websites primarily via our support desk system. This is an intense job requiring the ability to decipher sometime confusing client requests, to get wayward clients back on track and drive process forward across the production team. You need to be disciplined, focused, and driven for results.
To top it off you need take special pride in the way you communicate with and delight our clients. You need to be their super hero. We’re fanatically focused on client satisfaction and as a front-line position you bear a deep responsibility to ensure that our clients day in and day have an extraordinary service experience that builds strong relationships.
If you’re not native English you need to be fluent. In either case excellent writing and communications skills are an absolute must.
A keen eye for detail and quality is essential. You’ll have the final responsibility for quality control on the work our clients see. It takes patience and persistence to get things right. You should have both in strong measure.
You need to be a consummate team player and know how to work with a cross-cultural team. We’re a completely flat organization. Your ability to earn respect and at the same time have good relationship with your team members is a critical success factor in getting things done. Intense is good. Intensely fun is better.
Web technical skills are a plus, but not required. But you must have the desire and smarts to get a working knowledge of HTML, CSS, WordPress and related technologies - fast. While in most cases you won’t be doing coding work, you will be coordinating with a production team and need have an good understanding of their work. This can be learned on the job but you need to have a keen interest in technology and the internet to drive you.
The work permit for this position will come under an internship program so you need to be a fresh or fairly recent college graduate. 0-3 years’ experience is ideal but we might be able to stretch that some for the right person. More important than experience is being highly motivated to learn and a passion for pleasing our clients.
Search the web or Facebook for “Pronto Marketing” and you’ll learn more about us. PM me if you think you have what it takes to be a Rockstar.
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I'd add on other thing, more about managing and keeping than finding good people. One difference, speaking in generalities, you'll find is from the Thai education and culture your Thai team will work better if you're more directive than you might be with western employees. (I'm speaking as an American.) An American wants more independence to act and make decisions how to approach something - and has been schooled and brought up to be more of an self-directed problem solver. "Go figure it out" might, all things being equal, work much better with an American, or other westerner, than a Thai. In any managing you don't want to put people in a position where they will fail. I've found things work better and, my team and I are less frustrated and stressed with each other, if am more direct and specific about what they should be doing.
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MKAsok is right, Baiyoke Tower is a dumb. That said, good place to take family and kids from upcountry, buffet isn't too expensive, or good, entertainment for the kids. Fine for that.
I much Vertigo over Sirocco. Vertigo is true 360 view and you can sit down. Sirocco is stand-up only at the bar.
Haven't doe the others.
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For Business I've had UOB, SCB and then switched to K-Bank. Very, very happy with K-Bank.
For Personal I've had SCB, UOB, Bangkok Bank and now K-Bank (because the company switched). Again happy with K-Bank.
One note on Bangkok for personal, they have a corespondent bank or branch in NYC, US which makes it very easy and cheap to transfer funds from a US account to the BBL NYC branch and on to the TH account. I keep it for that. I haven't looked into if K-Bank has the same.
I don't know about the go to Hong Kong. My business banks in HK as well and we have a Standard Charter Bank account and never went there to set it up.
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You're talking about Tawandaeng...not Saeng... located on Soi Pattanakarn near Klong Tan....
And actually, there's two different night clubs there.... the one on the left had side of the road coming up from Sukhumvit is Thai country music, usually just a very good band and singers, and the one of the right side of the road directly opposite is Isan music and dancers and shows....
Both places are inexpensive, and great fun if you enjoy Thai style stuff. However, they're really places for eating and DRINKING and listening to music... The volume is so loud, especially for farang, that any kind of talking or conversation inside is going to be a challenge.
Depends on what kind of date you're looking to have... I don't think anyone would call it romantic... But it is a good night out.
There's an Issan style club, Tawan Saeng, with morlam music, live band, dancers (G-rated) over by Ramkamkang. It's not the German Beer Garden, but I think the same idea. http://www.afana.org/tawan.htm mo-lam. You can eat, drink and watch the show. Highly recommended.
Yep that's the place. I've only been to the one on the right, Issan. And I'd agree, romantic candlelight dinner this ain't!
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I'll second some of these
Kin Lom Chom Sapan on Soi Samsen 3 was my first data favorite, always works for me. Took my wife-to-be there on the first date. Little did I know that it has a stunning view of her ex's condo across the river. She sat through the meal looking at his condo :-) Great food, nice music, wonderful views and a nice sabai sabai feel.
Vertigo on top of Banyon Tree is great. Just to drinks that, that will set you back enough.
Bowling is fun - it's more like dancing if you're a little drunk...
There's an Issan style club, Tawan Saeng, with morlam music, live band, dancers (G-rated) over by Ramkamkang. It's not the German Beer Garden, but I think the same idea. http://www.afana.org/tawan.htm mo-lam. You can eat, drink and watch the show. Highly recommended.
Any boat on the river suits me. Go to the ferry stop by Wat Po, across the river from Wat Aroon and take a long tail boat tour through the canals of Thonburi. Bring some snacks, a bottle of wine and time it for sunset.
Have fun
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There is one on Soi Ari (or Aree). Get off of Ari BTS, walk down Soi Ari about 200 meters. When you get off the BTS you're going to get off on the opposite side of the street as the Villa Market complex.
Roughly across the street from the new Nobel condo. Grey with a wall of plants in front, I can't remember the name. You'll pass lots of shops, an Italian restaurant and video store. You can't miss it. It will be on your right - just keep looking in shop windows.
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Very good advice by Raro and jdinasia.
I've started my company 2+ years ago, we're at 16 people now, mostly Thai.
Raro's flexible work schedule has worked well for us. We have a system of make-up days for time off. I refuse to run my business like a kindergarten. I expect people to be responsible, I respect them and they respect me. This has worked well. If you don't fit into this culture, you don't stay.
I've mentioned this on other threads, all things being equal I hire women.
You have to make your work place sanook maak maak. Tonight we decorate the Christmas tree. We have last Friday of the month parties. Go out, have fun. Raro has the list for you. This is essential.
I was frustrated at one point with the no-shows to interviews, or good candidates that didn't accept offers. I knew I was a small start-up so I worked harder to market my company as a great place to work. Doing this has helped a lot getting top talent in http://www.prontomarketing.com/monsoon-communications-job-openings/. I find my people from JobsDB for the most part.
Our clients are outside Thailand. While strong English isn't essential for some jobs, now I require it. And by the way, that's a bonus for many bright young people, they want to improve their English.
I have 3-4 team members interview every candidate. They want to keep the great feeling and teamwork they have today so are very careful about who they want to join the team.
Have fun with your team, treat them with respect, hold your temper and sharp words, set a high bar and you'll do fine.
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Raro is right. Make a few. A plan of a start-up is by definition flawed. But you're foolish if you haven't done the numbers to a few different scenarios.
The key lesson that Steve Blank preaches isn't that you should start with you assumptions, it's that you should very quickly be ready to pivot your business model when you get real world feedback. Don't look at the plan, look at what's happening.
In your take-away model you can have assumptions - you think it will be busy weekends. But you find it's busy with the working lunch crowd. So you pivot and focus on optimizing weekday lunch take-out to office menus. That's a pivot.
If you can't get out a napkin, a pen and explain your business model and your assumptions on how you will make money before I finish my beer, you're not ready. You should be able to explain your business model "A business model describes how your company creates, delivers and captures value."
this is a good read about business model versus business plan
Have fun
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Bangkok is overcrowded everywhere if you dont life far away in the suburbs 2 hours from the city. Aound central Ladprao Union mall there might be some option as well but you are surrounded by very heavy traffic roads and a lot of pollution.
Opposite chatuchak on the other side of the road you only have BTS Parking and goverment buildings.
Behind Chatuchak there are only cheap crap thai apartment for somewhere between 2000 - 4000
Hope this helps
Yep. I go to the parks often, there's not much there. I think they are building a condo right across from Chatuchak now, also one next to Suan Rot Fai. But you have to wait a few years... Behind the BTS parking and the Thai Department of Transportation there's a quiet under-developed area. It's between Viphavadi and Phoyothin - there's a triangle.
What about over in Bang Su close to the MRT station? That must be cheaper and it's quieter.
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I've lived in the Saphan Khwai / Aree (Ari) area for 5 1/2 years. Rented condo and house. Now own a house with my wife. Nice quiet older mooban.
I like this area, close in, easy to get to BTS, MRT, Experssway. Not near the crowds and scene around Sukumvit. I almost hesitate to promote it, but it's building up fast as it is - seems a new condo starts every week. There's not the international selection of Sukumvit - but more than enough, and Sathorn, Silom and Sukumvit are never far away.
Also close to the big parks around Chatuchak - Chatuchak Park and Suan Rot Fai Park of you want some green.
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I'm an avid reader of Steve Blank. You'll get the gist if you read this. His writing is more geared to the start-up that is developing a new product or service. If you want to buy or start a guest house, that's a pretty established business model, a business plan is good. But if your idea is something that you can't point to - then think about what he says about focusing on getting a scalable business model.
I know by they way as a man searching for clarity - I've thrown in chaos. But Steve, makes a solid case that for many start-ups over-focusing on a business plan, which is just build on a bunch of assumptions (guesses), can get you stuck on executing a plan, when you should be quickly changing and adapting as you refine your model. Once you have a scalable model in place, your plan starts to make more sense.
More...
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I use PayPal to K-Bank. My average is 6 days to have the money. Worth noting that if your PayPal payments are on US$ or other currency you have to exchange into THB before you transfer, and can only transfer to a THB account.
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Check out Earth Class Mail. Great service. Most of my mail they scan and I have them shred. All online web service.
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My background; worked for a multi-national, a team of about 25 all Thai. Now my own company, team of 18, 14 Thai, 4 Americans. This advice might be more applicable for office workers. No experience outside of that.
All things being equal, hire women. Of my 14 Thais, 13 are women and the guy is at the absolute bottom of my stack rank. You may have a legal Thai company, but what you really have is an American (insert your country) company in Thailand. You bring your business style and culture to the enterprise. I hire fairly fresh college graduates, young women. I train. I've just found that they are more adaptable and harder working in these situations.
The more experience the Thai, man or woman, has working in all Thai businesses the less suitable they will be. It's not a right or wrong. Just a big adjustment to western working style. If you need experience, they should have it working for foreign bosses. The ones you want are the ones that won't work for a Thai-style boss any more, they have gotten used to and like the western style (note there are western style Thai managers because of their experience). I'm sure this applies to a restaurant as much as an office.
I don't fire most like zaphodbeeblebrox, but I do fire fast. I interview very carefully. Now that I have a good team every candidate has to interview with 2-4 of the best Thai's on the team. That helps a lot, they want their team to be good and people who will fit in. You do need to encourage and coach that saying negative things about a candidate is OK, sometimes you need to read between the lines.
For whatever reasons, cultural or education, most Thai's don't come to the job with great problem solving skills. It's not fear of hard work, or laziness or lack of intelligence. It's just a lack of understanding and experience in how you break down a problem and find solutions. Again, the more western experience, in work and education, then people learn this. And some have a natural talent. But I'd say this was top frustration until I calibrated my expectations. I try to teach, but I give bite size projects or problems. I was thinking today while swimming laps at the gym what a problem solving training program might look like. I've done introductory 6 Sigma training - there are methodologies. Anyway that's another thought...
Make your work place sanook. It's the key to success and building a great team that will work hard, long hours, be loyal and not think about money only. You need to work on this all the time, you want sanook maak, maak. I can't stress this enough.
In the end I expect the same things of a worker anywhere; hand work, attention to quality, good work habits, respect to me and their co-workers, a positive attitude and a willingness to learn. I've learned to adapt and adjust, as have my Thai team, but I haven't lowered my standards one iota.
For what it is worth...
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We're in the process of brining our accounting inside. We've got the accounting software covered but wanted to find out what people are using for payroll processing software. Right now we're 18 people on payroll and this will grow over the next year. We need the standard payroll pay-stub envelops. I'm not sure if it comes from their payroll system or not but our current payroll service gives us a floppy disk to take to K-Bank for the payroll direct deposits.
And suggestions or pointers?
Are there non-Thai packages that work for Thailand? Or better yet a web service.
Many thanks,
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Searching for Lapitude found this directory - but mostly commercial or mfg.
http://en.thailand.panpages.com/home/lighting
http://www.lightinghouse.co.th
But still no luck...
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I'm trying to find the name of some of the big retail lighting stores I see around Bangkok. It's on of those things that I not when I'm driving around, but for the life of me can't say the name or exactly where they are.
Specifically looking for 15 or so classic desk lamps. Home Pro has but very limited supply (one display unit last time I was there).
Examples:
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I'll just add the obvious that little kids learn two languages with ease if exposed to them. My step-son, who didn't speak English until I came in the picture around 18 months old is 5 now and fluent in Thai and English. His Thai is more natural to him for speaking but his English is perfectly acceptable. And his English reading is stronger because he attends Rasami International School in Bangkok (British system, highly recommended) and my reading with him. Rasami has lots of luuk-krung and Thai kids, the majority in fact as opposed to Indian or western. The playground rule is English but I'm not sure how hard-core they are about this.
I guess a downside to this is that he doesn't have any native English speaking friends, from school, neighborhood or of course back up in the countryside. Ideally it would be nice for him to have a bit more western exposure for culture and language but I'm not really losing sleep about this at this point. Has he finishes primary I might opt for a change but that's down the road a bit.
During the Rasami term break coming up we'll send him to live with his grandmother and attend a Thai private school to work on his Thai reading. I've worked in a multi-national here and it's not unusual for Thais who went to good international schools and often overseas for some college to be of course fluent in both Thai and English but have fairly basic Thai reading and writing skills. I'd like to see him well balanced in both languages.
I'd pick the school you like in terms of environment, system, staff and other considerations. For pre-school and primarily kids they will learn the two languages just fine.
Enjoy!
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I have a Fidelity (USA) Visa debit card. And pay the 150 THB at the ATM. I learned something amazing the other day - I can go to the bank and get a cash advance up to US$2500 a day without fees - on either end. Tried K-Bank and they had a 20,000 limit. But at SCB they let me take out up to my US set limit with no fee.
I found this out talking to Fidelity. You might check with your bank. Sometimes I'd rather pay 150 baht than go to the bank. But there's a US$500 per day ATM limit and if I want a few thousand dollars, that adds up and are more stops at the ATM. One trip to the bank and it's taken care of.
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Maybe look at some of the hosted online options. I run most of my business in the cloud - that's the future and the options are fantastic. It's added flexibility and scale to my business.
I use FreshBooks which is invoicing, it integrates with a few accounting packages such as Xero. http://www.xero.com/
Here are all the integrations for FreshBooks
http://community.freshbooks.com/addons/
You might find other hosted accounting at: http://thesmallbusinessweb.com/directory
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When you ask your wife/gf a question and you know the answer isn’t the truth,
And she knows that you know it isn’t the truth,
And you know that she knows that you know it isn’t the truth,
And you find that an acceptable answer because you’ve deduced the truth,
And she knows you deduced the truth,
And you know that she knows you deduced the truth,
And at that point you have the answer to the question and everyone is happy.
Atm'S With High Allowed Withdrawals?
in Jobs, Economy, Banking, Business, Investments
Posted
Using my US Visa debit card I have a US$500 ATM limit, which means I can withdraw 15,000 thb with the 150 baht fee.
However, I learned that there is no charge if I go in a back and do a withdraw, and the limit is $2500 per day. K-Bank won't let you withdraw that much at one time but SCB does. Takes a bit more time than an ATM but I go in, get my 75,000 thb and don't pay any fees. That saves 450thb for the same amount from ATMs.