Decorum. Politeness And Manners! What's Happened?

[scotbeve]

I wonder why the place doesn't provide or assign the number tags when someone walks in to take before taking a seat or stand in queue. When the number comes on you get your turn. It's so simple to be organized that way.

Number tags and zones would be an improvement to the very cramped CM Imm. office....

[mikebell]

Went to Pattaya 30 minutes before opening time. There was already an orderly queue of about 20 people. No-one tried to push to the front. We were allowed to trickle in to get our tickets a few at a time: no scrum; all very polite. There are good things in Pattaya.

[Baerboxer]

Why should that they are same or different race make a difference. Third post recently I've read that seemed to be lacking a decorum, politeness and manners when dealing with race.

It matters because the people who took advantage were English, Japanese and American people who are all races of people and are normally renowned for their politeness. That's why I referenced the word 'race'.

English and American each constitute a race? Last time I looked each of those nationalities included many different races.

Got to agree with Junglechief on this one.

Look up the word "race" and how it is used, particularly in a social science rather than a biological taxonomy connatation. You'll see it's a word used in many contexts with accepted meanings. Always better to check before you make an incorrect correction.

[Baerboxer]

Some cultures are more polite than others. In the UK and US, IME, people generally queue and respect others. Same with the Aussies, Kiwis, Candadian, Irish and most Scandanavians I've met. Other than that, it seems more a free for all.

Like you I speak out. My worst experiences in Thailand were Brazilians who were arguing with the receptionist at the Baiyoke tower. My wife was being served by another receptionist. One of the Brazilian guys just started talking to the lady serving my wife, and then used his body to push my wife aside. He got very upset when I used my shoulder to knock him back. The other one that stick out was East Europeans flying from Dong Meuang to Koh Samui. My wife was pregnant and my disabled son in his wheel chair. We were asked to board the plane first, but still several men and women from this group tried to push in front of us.

I've seen some very rude Western people at immigration. But, suspect they would behave just the same in their home country.

[bobl]

I wonder why the place doesn't provide or assign the number tags when someone walks in to take before taking a seat or stand in queue. When the number comes on you get your turn. It's so simple to be organized that way.

Number tags and zones would be an improvement to the very cramped CM Imm. office....

To look at the CM immigration office you'd think queue management was a "new" phenomenon when in fact, solutions have been available for decades. They HAVE one <deleted>, although they seem to have switched it off in favour of the current trainwreck. Even when they did use it, they had the system of writing your name in a book to get in a queue to use the bloody machine.

Build a turnstile at the main gate. Put the machine in it. Let people pick up a ticket on the way through. It's hardly rocket science.

[jackr]

I teach so its the only time I can go, I would love to go at 3.30pm and turn it all around within 10 minutes but just not possible unfortunately : (

So why not use that Assist service, or perhaps they can send the janitor from your school in. It doesn't have to be you.

Edited May 29, 2013 by jackr

[NancyL]

I wonder why the place doesn't provide or assign the number tags when someone walks in to take before taking a seat or stand in queue. When the number comes on you get your turn. It's so simple to be organized that way.

Number tags and zones would be an improvement to the very cramped CM Imm. office....

To look at the CM immigration office you'd think queue management was a "new" phenomenon when in fact, solutions have been available for decades. They HAVE one <deleted>, although they seem to have switched it off in favour of the current trainwreck. Even when they did use it, they had the system of writing your name in a book to get in a queue to use the bloody machine.

Build a turnstile at the main gate. Put the machine in it. Let people pick up a ticket on the way through. It's hardly rocket science.

Actually, they do engage in queue management ONCE the office opens. The problem that people arrive early (for understandable reasons) and then push thru the door to get the coveted queue numbers. There is a lack of a system for pre-queue management.

[Emdog]

"The supply of 90-day report tickets is almost unlimited -- why get in the way of others by coming early?" Here in Jomtien the long term visa lines, renewals etc are all at a different desk, so it is not like you are going to take up time where they need to go.

The rudest I have encountered are from Eastern Bloc countries. I try to rationalize that under commie rule goods were scarce and if you didn't push and shove, you didn't get the goods. Those old habits die hard.

One of my peeves has to do with places like 7/11 and how I can wait in line, but some Thai comes in and gets served first. I simply comment "Thai rak Thai, mai rak farang".

[bobl]

Actually, they do engage in queue management ONCE the office opens. The problem that people arrive early (for understandable reasons) and then push thru the door to get the coveted queue numbers. There is a lack of a system for pre-queue management.

Last time I had the unfortunate need to visit there, there are several words I can think of to describe the queue after the office opens - management isn't one of them...

[Ulysses G.]

One of my peeves has to do with places like 7/11 and how I can wait in line, but some Thai comes in and gets served first. I simply comment "Thai rak Thai, mai rak farang".

That must go over well.

I just say that I was in line first in Thai and never have a problem. The cashier is perfectly happy to help customers in order, but not enough to argue about it unless you insist on it.

[habfan]

Early arrivals grab the seats closest to the door, they basically know who the first 10 in line are. The problem arrises as more and more people start to arrive as opening approaches, the seats are now full and they start to form a standing line in front of the door and this is where the decorum starts to disintegrate. As NancyL says a pre-queue system needs to be implemented to avoid the opening chaos. The problem being this would take staff of which they are sorely lacking, but it would sure go a long way in diffusing the poor behavior I have witnessed in front of that door before opening.

[rogpayne]

The trip to immigration is normally only once every three months so it pales into insignificance on queue jumping, almost every day people really Pi** me off in 7-11"s The number of times people jump the queue and the girls (or as often lady boys) just take the goods and three or four utility bills from the offending person leaving me to wait for several minutes to get served. I am a polite person but now and again I just have to let the "offender" and the staff know I am unhappy about the situation, It doesn't make any difference of course but I feel better!!

[JeffreyWitty]

You did the right thing OP!

Rudeness is never called for! No human being is any better than any other human being. Not following the rules leads to anarchy and a breakdown in civilization. If I were there, I would have asked the rude jerk to step outside so I could correct him in a more barbaric fashion.

Edited May 29, 2013 by JeffreyWitty

[pizzachang]

Whenever I drive by the nice, new "IMMIGRATION 5 building, near the 700 stadium, I wonder why isn't that in use as a public facility for immigration services? Nice, big parking lot and nice big building full of offices, I assume. You just have to think - what did Immigration 5's previous building look like?

[LingLek]

Hope you feel better now.

You're right in your concerns about decorum, but wrong in showing up early to do a 90 day report. Best to let the morning scrum of people seeking visa extensions get resolved and come in after 9:30 am -- by most reports, mid-afternoon is the best.

People act this way because there is a very finite number of queue tickets for long-term visa extensions and they want to be sure to get one. People can be very ugly when competing for a scarce commodity. The supply of 90-day report tickets is almost unlimited -- why get in the way of others by coming early?

I teach so its the only time I can go, I would love to go at 3.30pm and turn it all around within 10 minutes but just not possible unfortunately : (

You're a teacher? I hope you don't teach English.

[ThaiSold]

The real joke here is you went to do your 90 day reporting at 6:30 am..........

Honestly with all the people using this forum no one gives any good information.

So here you go this should save your aggravation for next time:

It's the first 15 people to arrive that get a seat, you'll need to arrive before 6:30 to get one of those seats if your lucky.

90 day reporting takes 10 minutes to do if you arrive at 1:30pm and later in the afternoon.

You do not need a number to get a certificate of residence, again go in the afternoon.

Go to the chiang mai immigration site and download the forms and fill them in before you get there.

[bobl]

The real joke here is you went to do your 90 day reporting at 6:30 am..........

The real joke is doing 90 day reporting by yourself. It's one of the very few immigration items where you can legally skip a personal appearance.

Why anyone would voluntarily subject themselves to going there is beyond me.

[ThaiSold]

The real joke here is you went to do your 90 day reporting at 6:30 am..........

The real joke is doing 90 day reporting by yourself. It's one of the very few immigration items where you can legally skip a personal appearance.

Why anyone would voluntarily subject themselves to going there is beyond me.

That's true however If I could get someone to do it for me for free yeah sure, but who would do that for free? i'll go to central for lunch then head to immigration for 10-15min and i'm out of there.

[derekwyoung]

Hi I went this morning ,horendas trafic jam throu a minor bumper bender lost about an hour got there at 845 ticket machien not working found another que to join got a ticket about 930 got a seat this time ticket came up at 1.20 Transation tool les than 30 sec .why is it taking so long, last time i didnt get a seat and had to stand for 3 hours, bean doing this for 10 years 75 now and standing for three hours is tiring to say the least. two new officers behind the counter and and so much slower than the guy who has served me for the past 9 years, I am sure they need to double the staff increase the number of windows and qudruple the number of parking places. or how about cutting it down to two times a year one included with your yearly visa and one at 6months.just thinking about when I am 90+. sorry about the rant ive still got a pain in my but for sitting so long

[Suradit69]

Quote from the OP:

I told them all they were disgusting and should be ashamed when disrespecting other similarly aged people of the same race,

Do you want to explain this comment? If people are black, would it be OK to disrespect them? What are you trying to say here?

I was of the impression the queue list was long gone and you now had to line up to get a queue number to be called up to get a queue number.

What on earth have black people got to do with this??? The race comment was aimed at the people from the English, American and Japanese race of people, colour was not even mentioned for all you know some of the people could have been black, yellow or green (it doesn't matter), it is the simple fact that the three races of people who chose to try and queue jump are from countries were politeness and good manners are regarded as being common place.

Even if the list is there or not why should a 65 year old push in front of another 65 year who is little more frail than the other when one has been waiting for nearly 2 hours longer than the other.

"from the English, American and Japanese race of people"

And you're a teacher? Those aren't races, those are nationalities. No, under no circumstances is "American" used as a race. Sometimes people might refer to the Japanese as a race when they mean an ethnic subset of the Asian race, but the Chinese are not being racists when they rank against the Japanese.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Suradit69

[bobl]

Hi I went this morning ,horendas trafic jam throu a minor bumper bender lost about an hour got there at 845 ticket machien not working found another que to join got a ticket about 930 got a seat this time ticket came up at 1.20 Transation tool les than 30 sec .why is it taking so long, last time i didnt get a seat and had to stand for 3 hours, bean doing this for 10 years 75 now and standing for three hours is tiring to say the least. two new officers behind the counter and and so much slower than the guy who has served me for the past 9 years, I am sure they need to double the staff increase the number of windows and qudruple the number of parking places. or how about cutting it down to two times a year one included with your yearly visa and one at 6months.just thinking about when I am 90+. sorry about the rant ive still got a pain in my but for sitting so long

Do yourself a favour Derek and cut your trips down to once a year for your visa. The services that you can employ to do the subsequent 3 x 90 day reports only charge 1500 baht (500 baht a trip I think, somebody will correct me if I'm wrong)...

It's not like doing it yourself is "free". Even ignoring the wasted several hours of my time, it would actually cost me almost as much in fuel to get there and back, as to pay these guys.

[ThaiSold]

Hi I went this morning ,horendas trafic jam throu a minor bumper bender lost about an hour got there at 845 ticket machien not working found another que to join got a ticket about 930 got a seat this time ticket came up at 1.20 Transation tool les than 30 sec .why is it taking so long, last time i didnt get a seat and had to stand for 3 hours, bean doing this for 10 years 75 now and standing for three hours is tiring to say the least. two new officers behind the counter and and so much slower than the guy who has served me for the past 9 years, I am sure they need to double the staff increase the number of windows and qudruple the number of parking places. or how about cutting it down to two times a year one included with your yearly visa and one at 6months.just thinking about when I am 90+. sorry about the rant ive still got a pain in my but for sitting so long

Do yourself a favour Derek and cut your trips down to once a year for your visa. The services that you can employ to do the subsequent 3 x 90 day reports only charge 1500 baht (500 baht a trip I think, somebody will correct me if I'm wrong)...

It's not like doing it yourself is "free". Even ignoring the wasted several hours of my time, it would actually cost me almost as much in fuel to get there and back, as to pay these guys.

70% of expats live on less than 50,000 baht a month. 500 baht is a lot of money for some people they'd rather not waste.

500 baht for gas what are you driving?

[attento]

Quote from the OP:

I told them all they were disgusting and should be ashamed when disrespecting other similarly aged people of the same race,

Do you want to explain this comment? If people are black, would it be OK to disrespect them? What are you trying to say here?

I was of the impression the queue list was long gone and you now had to line up to get a queue number to be called up to get a queue number.

What on earth have black people got to do with this??? The race comment was aimed at the people from the English, American and Japanese race of people, colour was not even mentioned for all you know some of the people could have been black, yellow or green (it doesn't matter), it is the simple fact that the three races of people who chose to try and queue jump are from countries were politeness and good manners are regarded as being common place.

Even if the list is there or not why should a 65 year old push in front of another 65 year who is little more frail than the other when one has been waiting for nearly 2 hours longer than the other.

Could we use the word "nationality" instead of "race" ? I think it would be more accurate.

[bobl]

Hi I went this morning ,horendas trafic jam throu a minor bumper bender lost about an hour got there at 845 ticket machien not working found another que to join got a ticket about 930 got a seat this time ticket came up at 1.20 Transation tool les than 30 sec .why is it taking so long, last time i didnt get a seat and had to stand for 3 hours, bean doing this for 10 years 75 now and standing for three hours is tiring to say the least. two new officers behind the counter and and so much slower than the guy who has served me for the past 9 years, I am sure they need to double the staff increase the number of windows and qudruple the number of parking places. or how about cutting it down to two times a year one included with your yearly visa and one at 6months.just thinking about when I am 90+. sorry about the rant ive still got a pain in my but for sitting so long

Do yourself a favour Derek and cut your trips down to once a year for your visa. The services that you can employ to do the subsequent 3 x 90 day reports only charge 1500 baht (500 baht a trip I think, somebody will correct me if I'm wrong)...

It's not like doing it yourself is "free". Even ignoring the wasted several hours of my time, it would actually cost me almost as much in fuel to get there and back, as to pay these guys.

70% of expats live on less than 50,000 baht a month. 500 baht is a lot of money for some people they'd rather not waste.

500 baht for gas what are you driving?

50,000? Even if I was living on 30,000 a month, I think I could somehow find 120 baht/mo in the budget. Pot-ay-to pot-ah-to, you call it 'waste' I call it spending 120 baht/mo to avoid 3 x several hours of aggravation.

I drive a suv, not that it matters...

[eyecatcher]

I wonder why the place doesn't provide or assign the number tags when someone walks in to take before taking a seat or stand in queue. When the number comes on you get your turn. It's so simple to be organized that way.

you mean just like at the police station when you go to pay your fine...................who said the Police are not organised and dont know what they are doing?

[ppmacready]

It matters because the people who took advantage were English, Japanese and American people who are all races of people and are normally renowned for their politeness. That's why I referenced the word 'race'.

Were they around 50 years old with 20 year old girlfriends?

Is that ''normal'' where ''we'' come from?

[Ulysses G.]

Were they around 50 years old with 20 year old girlfriends?

Is that ''normal'' where ''we'' come from?

It is normal here. Thanks be to the universe.

[femi fan]

I was the ninth arrival the day the OP is referring to. I saw how when it came to near half 7 a few people suddenly were standing right next to the door while others were sitting and had all written their names on the piece of paper. One chap would not stop talking, he was 60 odd. Another young couple turned up and plonked their large frames behind this chap, and one or two others were also by now adding to this crowd of queue bargers. They seemed to know exactly what they were doing. They were there to get in first, but not by being there first.

Clearly if people have made the effort to get to the place for 5 or half 5 they're going to be very stressed by watching this group of people arriving two hours later and plonking themselves right by the door.

When the door opened the chap simply had the pre-ticket numbers which were fed into the hands that got closest to the chap handing out the tickets. I temporarily rescinded my status of human being and shoved a few hands out of the way of this group who had come early and as it happens got ticket number 9, my exact arrival position. I simply had to resort to animal behaviour to ensure that i would not be beaten by the animals. I guess i got in early because i was on one of the seats near the door.

Kudos to one chap who tackled these people before the door opened, probably the OP!

It must be said that when humans are treated like cattle it does become difficult to remain human. The blame for cause of all of this is that thailand still has not decentralised power from bangkok. Bangkok decides on everything including budgets. The office is far too small for the work that needs doing, nowhere near enough staff.

The really stressful bit is for those who have to renew their year long visa as a teacher, student, or retirement because if you're not there early enough you don't get a ticket. There is a deadline and it's 500 baht a day for going over your visa expiry. It's a mess.

The people in bangkok know very well the problem up here in chiang mai, and seem to be enjoying it all. It is not a money issue at all, so it's either incompetence or sport. I say the latter.

I"ve always found the staff fine in the office. It's some of the foreigners who are the problems.

[timewilltell]

Goodness - what is hard to understand? In some cultures queueing up is the done thing and pushing in is frowned upon - in other cultures pointing feet at icons is frowned upon and in others smoking pot is OK. The OP's point was that people of a similar race to him and therefore one might assume having similar values where pushing in is considered bad mannered, just behaved as an alternative race where pushing in was normal. So are we now not allowed for pointing out the cultural differences between races for if so then Thai culture is surely irrelevant!

I do not see anything the OP said as racist - indeed it is the objection against it which exposes the misunderstanding deriving from today's popular society.

[Beetlejuice]

I don`t think it`s all a case of having bad manners and queue jumping.

At most times it is total confusion in there, they change the system every so often and no one knows what they are meant to do, especially for those who maybe going for their 90 day report for the first time.

I have experienced this myself, when one day the ticket machine was closed, I walked up to the counter and asked an officer, what do I do to get my 90 day report? He just mumbled something to me and I was left walking from one end of the counter to the other not knowing who to see or what to do.

I have found that over the last year or so, it is becoming a case of every man for himself, there appears to be no proper system and the Immigration staff simply don`t give a rat`s behind about anyone.

Blame the crap system, not the visitors themselves.