Working Farangs

[Up2U]

Since the beginning of this year I have been working for a small company in Thailand, with a fairly high level of expatriate workers.

These are some of the incidents that have happened in the past six months:

1. A married couple live in a rented apartment in a large block. Both work. One evening they forgot to lock the door before going to bed. Middle of the night the guy hears a noise from the living room. Thinks it's his wife. Doesn't reach over to check, just goes back to sleep. Next morning he gets up, dresses, goes to put his money in his pocket - can't find it. Checks his mobile phone, camera, video player. All gone.

2. We have bought half-a-dozen motor-bikes for work. One of our people rides back to his apartment, goes out in the evening, gets drunk - falls off bike and winds up in hospital.

3. Another guy goes out with his Thai g/f, gets drunk, falls asleep on the sofa. With lighted cigarette. Wakes up in a smoke-filled room. Calls the apartment manager and fire-brigade. Swears that the air-con had caused the damage - which was one burnt sofa and a lot of smoke stains. Apartment manager says it will cost 100 thousand baht to fix. Guy argues, calls the police. Thus it cost 150 thousand baht to fix. And he has only just realised that the money will come from his pocket, not the company - although I specifically told him at the tie that I would advance the money, but recover it later.

4. Group of half-a-dozen guys go to Pattaya for the week-end. Go to Koh Lan and jet-ski. One idiot continually drives round the girl-friends of the others, trying to soak them with the plume of water. At high-speed he heads towards on girl, not realising that jet-skis do not have brakes. Jet-skis collide, girl goes to hospital. Costs (so far) 70k for the repairs to jet-skis, 50k hospital bill. And the guy asked why the company doesn't pay.

5. Yet another guy goes out in the evening, finds a girl, takes her back for ST. He has a drink or two with her, then passes out. Wakes up next morning with a bad head and no money, no video player, etc. As he feels ill, he does not come in to work for a day. When he comes in he reports the loss. The apartment block has security and CCTV. The films show the taxi drawing-up, the two getting out. Another film shows them going in to his apartment. Then she comes out with a bulging handbag. Police check taxi number plate. Driver says that when they drew up to the apartment she told him to come back in an hour and take her to .... So the police go to her home, find the goods, except mobile phone, and arrest her. Our secretary / fixer oes to police station with the guy, to identify the goods and file charges. (She has had to be involved in all these incidents, plus other minor happenings). She notices that 'she' has an ID Card saying 'he'.

I could write a book on this - and we still have 2/3rds of the project to go!

So - is it any woder that the police are sometimes a little less than polite with farangs? These are guys who have worked all over the world, are skilled tradesmen, yet come to Thailand and act like idiots.

Or is it my fault for letting them out of their cages at weekends?

(They've all gone river rafting this weekend - hopefully the good ones will be at work on Tuesday).

[lopburi3]

In another environment you would not be aware of most such incidents - only them being farang and working for you makes this any different than life on any soi here. Life is full of incidents like these and really don't think it is confined to farangs (as much as I sometimes come to the same conclusions).

[pnustedt]

I had a guy stay with me while he sorted out an apartment for himself - we went out one evening but he went home early alone (he'd often just disappear when it was his round). My wife asked where I was - he told her I would be home in about an hour 'cos I was going short time to a hotel.

He didn't stay long with me.

Same guy regularly left his ATM card in the m/c, parked his car in his neighbours' space, etc.

[KevinN]

You must have a doozie of a contract with these guys, I never had one so lucrative that I would have even thought that the co. would cover me and all of my fuk ups, generally a guy will have to take resopnsibility for his own actions while not actually on the job.

Most times there is a clause that states what is your responsibility and what is the co.'s,maybe the Thai says that you got to cover them,but you could also fire them and get rid of them and any hold back could revert to the co.

I do know that if the guy is an american, you would have to pay his freight home ,due to the shanghai act passed in about 1932, But it doesn't say anything about paying for his extra-corricular fukups. Don't know about Brits tho.

[p1p]

Just reallised how lucky I am to employ only Thais. Many horror stories, but at least I know to expect such things!

[Up2U]

You must have a doozie of a contract with these guys, I never had one so lucrative that I would have even thought that the co. would cover me and all of my fuk ups, generally a guy will have to take resopnsibility for his own actions while not actually on the job.

Most times there is a clause that states what is your responsibility and what is the co.'s,maybe the Thai says that you got to cover them,but you could also fire them and get rid of them and any hold back could revert to the co.

I do know that if the guy is an american, you would have to pay his freight home ,due to the shanghai act passed in about 1932, But it doesn't say anything about paying for his extra-corricular fukups. Don't know about Brits tho.

Although I'm British, the company is German. The expats are German, Austrian, Hungarian, british and Irish. Only the British guys have kept out of trouble (so far).

There are insurance problems - the company rents the apartments and so on. But all these things are, to me, to be settled out of the guys personal insurances. None are 'accidental' within my interpretation of the company policy.

The guys are self-employed - as with much of the construction industry - carrying their own health / professional indemnity / accidental damage / TPL / other insurances. But as we are a specialist concern, with only a limited number of skilled men in the market, it is difficult to fire people. We would need them on the next job, or the one after that, ....

Never had these problems before. In Saudi and in Libya I had to send several men home due to alcohol problems. These are two countries where alcohol is / was forbidden. And never was illegal distillation so widely practised. But for sheer idiocy - nothing to beat the farang in Thailand.