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What is this driver / chauffeur thing here?


CLW

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8 minutes ago, CLW said:

>Except top level manager, show me a Thai who does that. Mostly playing with the phone or sleeping because last night less sleep because they either drunk or be on the phone late.

And what's wrong with that?

If they are i.e. two hours a day in the car let them sleep and relax. That makes them fitter for the work for the rest of the day.

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And what's wrong with that?
If they are i.e. two hours a day in the car let them sleep and relax. That makes them fitter for the work for the rest of the day.
Have you ever worked with Thai people?
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34 minutes ago, JWRC said:

I actually prefer to drive myself most of the time not only local but long distance as well. However I do have 2 excellent drivers for when I have to go to Bangkok because it's a 2 - 3 hour journey depending on the time of day, weather, road accidents and roadworks etc, I like to arrive in Bangkok fresh, I have someone to park the car and pick me up at the door when finished, I am not tired or stressed and will quite often have a snooze on the way home, I make sure I pay them well, normally 1,000 Baht for an average day, more if it's over 8 hours. plus they get a good lunch, as they eat wherever I eat and I buy all the snacks and drinks for the road. They consider they are well looked after and I never have a problem with availability.

This doesn't happen so often these days, but it's handy and I don't have to pay out for a full time driver when I don't need one. And they are quite welcome to have a sleep in the car when they are just waiting around, what else are they supposed to do?

How did you find these drivers? Via references from other people? I only ask as I'm sure I could find drivers at half that cost but would not remotely trust them at face value.

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2 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

You definitely have meetings in the wrong places if there is no parking within miles. ????

When your visiting clients or customers, you don't generally have a lot of choice! sure most places have parking but the average Thai multi storey car parks are some of the worst designed spaces in the world! usually with nowhere near sufficient parking spaces!

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Yes, and many of them complain that they spend every day hours in the traffic driving their own car.
Most of them would be delighted to have a driver but can't afford one.
Yes, but what they are going to do then in the car? Playing Candy Crush?
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7 minutes ago, CLW said:
1 hour ago, OneMoreFarang said:
Yes, and many of them complain that they spend every day hours in the traffic driving their own car.
Most of them would be delighted to have a driver but can't afford one.

Yes, but what they are going to do then in the car? Playing Candy Crush?

Why does it matter? Almost anything is less stress than driving yourself in Thailand.

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CLW, I knew from the very beginning of your post that you have a disparaging, negative viewpoint about the Thai people. First off, it was your use of the term "Somchai". That's just not a 'polite' term to use for all Thai's.
 
Having come here 1997 working for a midsize petroleum company, it made huge economic sense for them to provide us drivers. Not to mention that we did a lot of business in the cars, taking phone calls, discussing projects and, yes, even sleeping.  It saved the company 100s of 1000s of dollars. Just think of the loss of work time and lawsuits to following if we were involved in an accident.
 
I did not promote myself to personal driving until I'd been here 2 plus years and even then I used a driver during the work week. So you can criticize it all you like, but the replies made by RIchard_Smith and others have more than explained the reasons. Now you know, quit continuing to 'put down' their use.
 
BTW, your comment of hands free telephone...  I'd just prefer you concentrate your mind on the road if you're driving.  An accident happens in the blink of an eye.  If you're talking on the phone you're not concentrating on driving and that scares me.
Don't understand some sarcasm, don't you?

I'm not talking on the phone while driving. This was just a suggestion.
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Drivers and maid not working for a large company are just problems here. You will never know how to manage them to be reliable.
Japanese and many foreigners working in Thailand have drivers for security reasons, Thailand is an unsafe third world country [emoji846]
 
 
But how to do if actually the driver poses the biggest thread for safety?
I'd rather drive the car by myself with proper driving education than someone who has a joke license without any proper training. And I don't blame the people itself, it's the government who hands out this kindergarten driving license with inappropriate training and no real situation driving lessons.
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Everyone that drives a car here is called a chauffeur if they are paid or not.  When I drive the car I am the chauffeur.  When my wife's cousin's husband drives the car he is the chauffeur.  If we go on a long drive trip together sometimes I'm asked to help chauffeur.  But my wife's sister pays the village chauffeur to take her to Nong Khai or Tha Bo.

 

I tryed to get my wife to say drive or driver but bless her heart it always starts with a gr sound instead of dr.  So I just go along with chauffeur because that's what most Thais that I  know or have met use. 

 

Before my time, during the last 10 years of her government job she had real chauffeurs from the motor pool.  They drove a big sedan with special license plates that allowed parking just about anywhere and was allowed to park in the doctor's parking lot at the Udon Thani government hospital when she had to take a child from the orphanage or a poor HIV patient to the hospital.  Every Friday and Monday they drove her back and forth between Udon Thani and her village, which is about 68 kilometers up the Mekong from Nong Khai, and all over Issan where she held meetings.  Before her big promotion she just drove her motorcycle back and forth once or twice a month.

 

I had to teach my wife to get her car driver's license here in Thailand.  Now that's a long story and I should have taught her to drive when we were still in America but as I found out the tests in Thailand are so much easier to pass in comparison.  Now she wants me to teach her to chauffeur on our free time.  Free time in Thailand is rare.

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I love driving too, but you've really got a bad attitude toward having them and as far as I can see the Thai people. I didn't use a driver for the last 3 years of my work life here, but I had to make sacrifices.  I left for work at 05:45am to beat the traffic. We lived across town (4th employer in Thailand) and although I left work at 4:30pm, it was sometimes 2 hours to get home. If I left after 5pm, it was never less than 1.5 hours (in the morning with light traffic I drove the distance in 40 mins). 


Sorry if it came through this way. Some Thai people are honest, intelligent and hard working people. Well, some others are the complete opposite.

I'm tired of the endless traffic in Bangkok same as you. And of course I don't know your personal situation (wife, children, owning property, etc) but if I were you I would consider moving closer to your workplace. At worst 2 hours total per day is really a waste of precious time. Just a thought. For myself I would hardly ever consider working for a company that doesn't provide housing nearby or is near any reliable public transport (BTS/MRT).
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On 8/22/2019 at 5:13 PM, CLW said:

It seems almost every Somchai unless he/she is not a simple worker has a driver. Especially for foreign businesses or the government.

Is this just an employment strategy to keep people occupied with work similar to those useless guards everywhere?

 

I had quite a good work position back at home with the opportunity to use company car or any other mode of transport to my request. But if I came up with the idea of a driver my boss would have told me I can go where the sun doesn't shine...

Even the management at our company (family business but 3,000 employees) did drive their cars by themselves.

 

Apart from that I would find it super annoying especially in Thailand that there are almost no reliable, polite and safe drivers. Just look at all the daily accidents and how they are driving.

Why do they eat rice and not bread and potatoes?  Come on different culture different style. I think you will find drivers of executives cars and some of the best drivers in Thailand. Oh yeah do you eat rice with a fork or a spoon?   Give it a break or you will go mental here trying to figure things out.

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