1. I often see older foreigners being guided by Thais, mostly women, in banks and other public utilities. For want of a correct term, I  will call them personal assistants. They seem to help the clients communicate with staff at these utilities. Obviously they have some facility with English.

Does anybody know if such assistants are paid by the hour and what is an average, fair rate of compensation? 

 

2. If one were to hire a live-in personal assistant (absolutely nothing salacious; room and board provided) to help with daily life and drive the customer around when necessary, in his car

, what would be a fair compensation?

 

Thanks for any replies.

Are you referring to "wives"? They often require quite high levels of maintenance and termination costs can be rather shocking.

Gaccha got it. Nail on the head. 

9 minutes ago, HerewardtheWake said:

I often see older foreigners being guided by Thais, mostly women, in banks and other public utilities. For want of a correct term, I  will call them personal assistants. They seem to help the clients communicate with staff at these utilities

Possibly agents?

I can recommend one that lives near DMK.   Used her for many years.  Has car, speaks and writes Thai/English.  Knows many of the legal procedures in Thailand due to her position.

She manages a villa and rentals for a Chinese guy, but usually has much time off and takes on little projects as such.

 

Not sure what she would charge.  If you are interested, let me know and Ill ring her up and ask if I can give you her contact.

 

When I first retired to Chiang Mai in 2011, I knew an American who had a business. I wanted help in arranging a new car purchase, getting the necessary bank account, etc. He allowed me to ask one of his bi-lingual employees to help. This came down to arranging a specific time so as not to interfere with his business. No problems and I paid her a "tip" of 1000 baht for each time I needed her (usually no more than half a day). 

I just got to ask a girlfriend out when I first travelled around Thailand.

19 hours ago, Gaccha said:

Are you referring to "wives"? They often require quite high levels of maintenance and termination costs can be rather shocking.

But instead of purchase you can lease them...on daily or hourly contracts...That is in the long term much cheaper

3 hours ago, wwest5829 said:

When I first retired to Chiang Mai in 2011, I knew an American who had a business. I wanted help in arranging a new car purchase, getting the necessary bank account, etc. He allowed me to ask one of his bi-lingual employees to help. This came down to arranging a specific time so as not to interfere with his business. No problems and I paid her a "tip" of 1000 baht for each time I needed her (usually no more than half a day). 

Nice pay.

 

I bet she's happy to help at that rate.  Plus you sound pretty laid back.

 

I pay some tile workers and cement guys that as good workers are hard to find.  When ever I need them there usually available fortunately. 

 

 

Edited June 23, 20233 yr by MrJ2U

Here in Northern Thailand "Chiang Mai Buddy" and the many services they offer were often mentioned on the local forums until fairly recently.

Some posters experiences with them were positive, others less so.

I have no idea what the present situation is, but you might want to check them out.

Good luck whatever you do.

You're best just paying for services as you need them from people specializing in them, Thai Visa center etc, do you really have that many tasks that mandate a general personal assistant on call?

 

I'm reminded of a guy that had his own personal chauffeur on call and paid him a monthly salary which was quite considerable along with the car costs, couldn't for the life of me understand why, you go to the pub every other night, you stay at the pub several hours, you go home,  taxis came out around the launch of the automobile.. whats the point,