Mai Mee

[ltnt]

Went into the world class banking operation Bangkok Bank to get a statement required for Immigration today. Been doing this in this bank for 8 years. today it seems the lady/girl who handles this transaction is on holiday and nobody in the entire bank has the knowledge or ability to make this transaction. After several awkward moments and silences they decided to tell my wife in Thai what was going down and would I mind going to a different branch to make the deal?

Of course I smiled as they smiled and they knew and I knew that they knew what I was saying out loud in my mind. IMBECILES!!!

[Spin]

I was in Bangkok Bank the other day and it took 15 minutes for them to sell me 500 quid sterling.
15 long ardious minutes from when I first opened my mouth with the request to actually standing to leave. The girl counted the sterling like it was the first time she had ever laid eyes on it. I know she has worked in that branch for more than 5 years, I'm on first name terms with her.

5 years selling and buying sterling and it is still taking 15 minutes, ban yah orn!

The best part was I wanted to pay with my visa debit card that was issued by that very branch, I could not as they had no card swipe machine set up in that part of the bank to do so.
They insisted that I go outside to use the ATM and get Thai baht to make the transaction

[Rural Surin]

It seems when they are militant with their ''Mai mee'' they will not turn back on themselves in any way or they lose face.

Pathetic really.

A subliminal translation of the proverbial Mai Mee: "I couldn't be bothered. Fuck off."

[pescator]

I was in Bangkok Bank the other day and it took 15 minutes for them to sell me 500 quid sterling.
15 long ardious minutes from when I first opened my mouth with the request to actually standing to leave. The girl counted the sterling like it was the first time she had ever laid eyes on it. I know she has worked in that branch for more than 5 years, I'm on first name terms with her.

5 years selling and buying sterling and it is still taking 15 minutes, ban yah orn!

Years ago I had to exchange my currency for thai baht.
I presented the nice lady at the bank counter with 10 crisp 100 DKK bank notes.
That would at the time be equivalent to roughly 5.000 baht.
She counted my notes twice and mumbled to herself: 10.000 DKK.

She handed me close to 50.000 baht....

There was no question of "Mai Mee", in fact the opposite: "Mee Yuh".

"Sorry, dear, but are you sure you didnt make a mistake when counting my bills?"
"No, no, 10 notes with the denomination 100 Dkk makes 10.000 Dkk" ....
"Ehhh, lemme check again..."

She grew all pale in her face when she realized her mistake.
"So solly, Sir"
"Dont be sorry, dear, you only have to be sorry if you shortchange me"

I should have taken her out to dinner, so that she could have shown me her full appreciation of my honesty. Well, that was what my mates suggested to me afterwards, anyway....

At the same bank, in Nong Khai. I previously went to open up a bank account.
I was greeted in very well spoken english by a nice thai lady and asked of my errand.
"I am here to open up a bank account"
"Welly good, plead wait"
Her command of english deterioted rapidly after her initial greeting....

I watched her for the next 5 minutes speaking to many colleagues of her`s.
They all shook their head.
Then she went upstairs to the second floor and dragged down with her a young male supervisor or whatever.

He asked her in front of me: "Farang tong gaan arai?" (What does the farang want?)
I answered the question for her: "Farang khon nee tong gaan perd banchee mai"
(This farang wants to open up a new account)

You could have heard a penny drop.....

There was much waiing, excuses and gnashing of teeth.

"Why you not say that you sapeak thai?"
"Why did you address me in english when you so clearly don`t speak it and besides, you never asked me"

Well, I got my new bank account, it only took like an hour.....

[chitown]

"Mee Yuh".

Have medicine? What did that have to do with anything?

[pickel]

Have medicine? What did that have to do with anything?

Mee Yuh probably meant mee yut. Which means a lot.

[pescator]

Mai Mee...
Another one I would like to share is the time when I went with my sons into a big shopping mall in Bkk.
We went to a very large toy shop.
My kids were at the time very fascinated with Pokemon toys.

There were many shop attendants at the toy shop.
Some were busy with cutting their nails, others found great pleasure in giving their zits a hard workover while watching this fascinating spectacle in the mirror, so conveniently placed on the racks of the toys.

Un afraid, I approched one of the nail cutting individuals (I found those the less revolting) and asked if he could lead us to the pokemons.
"Mai Mee".
Obviously, we disturbed him in his nail cutting seance, but in spite of his strange obsession of this fascinating ritual, he actually got off his lazy ass, took a stroll at the toy shop and he was "welly solly" to inform us that they did not have any specimens of the at the time most popular toy figures in the world.

Now, my kids are not daft. So they went around to look for themselves.
And lo and behold, they found them in a foking big vendor machine located in the dead right center of the toy shop.
There were hundreds of the so much desired pokemon figures.

Now, in order to get these out of the machine, you need to pay some baht, obviously.
BUT you cannot put money into the machine, you have to get a prepaid card.
So we want to pay for a prepaid card.
Now, this turned out to be really demanding for the nail clipping and zit manipulating personel.
Never had they ever heard of a such an outrageous request.

They scurried around just like chickens that had just lost their heads in the slaughter house, all 6 of them.

One of the brightest of them - I use this term loosely - called the manager on the phone.
The manager stepped down from his trone and came to handle this very critical and most challenging situation.

After 10 minutes of fumbling around, he triumphantly came up with the right card and made a killer sale of 200 baht....

[lob]

I can understand this stupidity as 200 3rd year University students in a Thai Government University could not find Australia on a large world map.

same USA mate.

[chitown]

mee yoe maybe

[pescator]

"Mee Yuh".

Have medicine? What did that have to do with anything?

มีเยอะ

Means: have a lot.

Sorry about my poor transliteration. I am not a native english speaker, and that shows in my transliterations.

[Rural Surin]

I can understand this stupidity as 200 3rd year University students in a Thai Government University could not find Australia on a large world map.

same USA mate.

You'd be surprised as to the geographic ignorance from a culture that imagines itself quite worldly....

[LeighRose]

It used to be the old "mai pen rai" syndrome. Never mind

[ubuibi]

One morning on koh pan gan a few years back went to my regular breakfast place standard 2 eggs bacon etc.. was not so hungry asked if i could have only one egg guess the answer but i got it back in English NO HAVE .... so 2 eggs have, one egg no have..all you can do is have the 2 eggs or walk away i went for the 2 eggs but that was a big lesson in the mai mee culture everything after that seems normal...true story

[FlyFree]

Probably been done before at some stage while talking about life here in Thailand - the ever-present 'Mai Mee' so-called 'customer service'. Latest example was the missus at the local Tescos making a few grocery purchases of which a brick of ice cream was one.

The checkout gal goes to put it in a regular plastic bag and my wife says "Uh, got like one of those special bags (semi-insulated) for the ice cream?" The checkout gal says: Mai Mee.

"Well", says the missus, "I don't want the ice cream, please credit me for that as I don't want it leaking all the way home"

All this was related to me later as I wasn't present for this little exchange.

Man, asking to have the register corrected for 'return' of the ice cream was causing a great deal of consternation on this checkout chick's part so...she calls over to some 'senior' person in the store and explains my wife wants one of those special bags for ice cream and it's Mai Mee at her checkout station.

Problem solved: Magically whole stacks of special ice cream bags appear from the booth where you pay your phone/electric bills etc but the main point here is the sheer laziness on a lot of folks part here in Thailand.

I can't count the numbers of times I've asked for something only to be met with the standard " Mai Mee"...

Boon, you're losing your grip on reality. As a conservative (proven to be low IQ by a plethora of scientific studies and Harvard slimeballs), that's bad.

Every day you roll around in the dough you make off the backs of the suffering, hungry, sweating masses. Then you want this bored, peanut-waged slave to care about your fuckin ice cream. (multiply your complaint x 100's customers/day and imagine her interest)

Be real. She's not paid enough to care. Mai mee, fuck off now, next.

[ltnt]

After departing the local branch of BKK BK I drove over to the main branch in China Town. Went round the block twice to find parking as the bank does not provide any such thing. Oddly reflecting on this minor fact, the branch bank has loads of off street parking.

I strolled inside on the ground floor and asked at the foreign accounts desk if I could get a statement of my bank account for Immigrations annual drudgery? the nice girl said upstairs and motioned with her hand it was to my left at the top of the second floor. After several years of being an ignoramus when it comes to Thai language skills, I do understand Thai-lish and body language thank you very much.

As I ascended the stairs there on my left low and behold was a teller station with a sign in Thai, English and perhaps mongolise (for Bettyboo's sake) "STATEMENTS" it stated in perfect English. My god I was cristilized by the magnanimity of it all.

The desk was empty, so I sauntered up and waited with a smile on my hansom face. 5 minutes passed, no attendent. Hummmm...5 more minutes...Sir! Yes...Can I help you? Yes, I need a statement bla bla bla. She pulls out this beautiful form and asks me with a gesture toward an "X" that shes marked on the form please sign here...OK. Done. she vaporizes and 3 Thais ques up behind me at the same stall. I don't dare move away or else I'm doomed to the "dumb ferang he left his place in line." syndrome. I hold my ground. 10 minutes pass no vision of this damsel has appeared. The Thais are getting restless behind me. They know I've fucked the whole system for sure.

A teller 50 plus lady, gestures to the Thai lined up behind me to come to her counter. In 5 minutes she's dispensed justice to them all and they're off to the mayhem that is called Thai traffic. My lady returns shortly thereafter with a form letter and a signature with the proper amounts listed and formats presentable to Immigrations mental midgets.

Free at last, thank god free at last....now its off to the local food stall for something resembling rice and vegetables mixed into a broth. I need nourishment prior to my re-entry into that black hole known as Immigration.