Let's talk about "Thai Time"

If you live here for a certain amount of time someone at some point is going to start talking about "Thai Time" and you can't really understand until you have been exposed to it for a while. For a foreigner that just arrives here this process can be maddening because it is very contrarian to what most of us from the west have grown to expect of people when we are shopping or having a service done. Perhaps this is because competition has become so fierce in the west that people will not tolerate waiting for anything.

When I first got here I got upset about this because you are faced with it almost straight away. You definitely are going to spend a lot of time waiting for Thai people to complete things and they are rarely on time and this is something that you just have to come to terms with or just be angry all the time.

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I'll give you a few examples:

I signed up to have internet installed at my house when I moved to another part of Chiang Mai. When I arranged it at the shop they gave an EXTREMELY BROAD time-frame for when this would actually take place. This is something Americans joke about as far as cable guys were concerned in the 90's and how they would tell you that they will come by on "Tuesday between 8am and 4pm." Due to technological advances this sort of thing was all but eliminated by the time I left the States in the 2010's. They could give you a very accurate prediction of when they would arrive and if they were ever going to be late, you would be informed by some sort of automated system.

Thailand has these sorts of things as well, but they seem to be either incapable or reluctant to actually use them. In the case of my internet installation techs, they had a window of just 2 hours that was indicated on my bit of paper but that time came and went with nobody turning up. By the time "closing time" was rolling around at 5pm I called up the service center and was told "oh, they can't come until tomorrow" and obviously I was upset because I had just spent the entire day waiting around for someone that wasn't even going to come at all. They could have called me and told me this but just didn't do so. They were not at all apologetic for this either and as it turns out, this is extremely common in Thailand. What is so maddening about this process is that if you DON'T wait at home for them all day and they turn up, they will call you and frantically be upset with you for not being there even though this is very hypocritical of them.

Another example is the water delivery service, which is actually pretty convenient if you can manage to get them to know where you live in the first place.

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You shouldn't drink the water out of the taps in Thailand so buying it is essential. A lot of people just buy big packs of the bottles at the shop but given the rather large problem with plastic waste in this country the more responsible and actually significantly cheaper option is to sign up for a water delivery service. These guys will come by on a particular day and they already know you address once you sign up with them. Unless you are or have a housewife, waiting for them to turn up is an exercise in futility. These guys have never turned up even remotely near the same time each week and sometimes they turn up at stupid o'clock in the morning ringing your doorbell while you are in bed. This version of "Thai Time" is basically that these guys have a route that they go on and I'm guessing they take a different path each week for fun or something. After complaining about this to some people I know they told me to just put the empty rack outside my front door with some coins for payment of the new one.

To them the idea that I thought it was more prudent to wait for them to arrive was silly on my part. Live and learn, I guess.

The next example is the one that is the most infuriating as a foreigner but I guess Thai people have just grown accustomed to it over time. If you are at a shop that requires the attention of a specific person, and in my case this would be the 1 or 2 people that can speak some English at whatever shop you are at, there is a very good chance you are going to be told the following

"Moment please"

If you are ever told "moment please** just go ahead and get your phone out and start playing a mobile game because it is not going to be a "moment." It is almost always a very long period of time before the person you are looking for becomes available. There was one instance where I was told "moment please" and the person that I was there to see was actually out on a call and I was sitting there like a dumbshit for over an hour before I actually inquired in my broken Thai that the girl wasn't actually even there and they didn't know when she was coming back. Nobody called her, nobody even messaged her. It is just assumed that you are willing to wait as long as it takes and man oh man, can that end up being a very long time.

This hurry up and wait attitude of the general workforce is basically everywhere in this country and you are going to be of much sounder mind if you just relent and accept it. Getting upset almost never gets you anywhere in this country like it would in the states where the "squeaky oil gets the grease." The culture of not losing face is very important here and if you belittle someone you are committing a terrible offense. There are a lot of things that I love about this country but "Thai time" is not one of them. It is their country though, and their culture. If you want things done exactly on time it can be accomplished, but you are going to have to pay a premium for the pleasure.

While this one aspect of Thai society is annoying there is definitely a more "laid back" approach to almost everything in life here and I think personally that this is actually better for everyone's mental health. I think back to the GO GO GO GO approach we have to almost everything in the United States and while that might make more money for people, is the stress really worth it? I'll take less money and more peace of mind any day.