On Thai service

Jet lag update: Went to bed around 9, woke up 2 times during the night for a combined total of about 1/2 hour, took Tylenol PM at first wakeup. Result is a better than expected night's sleep. Woke up with only minimal trouble when alarm went off, nearly missed bus due to it coming a bit early and me lolly gagging around prior to leaving. Was wide awake and alert through lunch, really started dragging in the afternoon as the time in Thailand approached and passed midnight. Doing okay right now, possibly due to the caffeine from half a 20 oz. bottle of Pepsi.

Anyhow, it's time to start posting some personal reflections from my time in Thailand. There' s a lot to talk about, so I don't know how long I'm going to stick on this topic, but we'll just see where it goes. I think I'll start with some more surface/superficial observations and then get deeper as I move on.

Coming back from Thailand, I find it a joke what we in America settle for and call "service", and what defines good service. This was my second time in Thailand, and even so, the extent to which Thai folk go out of their way to serve blew me away again.

As a for instance, today I met a friend for lunch at the cafeteria in the PA Capitol building. After finishing my meal, I was walking over to the trash can to throw away my garbage, when it struck me that this was the first time I'd done that in a week and a half, despite eating at a restaurant about 2 times every day while in Thailand. And bear in mind, these weren't all your typical sit down/be served restaurants. We ate at a KFC, stopped at coffee shops (even Starbucks), and other things like that. If you're ever in Thailand, I dare you to go into a fast food restaurant and find a trashcan sitting in a public area. You won't find one. Why? Because it's not your job to get rid of your own garbage. In fact, if you try, you'll probably find one of the employees of the establishment getting annoyed because you're in their way. It's pretty crazy. And you see the same trend at sit down type restaurants as well. Almost all of them that we went to would probably be considered overstaffed by American standards, and so we almost invariably had more than one person dedicated to our service if we had any size of a group with us. It was the same way on the plane (we flew Thai Air), a much bigger flight staff than you'd be likely to see on a similar sized American flight, and much more frequent trips being made with drinks and the like. I still remember my first run-in with Thai service on the flight out when I went last year: I had my foot sticking way out in the aisle and tripped a flight attendant, and she immediately apologized to me.

I say with great confidence that the worst service I've ever gotten in a restaurant in Thailand is better than 90% of the service I see in the States. This made the fact that I had to keep my tipping relatively minimal due to cultural considerations rather frustrating. You just don't tip a lot in Thailand, period. Why, I don't really know, but I do know that when I tipped 70 baht on a 1630 baht bill, I was actually being quite generous by Thai standards. Try finding a waiter/waitress that's legitimately grateful for a tip of less than 5% in the States, no matter how bad their service is. If I got the same service in the States, I'd probably be tipping 30%. And yet, that's just how it works in Thailand. And really, I suppose it makes sense - if the culture puts a premium on great service, it becomes an expectation, and therefore just something that's included with the meal. I would assume (and hope) that waiters/waitresses in Thailand are actually paid something resembling a living wage, and therefore aren't dependant on tips. It's just one area of culture shock that I never really saw coming.