Rain Today

Today something happened that I cannot remember happening for the last three months. This afternoon at 2:45 it poured down rain for about thirty minutes.

The timing was a bit off, as Nalin was about to return to school for dance class. I couldn't very well send her off on her bike in the pouring rain, so I dropped her off. While I was out, I decided to stop by the Nichada office to see if my parking stickers were ready.

Every year Nichada requires residents to get new parking stickers for our vehicles. In mid-December, I dutifully went to the Nichada office and filled out the forms. They issue temporary resident passes at that time, and then the official ones are ready in four to six weeks. I'm really not sure why it is a two step process, but if I had to guess, I would say that they copied someone else's process. That seems to explain a lot here. Someone copies a process from someone else, without really customizing it to their business. So the originator may have had a specific reason to do steps 1-5, and while the copy-cat might only need steps 2 and 3, they instead copy all the steps.

Of course, there was a problem even with the temporary stickers. We have two different kind of stickers. The sticker for the van allows access to the back gate near the expressway. The sticker for the Mercedes does not permit the back gate access, however, my Nichada Club membership does. I just bring my badge with me when I drive and need to access the back gate. When the clerk handed me the temporary stickers back in December, he gave the Mercedes access to the back gate instead of the van. This was after I had explained which I wanted at least four times during the twenty minutes that I was there. I even put my badge on the application for the van so that he knew that I wanted the van to have the access. Fortunately, before I left I checked the stickers and had him correct them.

So six weeks later, in mid January, I returned to the Nichada offices to pick up my stickers. After ten minutes of looking through some files and computer records, the clerk informed me that she had the record of my application, but could not find my stickers. She told me that she would call me and let me know what happened.

Since my last trip had been three weeks ago, and I had received no phone call, I decided to stop by and check what was happening. The minute that I walked down into the office, the electricity went out in the office. This time, they were able to find the sticker for the Mercedes, but not the van. The clerk could not check the computer records, since the power was out. She told me that she would find out what happened, and send the sticker to my house. I think that is what she said.

In front of me in line today was a very unhappy resident. She was of asian descent, although I knew that she was not Thai as she was speaking English to the clerk. The resident was angry because she could not pick up her sticker. I got the impression that the sticker was ready, but that they were requiring her to fax some additional information to them before they could release it. I'm not sure about all the details.

What I am sure about is that she was upset and doing little to hid it. She did not yell at the clerk, but she was making her displeasure evident, stating that the office had messed up, and that she the customer was suffering because of it. Although it was clear at that point that they were not releasing the sticker, she continued to bitch at the clerk. In short, she handled things exactly the wrong way here in Thailand.

I stood back watching the scene and wondered to myself if I should say something to the customer. Perhaps she did not know that when you lose your cool with a Thai, you will not get what you want. Yelling at or dressing someone down in public is a loss of face for both parties. Cause a Thai to lose face, and the apathy they showed that was so frustrating can transform into an even more infuriating resistance. If you behave like that with "less sophisticated" Thai men, you might get your bell rung for causing the loss of face.

The customer then turned to me, and "they have my sticker right there and won't give it to me. They messed up and now I have to suffer." My first thought was "oh the drama". Yes its frustrating dealing with the Nichada office. It seems as if every time I go there that something is messed up. In the overall scheme of things, its not really that big of a deal. Its certainly not worth losing your cool over.

I smiled and said, "yes, but if you lose your cool, you lose."

The lady retorted, "Sure but if my husband was here, they would give it to him. They will do anything for someone with a white face."

I laughed a bit and said, "that's not true", responding to the latter part of her statement not the former. As some of you may know, my face is white. Well, its considerably tanner than it was when I first arrived, but I'm still confident that no-one would mistake me for one of asian, hispanic or african descent. I know that they certainly mess up my paperwork and have caused me grief on occasion.

I'm not saying that there is not a grain of truth to what she says, but her blanket statement is wrong. There are times when having a white face might help. Other times it is a hindrance. One thing is for sure, having a dour or angry face is never an advantage.