Thailand: 'The nail that sticks up gets hammered down'

Asbestos innards and a stomach for gov repression required

Very traditional working environment

“The nail that sticks up gets hammered down” and this is reflected in the fact that many workplaces in Thailand are lacking in innovation and proactive activity from below

The Register: Pay? Up or down?

Eddie Croasdell: Pay in Thailand was about half of what I earn here, which was a pretty good deal for a local hire. However, the cost of living in Thailand is much less than the UK, so I felt considerably more flush in Thailand than I do here.

The Register: How do workplaces differ between Thailand and home?

Eddie Croasdell: Most Thai workplaces reflect Thai society. It’s strongly hierarchical and deferential to perceived superiors, and this can be very frustrating for people used to the Western way of doing things.

There’s a Thai saying: “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down” and this is reflected in the fact that many workplaces in Thailand are lacking in innovation and proactive activity from below.

In many Thai workplaces suggesting improvements is seen as being insulting to your manager or the business owner as it implies that they are less than perfect. This is terribly frustrating but, thankfully, is being changed as new generations move into the work place.

The Register: Was the expat gig be good for your career?

Eddie Croasdell: Yes, on many levels. As the scope of my work was much wider than it would be in the UK I had to become expert in a range of different systems, hardware, software, OS, applications, and networks.

I also became part of the wider South Asian expat network and have good contacts and friends in the IT industry throughout the Asia Pacific region.

Experience of having worked in China and the Hong Kong SAR also goes down well with most western employers.

The Register: What's cheaper in the UK? What's more expensive?

Eddie Croasdell: Cars and motorbikes are far more expensive in Thailand due to Thailand’s punitive import taxes on them. Education, even “free” education, costs more than some Thai private education.

Pretty much everything else here in the UK is far more expensive with the cost of housing being absolutely off the scale. The cost of an average semi in South East England would get you a mansion in Thailand, swimming pool included!

The Register: What do you miss about Thailand now that you're home?

Eddie Croasdell: The weather, the food, and the people. I miss my Thai family very much. What I don’t miss is the yearly visa and work permit runaround and I definitely don’t miss the corruption which poisons Thai society from top to bottom.

The Register: How was life after the coups? What changed, if anything?

Eddie Croasdell: The coup which affected me most was 2006. I woke up one morning and turned on the TV and every channel was playing the same patriotic music and soldiers rattling off orders from the “Council for Democratic Reform”.

Out on the street pedestrians were garlanding tanks with flowers and giving food to soldiers, but that didn’t last long. The situation deteriorated pretty rapidly after that and the country became very unstable, both politically and socially.

It was the massacre by the Thai army of civilians in Bangkok in 2010 that made me decide it was getting close to time to take my family to the UK. It was a dreadful time.

What has changed most under the current junta is that the military have cracked down harshly on any form of dissent and freedom of expression is no longer allowed. I would have been obligated to spy on and report on my customers, monitoring their communications for “sedition”, and I found the prospect of that intolerable.