kmart

Surreal

Is there some law that says you can't put 23 people in a pickup?...in Thailand?

Maybe "Darwin's Law?" Other than that, I seriously doubt it.

(oh, and nice to be back!)

Not just in Thailand. It applies the world over. Many seriously rich people have real problems enjoying themselves; if they've had money all their lives they have no perspective. Newly-rich people seem to be able to enjoy it a little more. If you're poor, you have nothing to lose and everything is a bonus already.

I make it a policy in my business to offer financial help to staff members.

This means that if a staff member has been with our business for a certain period of time he becomes eligible to borrow money from the business. We treat this transaction as any financial institution would. They sign a contract that agrees to terms of repayment, interest, and surety.

If they leave the business for any reason the terms of the loan do not change.

Staff who have borrowed money do leave. They do not always go to other jobs. Their payments fall behind. We send the debt collectors after them. (usually a member of the local police force who keeps 30% of the received monies for his after hours work)

So I had two staff who left, fell behind in their payments, and had the police arrive to collect.

These two genius's thought they could raise the money owed by, you guessed it, selling drugs. Today the police busted them, with traficable qty's of yaba. They will probably spend 2 - 5 years in prison.

They have both called my office for assistance.

When working for me they were both reasonable staff members with good de-meanors. (They are both in their late teens, early twenties)

Should I help them?

The bail surety alone is over 200K Baht.

Feelings?

Soundman.

Soundman, please accept my comments are not an attempt to flame, but I question your man management skills.

You recently posted another piece about how your staff were ripping you off etc etc, now this thread, again on ways you were getting ripped off financially.

You are obviously a well meaning and kind hearted person, but unfortunately, here in Asia 98% of your staff will see you as a patsy and use you as so !.

In my 25 years working throughout Asia, I think I could count on one hand the staff I met who could budget their salary. Believe me a lot of staff members are down to their last baht long before pay day gets around again.

Your generosity is likely seen by your staff as a weakeness and guaranteed you will be exploited.

As for these two idioits who have been caught drug dealing stay away, you gave them your help and trust and they <deleted> on you. Learn your lessons fast or you will be the next asking to borrow money !

My employment situation is quite similar to soundman's, so I know where he is coming from with this thread. Thai family-based firms are just like real families, and sometimes the cold, hard, logical laws of business don't apply here.

However, once employees leave (sometimes with inside info they can sell to competitors, and usually owing money) they also leave the family, and all deals are off. I would urge you to write off the amount owed, and not do anything to help these people. Drugs here are a very dangerous subject here, and they knew the penalties before deciding to sell them. - As opposed to maybe having a little bit of actual discipline and working / saving to pay off their debts....? Nah.

LOS is not the happy place it was when I arrived 25 years ago.

I feel very sad.

the first time i arrived in "LOS" was more than 33 years ago (nov 1973). at that time LOS was LOS and until this very day LOS is LOS and will remain LOS beyond the date we jump into our graves or are cremated.

no whining or complaining of some sissies will change that fact!

Thank you for that clarification. We can now safely say that LOS is indeed LOS, and will ......

Has the wind stopped blowing near the sea already?

Why no mention of windpower generation?

Have you seen how many of those windmill thingies are needed just to power a bleedin' hair dryer?

What an eyesore. I'd rather wake up to a vista of some nuclear facility, tbh.

I am looking forward to reading your comments on this, what would you do?

I have renovated a few condos. One of my sub-contractors has two painters that work for him. They have worked for me approximately a year on and off. For the most part they show up to work everyday and do a decent job. One of them is very quite and the other one jokes around quite a bit. I would consider them nice young men. Both are around 22 to 25 years old. I have never seen either of them exhibit any anger or be disrespectful to anybody.

Supposedly, the day they got paid they got very drunk. An American (I am American) was riding his motorbike with a Thai girl on it and according to the police report they jumped on him and hit him and tried to steal the motorbike. In all the time I have been around them have I ever witnessed any behavior out of them that I could ever think this was possible. They have been in jail for about a month, with a 200,000 bail. Which of course they can not pay.

The contractor has asked me to talk to the victim. Which I am glad to do. I would like to hear what he has to say about what happened. I would like to tell them I have known the kids for quite a while and I would of never of thought this was possible. I am not really sure how to start the conversation.

How would you start the conversation?

Would you even bother to do it?

Would you try to reach some type of settlement with the gentleman?

This is pretty normal stuff in Thailand, ie: using third parties as intermediaries to resolve disputes. If I were in your position I'd want to know if the boys acknowledge what they have done wrong, are contrite, and are prepared to make amends in some way to their victim. Otherwise, they're just looking to you to be the "fixer" or influential person that can make problems go away. If that happens, no reason to believe that problems won't happen again in future as they now have a "patron" to smooth their way.

Hoping they don't think of you a similarly "easy mark" as the guy who's bike they tried to steal after mugging him?

How is he by the way? You neglect to say.....?

Hope your painter friends do some good jail time. <deleted> them.

Once almost did myself an injury sleeping on one of several Po-Sian inhalers that my missus keeps around the bedroom. Bloody menace, these things.

Let's try reeeeeeal hard to keep this thread on the topic of the beauty contests and how to help the opening poster out with his research. If it turns into another general Kathoey thread I'll be very tempted to edit heavily.

Apologies, but, as a woman, I was really impressed. They look fantastic!

It's not your post that I'm worried about!

Try not to get an ulcer, Mary Poppins. Grow a sense of humour instead, why dontcha?

I noticed a definite deterioration of the mood of this forum after I began posting on it

we didnt

I did.

Anyway, people moaning on about deterioration of quality of the board, due to "cliques" hijacking threads, etc, .... Care to name names?

The flaming and off-topic remarks on here are nothing compared to most other busy Internet forums. This one of the most civilised boards I've seen.

You may lack perspective....

Boonlert Pairin, a former Chachoengsao senator and keen astrologer, warned that the eclipses were a foreboding sign.

The lunar eclipse tells about the fate of the people, while a solar eclipse shows the fate of the government leaders, and the two events occurring in the same month will have a major influence on the people and the government, he said.

There would be political chaos and conflicts in society between March and April this year, he warned.

He also predicted mass political demonstrations and trouble in the government, which could be faced with a ''dead end'' in its efforts to solve the problems in the country. The astrologer said a cabinet reshuffle could not solve the problems, which would spark a public outcry.

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First, I had read ''keen astronomer''. After reading the predictions, I had a second look and it made more sense when I saw the word ''astrologer''

I`ll have a look at the eclipse, not as spectacular as a solar eclipse but still worth observing.

Ah, takes me back to the halcyon days of the Banharn and Chavalith goverments. Neither of these two veteran politicos were encumbered with any discernible cerebral qualities other than enriching their own feudalistic fiefdoms, but they allegedly consulted astrologers about ever little thing...

It was nice to know that the countries fate lay in the tea leaves of A Thai equivalent of "Mystic Meg" or whatever...

No doubt about it - there are places in the world I wouldnt walk around during the day much less the night. What happens in Thailand is amateurish in regards to crime.

Yeah, but it seems they want to keep up with the others...who knows, msybe in a few years they will become a hub for this too

Maybe if more Thais who can read English start lurking on here more and see what some farangs are saying about Thailand and the people, we might just become the hub like you said.

Doubt it. Unless tv starts posting nudie pics and free ringtones for your mobile on here...

firearm crime statistics ...... league table

this seems to show that the murder by firearm rate in thailand is greater than in the usa.

in fact thailand make it to the podium and take bronze , whilst the usa are mere also rans.

The hub of small arms murder. Hurrah!

Not much confidence in the Lottery ever since the "fixing" scam was exposed, with the clever "marked balls" *snigger* method. There is a real creativity and "out of the box" brilliance in regards to cheating and subversion here. Whereas in other everyday aspects of life, Thais seem to show that even a supermarket trolley has more of a mind of its own.

this post will get em all (flamers) coming out the woodwork, see how it goes.

*Rubs hands together in eager anticipation* Game on!!!

A lot of Latino involvement in that crime report. The US has a real problem with illegal immigration from the South, and very porous borders. The cheap illegal labour directly benefits a lot of the powerful people in the US, and seems to be a very contentious issue there; and in most other Western countries too.

The three famous places in Pattaya which have "Cabaret" type shows featuring the katoeys are "Alcazars"; "Tiffany" and "Simon" (still going?). I'm sure they have websites.

At least one of them hosts annual international pageants with trannies from all over the world competing. Not sure when they are hosted though. The shows themselves are pretty stunning, and well worth a visit.

People will be people with all their attendant foibles and quirks. Already this thread is the "us and them" scenario of posters trying to claim the higher moral ground from the negative whingeing flamers; etc. "We're better than them" blah blah

If you need an internet forum to complete your life, then maybe you don't really have one? Its pretty much just entertainment to me. I log off, and have to go to work.

I enjoy coming on here for a bitch and a moan sometimes. Depending on my mood of course, but a good whinge really sets me up for the day sometimes; a bit like a hearty breakfast.

The "Everything Is Wonderful" crowd seem to all be on strong (probably illegal) medication anyway.

Quote:The only negative impact I can think of is the the appearance of phrases like Eeh ba gum or How Doo?? in thai language and of course the wearing of flat caps and the keeping of whippets and luk kreungs imitating freddy truman on the village green biggrin.gif jap.gif Nignoy

'ey up lad, wot's up with cloth caps? And my dog's a Jack Russell. Far as I'm concerned, there's not enough bloody chip shops ower thier! And they've never 'eard of shandy or black puddin'. Bloody foreigners got no consideration. Have a good one Nignoy.

Cheeky bugger. Ah's a bloody good mind t' gi ye a clip round 't ear for that.

Effects on Thai society? Zilch probably, luk kreungs are very much in demand in the media, and have been for a long time. Nature always takes care of its own, and there seems to be a lot of in-breeding going on in Isaan anyway. An injection of new genes is probably a good thing.

I can't believe I've wasted nearly half a day on TV talking nonsense again. I have a 10,000 word essay to write but instead I have spent the morning discussing the merits of going hunting with a chainsaw. I need help.

Its ok, you're amongst like-minded people here. Just write your essay based on chainsaws and hunting, and I bet you get top marks.

I'm just waiting for some tardy-arsed customer to get back to me, then its full steam ahead to the pub. Yeesssss!!!!!!!!!

Accompanying human-skin mask is a nice touch too, I always find...

Its the army's turn to get their snouts in the trough. Watch things deteriorate rapidly; most of these fossils aren't even good at being soldiers.

Yep,you certainly do need a licence for a chainsaw.There was a thread a year or so ago,where one was confiscated by Customs.

Swallow one wrapped in a condom, or hide it up your rectum, and you need never be detained at Customs again.

A possible solution for those farang who feels the need for a bit of protection and likes to go hunting, is a chainsaw. I don't think you need a licence for one of these and in the right hands you could do a lot of damage. I am sure one of these babies kept beside your bed will keep you feeling secure and is sure to impress your family. Imagine the look of horror on a Thai robber's face when you come running at him with your chainsaw.

Hunting will become even more fun as you run around the Thai countryside chasing defenceless animals with your chainsaw. Not only will you get to kill things but it will also be good exercise for you.

Great idea. I dispatched my neighbour's maddeningly noisy b@stard dog in this manner, in his garden at 3am in the morning recently.

It was barking again, so I jumped naked over his fence c/w petrol chainsaw, and proceeded to carve the stinking mutt into little moist chunks. I was presently covered in it's blood, and masturbating with its still-steaming entrails, when my neighbour ran out, looking rather horrified.

Luckily, we both saw the funny side. But I bet he won't mess with me again in future.