Advice please! A teacher colleague of mine went to get her first wp today but due to delays in receiving teaching licence etc she only had two days left on her non o visa. She was told by the labour office she needed 10 days minimum left on her visa to apply. I was of the impression if they agree to the paperwork , you then pay for the wp and get a receipt and with this receipt you can then apply for your wp visa, you don't need to wait for the book. Has something changed or have i misunderstood something ? She did go and get a 7 day extension but there still seems to be a problem at the labour office with regard to the expiry? Ideas please.

Presume you mean the 'Permiited to Stay Until' date on the 90 day non immigrant entry in your colleague's passport.

Often at Labour at Labour they have a back log on WP issue/renewal.

So in this case, sucessfully filed application papers can sit on various desks for days and days waiting to be processed, if the Permission to Stay Stamp will be expired by the time it gets to the Head of Dept's desk for signature then they will send you away to get a new stamp.

These internal limits vary from month to month and area to area depending on work loads.

Reading the OP again, things are back to front for teachers as against for other forms of employment as the Non Immigrant Visa is often normally issued before the WP and does not normally require a WP1 or WP3 application receipt per se.

However the Visa must be valid when the WP issued.

Guess in the OP's Colleague's case the WP application receipt plus Waiver/License and other MFA specified papers (see link below - Section 2.4 ) would be good for a fresh 90 Single Entry Non Immigrant 'B' visa at a Thai Consular faciity pretty much anywhere in SE Asia.

http://www.mfa.go.th/main/en/services/123/15388-Non-Immigrant-Visa-%22B%22-(for-Business-and.html

The visa related information on TV is amazing and outstanding!