Today we have only one thing planned. A dinner cruise at 6:30pm. Heavy rain started at 5:45pm but lightened by 6pm.

Although the early part of the day was kinda sunny. We just wandered around a few street, taking a different from any other walk. I have seen that the lottery here is serious business. Its not like in North America where Government controlled corporations and their appointed agents, are the only officially licensed placed to get tickets. Here you will see everyday people set up with a board and a bunch of tickets to chose from. Very strange. We also saw this whole big tented area where there was nothing but lottery tickets to buy. I am going to take a wild guess that the people selling the winning ticket must get some sort of bonus otherwise why so much competition unless there was some sort of promised dream attached to it?

Everyone who told me “don’t stay in Bangkok for more than a day ” was right. The place feels like a ‘has been’. Like there was a great time to be here when it was fresh and new. When the streets were clean and ‘Armani’ suit hawkers didn’t call you ‘boss’ every 50ft that you walked.

Bangkok has slipped into a grimy future and is limping along on trinkets and tattoos. While I am certain that this may not hold true for all of Thailand, it does paint a poor first impression. I keep hearing good things about the northern area.

Oh good, the rain has picked up again. Well this will make the boat dinner cruise interesting to say the least.

The dinner cruise was quaint. There was about 30 people all told. I chose the traditional Thai menu (more meat) and my wife got the vegetarian one. Originally we were supposed to be on the 6 – 8pm cruisebut somehow that got translated to the 8-10pm one. So we were a wee bit hungry by time the boat actually got to the dock we were waiting on.

We were greeted by some girls in traditional outfits and we got this little flower garland. Not something you could wear but more of something you would hang somewhere. Then they splash some water on it/our hands as part of the greeting. We were then directed to our seats and waited for the rest of the boat to board and head out.

They brought the food out in curses and there was a lot of it. Still too many veggies for me but that’s ok as there was enough meat and the guy running the show was more than accommodating for both of us.

I will list food here once I have it handy.

There were acouple of ladies who danced to some Thai music while we ate.

2 hrs later and we were back at the dock and made our way to our waiting mini-van.

It was just about 11pm when we got back to our hotel. We took our showers and went to bed.

Ok so here it is, 10 months later and the BEST I’ve been able to do is a 3 month contract for work. My wife is now unemployed. So me with some casual part-time work, and even some pure cash deals, cannot afford a mortgage, let alone rent any more.

There are no jobs. Oh I see the odd posting but nothing ever comes through. My house is falling apart, leaking from the roof and the basement now. I need to redo the whole of the outside basement wall weeping tiles and I need a whole new roof. That’s somewhere in the ballpark of $30,000. Not gonna happen. I hope I don’t ever run into the previous owners…they knew about the leaking basement. They knew they couldn’t afford the $20+ grand it would take to fix it. They knew.  Screw them.

So my wife has considered going back to Korea to teach English. This time, I am going with her. I’ll finish up with the house and sell it then I’m gone too.

Taxes are getting higher (HST) and a tax for ‘it’s ok not to make recyclable products as we’ll pass along that Gov’t fee onto the consumers” eco-fee bullshit.  Screw them.

There is simply no end to the bullshit that is going on around here.

Companies hire complete idiots because they want someone who is a mindless slave and refuses to think for themselves.  Screw them.

Why the hell are bus drivers getting paid upwards of $30/hr???  How much education did they need to get the job….oh yeah, that’s right….NOTHING.  Yet the technician that is the backbone of the system that supports every single transaction behind the scenes is barely getting $25….if he’s lucky.  Most technicians have more than paid for their way…$30K in school debt isn’t uncommon.  Welcome to the unbalanced world of “unions can do whatever the hell they want”.  Screw them.

People with money won’t give anyone a chance, despite the obvious long term benefit to society and directly, the city in which they live.  Screw them.

So screw you all. If there isn’t a single, decent company out there that can’t address any of these concerns, then why do I stay? I am fully aware of what I bring to the table and that scares the hell out of managers. I see it in their eyes. I see them trying to justify their own measly little existence because they are too scared to loose their own jobs. I see complacent people who think that “nothing will happen to me, I’m too valuable”… surprise suckers, welcome to the next round of “Outsource to India!”.

I’ve seen it too many times. One department gets outsourced. As soon as that happens, all other similar departments start looking at the idea that they can save more money and some dumb-ass manager will get a nice, big, fat bonus for saving a few bucks. It doesn’t matter that customer satisfaction will tank. Especially after the brand spanking new automated telephone system that is naught but an endless maze and it takes 20mins to get to a real live person for a 2min question. This is assuming that people have the stamina to wander around such a maze at all.

Yup, if you aren’t looking for a new job now, you are going to be sooo screwed when the hammer falls.

As for me, I’m outta here. There is nothing left that will allow me to continue ANY sort of existence here. Thanks for nothing Hamilton.