TravelerEastWest

Airmail registered or not won't allow you to track your parcel abroad, so it's useless (tracking for airmail works only in Thailand)

The only option is EMS and it costs 900 thb to US (1kg), 1 week delivery maximum even with slow US customs...

....

Most countries do show registered mail online when delivered and with a mis-delivery as in no one home, registered mail numbers then act as tracking numbers.

So your "useless" statement is perhaps an error.... smiling

Also the OP has a 600 baht budget so EMS is not likely to work.

1 week delivery is not always true. EMS can easily take 2 weeks to America when things are slow or longer... I know because we apply for and get refunds from the Thai post office when EMS is late.

"Motto: It is harder to run a successfull business here and not easier, as first impressions and salesmen often have you believe."

If you do not speak Thai and understand the culture you may indeed find it difficult to do business here. Otherwise I disagree with you.

However, if you are a skilled businessperson with capital and you work long hours, Thailand is not so different from anywhere else.

Accounting and taxation are not that different from the West.

Labor costs are lower here

As other posters have mentioned startup failures are normal worldwide.

IMO The difference in American and Australian English,and British English, is minute,and does nothing to alter the Basic English Language!,just some different ways of spelling a few words, hardly anything Radical to get excited about!

Exactly.

I am American and enjoy the sound of a British accent also a southern US accent as well.

If you memorize boot/trunk apartment/flat gasoline/petrol and few more as well as a few spelling differences you will be fine. Children should know both perfectly.

One billion again can be memorized but that is the one single issue that would concern me if you were in science or finance. I wonder what type of footnotes audited statements of multinational companies have regarding billions....?

Also with the influence of Hollywood and Wall Street one could argue that American English is the English of international business and has been for a long time.

On a practical level on native speakers of English in my experience understand American much more easily than other English speakers - again not because American English is better - simply because of Hollywood.

The iMacs were updated last week, if buying from a store I'd make sure you get one of the new ones and not old stock. The online store is showing a delivery time of 3-4 weeks at the moment so I would highly suspect any stock is the old model.

A very good point indeed! Thank you.

I want a 21.5 model.

Depends on where you apply. Koh smui seems to want a new one every year, while others don't care about how old it is.

Call them or just get a new copy for about 20 to 50 baht.

Does anyone know what Bangkok's policy is?

Last year I was asked to get one for the first time.

50 baht is not an issue but the time to go and get one factoring in traffic etc makes it an expensive piece of paper costing hundreds of dollars...

Use Registered airmail small packet.

55 baht is the charge for registered mail

It will take about 3 weeks to the US and require a signature.

Add insurance if the item is very expensive - but insurance claims take a long time and can be difficult

Hi, I am a very happy iMac,iPhone and iPad user, bought it all at the Pattaya outlet of maccomseven the only authorized retailer in TH, I guess your shops are also either iStudio or iBeat which is the maccomseven group.

They really help with everything, very well trained people with a basic understanding of english. Their prices are the same in every shop, maybe you check it out :maccomseven.com

rgs Mag

Mag,

Thank you - yes iStudio is near me.

They are friendly but their English was not very good.

I will check what service they offer as I need to transfer over my family photographs.

Hi, I am a very happy iMac,iPhone and iPad user, bought it all at the Pattaya outlet of maccomseven the only authorized retailer in TH, I guess your shops are also either iStudio or iBeat which is the maccomseven group.

They really help with everything, very well trained people with a basic understanding of english. Their prices are the same in every shop, maybe you check it out :maccomseven.com

rgs Mag

Mag,

Thank you - yes iStudio is near me.

They are friendly but their English was not very good.

I will check what service they offer as I need to transfer over my family photographs.

New iMac where in BKK to buy?

I am close to an Apple Studio store in Bangkapi or Fortune city or should I order online?

If the prices are the same would the store offer more support?

As in show us the basics of the OS and helping to transfer photos from a PC to our new iMac?

Thank you for the suggestions

Gallery 3 does not have the permissions of Gallery 2 and I prefer a newer version of software

Coppermine does not have a theme that I like.

Zenphoto is what I am looking at now.

What exactly do you make?

RAZZ

I to would like to know more about what u make and the exact work they would be required to perform? I live in phetchabun and I know a number of thais here and elsewhere in thailand that are intelligent and coordinated. Most of them have family working in and close ties to bkk, maybe if I could give them a better description of what they would be doing they would be interested in testing for you. Just a thought.

Thank you very much for your thoughtfulness in asking for more details!

We make luxury clothing by hand from silk, linen, cashmere and wool for export. Perhaps 5% of the time a sewing machine is used.

The exact work is primarily very detailed hand sewing that has to be perfect - if even one stitch is off we start again.

The work requires in addition to hand/eye skill some basic math ability for changing patterns.

Also we need career people who want to work for 20+ years.

Must be friendly and honest and hard working.

In theory no direct experience is required. Sometimes no experience is even better for the right person. We have hired people with years of factory experienc e who did a terrible job and retraining them our way was very difficult.

Good health - to stand for long hours and ability to thread a very small needle (smaller than needles typically found in Thailand)

Gallery Software suggestion needed

I am looking for some very easy to use gallery software that has nice themes - without advertising. Hosting space is not an issue as I have lots of space and bandwidth.

Open source is OK or something that costs around $200.

Thank you for your suggestions.

Location,location,location.

I have had True 16mb and poor service - I could not use YouTube our my Vonage phone

Now I have 3bb 5/1 premier service with a new internet line and my own IP address and all is well.

I agree with most of the posters here in that 8k isnt going to cut it, however you may have overlooked an option. All around Bangkok there are a number of charitys that work with abandined children, mothers trying to get off the street, Father Joe's is one, there is another called Goodwill that helps underprivalaged womed, Sisters of the good shepard etc etc. Most of the adult learners here are trying to break through the poverty line, but due to circumstances and little or no education they dont have a lot of choice, why dont you speak with these organisations and see if they have available talent, if good hand to eye co-ord is the key and not a degree, you might have some luck

Prudent Rabbit,

A very interesting idea - thank you. Although we need very stable workers from the first day.

As for the salary - again my apologies if I was not clear we pay above 8,000 per month (including bonuses) from day one as a training pay. Salaries will go up quickly depending on entirely on skill so we do not set the salaries after the first couple of months. If someone had high skill levels they would be making 12 to 15,000 after 3 months plus bonuses - with no education requirement and further raises...

Updates:

My father-in-law visited a number of villages in Isan for us and found many people doing "factory" type sewing which is not what we need but sometimes when we interview and test 20 workers with factory sewing background we find one good person so there is a possibility.

Interestingly when we told the workers about our starting salary of 300 baht per day with bonuses and rapid raises they could not believe it saying the payment was too high and something sounded "wrong". Anotherwords they are used to everyone paying the Isan minimum wage to start - just over 200 baht per day. So 50% higher than the minimum to start was strange to them.

When my wife spoke to them on the phone they felt better.

PS

I have received a number of very friendly and helpful private messages - thank you everyone for your ideas you are all kind to take the time to try and help us.

A cheap pre-school with few activities restricted to a single room might be bad for kid, but in LOS they are a lot of pre-school around 60-100k baht per term which are world class and have every possible activity. If a kid prefers to stay home over this, he has some kind of chemical imbalance or it's because you let him watch too much of his precious TV.

I would rather go to our kid's preschool than stay home myself. Learning Thai, playing with other children with amazing toys,soccer, swimming, good food, a good nap, singing and stories, arts.. I envy them.

A basic pre-school might be a bad idea though, It's just prison for kids. They need a place that light their eyes up when you cross the door.

A great post - I agree.

Schools are more fun than staying at home - plenty of time to be with the family on the weekends and holidays.

A big mistake to keep kids at home if you have a good school available. From 2 of they go.

Correction:

I mentioned that Bangkok workers were not that good in a post above I meant the workers from the countryside.

Those in the city seem more serious

"In terms of hiring nationals from those three countries - if you hired them via the migrant labour programme, I'm 99% sure that your firm would be exempt from the 4 to 1 rule for work permits etc. It is essentially a scheme which lets migrants from these countries have their status' regularised in Thailand (many of them enter illegally). It is a well known scheme and the local labour office will know all about it. It is a separate scheme to the 'traditional' workpermit and visa scheme which all other foreigners have to go through. (eg most of the burmese labourers you see in factories or on building sites are usually hired under these programmes). All you need is a registered Thai company to hire them.

The scheme offers renewable 2 year work permits - and provides them access to the Thai social security scheme. A big attraction for foreign workers from these countries. I wrote about this scheme a little while back in the visa and work permit forum - do a search there for my thread.

Good luck with it all."

Thank you very much for the exception information I will look for your thread and see if the type of labor is also exempted.

Good advice. Just travelling around in BKK, to and from work and several thousand Bahts are gone. Add in accommodation and food and, well, what is left over?

12drinkmore,

You are correct transportation is always important to consider.

Two thoughts for us:

1) Songthao and bus are roughly 5 to 10 bhat each way so under a 1,000 baht per month typically as our staff do not drive cars.

2) We are considering buying a Van and have a driver pickup and return our staff from central points at no charge.

But again the only real challenge is finding very talented staff with eye hand coordination and interest in a long-term career.

My advice is fairly simple.

Get out of BKK. Even 100km out, like in Nakhon Nayok or Saraburi etc., There are fewer job opportunities and quite often a better work ethic. Then find a local woman to head up recruitment/hiring and talk to her at length about what your real needs are and turn her loose to find the employees. Your local HR head may very well be your most important person in the company locally so seriously spend time on that staffing decision.

jdinasia,

Thank you for your ideas - much appreciated.

We used to have a workshop in the countryside but we were 4 - 5 hours from Bangkok and we found the quality of staff much lower in Bangkok as in they simply did not want complicated work and did not care about making more than the minmum wage. They were very happy to work like drones doing the same job over and over again.

So far Bangkok has been better for staffing and for personal reasons we need to be in Bangkok - school age kids that need an American school etc.. And I will not consider commuting in Bangkok.

Now hiring HR staff to recruit is an important option to consider. But I am considering a variation of the traditional employee responsible for recruiting. My thoughts are

to find some high school teachers who know their villages and community in multiple locations and then pay them 5,000 baht per recruit that passes training.

Perhaps we can pay out of pocket expenses etc while they are looking for staff. Again money is not an obstacle - we are flexible and can pay above market rates. Finding career minded staff with talent is the only challenge.

We have an empty small apartment that can be used for upcountry recruits while they spend 2 days testing. we can pay for transportation and food etc..

We can also rent a larger apartment/s as needed.

Samran,

Your post is a good one and I have read it several times.

I am sorry for any confusion in my post but we pay more than 8,000 with bonuses and fast raises based on skill not length of service. Also many people simply don't like to work for themselves - but that is a side issue as we don't hire those who enjoy having their own buiness - simply because they are likely to leave and our training costs are high.

I understood your jumping ship comment very well. And it is culturally to go to a bigger company even with smaller pay, and many prefer government work with even lower pay.

I don't think the lack of career path is a big issue for hiring grads instead it is the culture to not work with your hands if you have a degree. Soon we will need to start hiring graphic designers and accountants. I understand that the best and brightest will go to big firms but hopefully we should be able to hire what we need...

Your suggestion for migrant workers is a good one which we have looked at and sadly they typically are not going to be that dependable from what my business owner friends tell me and unless their are exceptions to the work permit rules for teh 3 countries we still need a 4 to 1 Thai to foreign worker ratio (I hope there is an exception that I don't know about). Also the Laotians and Cambodians get homesick.

The Burmese are said to be the best possibility if you can make the paperwork happen which usually is once a year although temporary permits are said to be available. Then there is the restricted area of employment that will probably prevent us from using non Thai. (We sew silk by hand as a daily part of what we do)

But again the main point is finding Thai who want a career making luxury items of high quality by hand.

In the end we may simply need to setup a school/intern program and then train over a long period of time.

My Mrs was offered a job for about 6k once

Unemployed at the time and bored with nothing to do, she considered just for something to keep her occupied.

We worked out that if she accepted the job, the cost of transportation, food etc. made it more cost effective for her to refuse the job and stay at home. She could have made it cheaper by getting the bus, but that would mean spending hours each day stuck in traffic.

8k month, that's just 2k/week...... The OP needs to ask himself what they are supposed to do with that money and why good staff would accept it if they have other options which, if they are to be graduates, they will have.

Moonrakers,

Thank you for your comments and you are indeed quite right a 6,000 baht job is indeed sometimes so low as to make a job not worth it if commuting is an issue although your situation is not the norm as you probably can support your wife easily. Many individuals though must work and take minmum wage factory jobs and live live of quiet desperation - who said that? Thoreau?

My OP may not have been clear we pay more for college grads and for those without an education (100% of our current workers) we pay to start 7,800 (280 x 26) + monthly bonus so over 8,000 per month to train. With a great working environment air conditioning, music, lots of sanook etc. They will be making as much as college grads in time so short of starting their own business we are a good option - I think.

A few of our potential staff when interviewed have made more tahn we offer but they tend to be older and not have good health/eyesight/career potential so it did not work out. We can't hire for short term work as our training costs are too high.

The main issue here is where to find good staff with eye/hand coordination pay is secondary as if needed we could raise the pay

Can tell you now, the company I worked for in BKK 2 years ago paid the cleaning lady 14,000 a month for a 5 day week and free meals plus all the holidays......most people on here are out of touch and living in the past, salaries of 6k etc a month went out with the ark......low paid jobs normally come with free acommodation and meals also.....you must remember that it isnt onle a decent salary and benefits...its also a decent boss that respects the workforce...

ESB7,

Thank you for your thoughts. A decent boss is a good point even more so in Thailand than elsewhere. Sanook on the job is indeed important. My wife regularly takes the staff out to lunch and buys music taht they like for our workshop etc.

I agree that for 6,000 baht a month you do not get much which is why we pay more. Roughly what your cleaning lady was making after not long but with a big difference our work is interesting and has a career path to make 30,000+ per month with a retirement plan etc.

Our main challenge is not salaries - it seems - but simply finding people at any salary who want to be expert craftpeople. 30 years ago this would not have been a problem in Thailand.

Try going backwards:

Look at what a specialist trained overseas charges for office visits in a large Bangkok private hospital.

Perhaps 800 baht for a 15 minute consultation so a max of around 25000 for a day but what percent does the doctor get?

Lets say 15, 000 x 25 days a month is 375,000 very roughly. Plus extra for actual surgery. So a top surgeon with lots of experience could make 1 milion per month.

Recruiting Thai Staff and Salaries:

A while back there was an interesting thread on salaries for Thai staff and recruiting ideas which was helpful.

I am looking for new ideas we are in Bangkok.

We have an export craft business where we make a number of different products. Eye hand coordination, patience and some math skill as well as common sense is needed and the ability to work independently.

Training will be provided in a 3 month training program with 280 baht per day then 8000 per month with vacations and monthly and annual bonuses as well a retirement plan. Raises are based on skill so after two years around 15,000 per month.

University grads are not interested even when w offer more than they will get elsewhere. No education is required although we prefer high school.

Work environment is AC, Thai music lunches out etc..

Finding workers is easy but finding workers with talent who want a career is difficult.

All my business friends say you need some luck to find the right staff. I want create my own luck.

Any ideas on how to find talented staff?

Should I rasie my pay?

Thai schools are aiming for world class standard, which means teaching science, maths, computing, social studies all in English.

Surely, you're jesting, yes? It's never been apart of the Thai educational system to widely attain any such attentive progressive strides within there sphere of influence. Promoting critical and independent thought process is not in the works. Less in their native Thai. less in English. Though, I certainly can appreciate your good intent but your observations are less than innocent. And added note: what might world class standard mean?

Agreed 100%.

Possibly in the city of Korat you may find a couple of OK schools and a nice private hospital.

I tried life in a Isan town and found the schools and hospitals of a low level and I am very sad that I even gave the small town life in Isan a try.

We have two small kids and live in Bangkok now and are very happy.