Maiyuu the baker spreads his wings

Maiyuu has contacted two cafes which take in bakery products from outside for sale.

He will take in a sample of baking for the owner of each place to try. Both are close to where we live.

‘I will probably make two different types: a dry or crunchy product, such as buttercake, and a moist one which needs refrigeration, such as the berry cream cake [see pictures],’ he said this morning, as he mused over what to make for them to try.

One shop takes in baking from many suppliers, mainly big companies.

‘That could be a good selling point for you – the fact that yours is home-made, not factory-produced,’ I said.

‘Thais aren’t interested in that. They care about the price,’ said Maiyuu.

One of the stores has no fridge, so he would have to sell dry products to that one. He would sell on the basis of consignment, or kai fak (ขายฝาก), where he has to take the loss if the owner fails to sell any of his goods.

Few buyers are interested in the alternative, song kai (ส่งขาย) where they buy the goods and take on the risk themselves if they fail to sell.

Bakery job hunt, stretchy man delight

Maiyuu is looking for shops which might like to offer his bakery for sale.

He says he is sick of sitting at home all day, cooking for me and friends, so why not bake for money instead?

When I walked into his room a moment ago, he was taking down details from one place, which he found at a job search website. I wish him luck.

 
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I fancy a young man in the condo office with a long, stretchy body like a snake; another guy with broad shoulders who sells noodles next to the 7-11 in the slum area; and yet another young man who sells at the 7-11 store itself.

All are tallish, one is probably gay. I am spoilt for choice.

The noodles guy, wearing a university or technical college uniform, turns up some days to help his sister run the place.

The 7-11 guy is seldom there when I visit, perhaps just once a week. He knows I like looking, and the last couple of times has quickly averted his gaze. Once a gay hopeful, now consigned to the straight bin.

The stretchy man in the office, meanwhile, is there every day.

I steal looks at him daily, too, though I know my imagination would settle more quickly if I stopped.

Self-discipline is called for, I tell myself. Today I looked at him just the once.

Dejected boyfriend, lonely cafe, unloved staff vacancy

I am going home to visit my family next month, but Maiyuu is worried I won’t come back.

Since we argued a few days ago about money, he has seemed less confident than usual.

He rarely bothers to look ‘cheery’ as such, but his spirits appear to have taken a dive.

‘Why would you come back? You will probably stay over there,’ he said bitterly.

I pressure him to supplement our income by finding work. However, most of the suggestions I offer fail to draw his interest.

I visited a cafe in the tourist district where we live yesterday. I took farang C along for company, while the boyfriend stayed at home.

The cafe, open just a few months, makes its own Danish-style baking.

It has seating for perhaps 10, so the staff of two would not be overwhelmed even when it does get busy.

I spoke to the staff briefly. The owner, who was absent, has one other cafe bearing his name in Pin Khlao, with a third cafe, in Lat Phrao, about to open.

A sign on the window advertises a staff vacancy.

‘We make our own bakery products, in fact do everything ourselves,’ one young woman told us. The owner was absent.

Farang C, who ordered his lunch there, tucked into a toastie and soup. ‘It’s just like food from home,’ he said approvingly.

The place offers home delivery, but has yet to arrange a takeaway menu. All bakery produce is wrapped individually, with a sticker carrying the shop name.

‘If they added the shop address and phone number, they could offer their bakery items for sale in other shops,’ I told farang C.

Back at home, I gave Maiyuu the details. He said he knows the place. The shop is too quiet, he said. If he took a job there, he’d be sitting around all day doing nothing.

‘I do not stay cooped up at home either. But nor do I want to take a job only to have to quit a few days later when it fails to suit me,’ he said.

When I met Maiyuu nine years ago, he was working in a city cafe. He is right: the work can be hard, and unrewarding.

I would rather he found an outlet for his cooking talents rather than toil away serving customers.

However, a course in bakery or cooking, for which savings would be needed, would give him a formal qualification, which he could use to start his own bakery or cooking business.

I can only visit so many of these silly places – and cafes really are silly places – in the hope of finding some shop where Maiyuu is willing to work.

I attempted to put Maiyuu's fears to rest that I will not return from overseas, despite his reluctance to get a job.

‘We've been together this long, so of course I will come back. If we love each other, we just can’t walk away,’ I said.

Fellow Thai-seating sufferer

I didn’t know my problems with office seating were shared by others here, but I am not surprised.

We bought a locally-made office chair for the home computer the other day. It has wheels, but the seat reclines, hurting my legs and my back.

The Thais who make such things appear to think their occupants will be tiny, and will enjoy reclining rather than sitting forward, even though, in most cases, they may have to use it in front of a computer.

If I am sitting at a computer for hours, the chair must be comfortable, adaptable, and preferably with coasters (wheels) as well.

It's new, so I will have to put up with it, but that doesn't make it any easier.

Regular reader Yraen has encountered similar problems with Thai-made office seating...

‘It seems the basic proposition is that one should weigh less than 75Kg and that one should be semi-reclined in the chair (despite it being built for work, allegedly).

'The other basic criteria appears to be that the seat should be so hard that one MUST stand up every 4-5 minutes to allow blood-flow and feeling to return to one's b u m and legs.

'My only solution was to go around some of the stores, try out lots of different chairs then buy one that suited me. It cost a bit more but I can now get to spend a reasonable amount of time at the PC.' 

I have a similar problem with the primitive seating at work.

My last company, in the West, employed an occupational health nurse, who knew her ergonomics. She instructed us how to sit correctly in front of the computer to avoid occupational overuse problems, such as repetitive strain injury, a bad back, sore shoulders...

She would tour the office, inspecting our seating posture, and check whether the desk and computer height was right for our height and shape.

Does this country even know about occupational health nursing?

I can't recall the last time my employer bought us new seating or desks at work.

The desk is too low for my height, and the chair can be moved upwards only so far.

I prop up my flimsy keyboard on books and a door snake, tilted up at an angle, so my fingers can hit the keys more accurately.

I can raise or lower the part of my desk where the keyboard sits, but not much. Occasionally I put a book under the VDU as well.

If these measures fail I can stick my knees under the part of my desk where the keyboard sits, and lift my legs, elevating it further. It’s primitive, but that’s the best I can do.

I am amazed more staff do not call in sick with RSI, as we called it in my day. No one makes a fuss, but I am not surprised. My workplace has little history of workers taking action to assert their rights. We have a staff union, but I never hear from them.

We go into work for as long as we are happy or able. When we get sick of it or find something better, we leave.

Pain in the back, hawking bakery

Maiyuu's workaround for a hard seat 1

We have bought new office seating for my home computer. I sat on the old one too hard, and it broke...first one plastic leg, then another.

The new seat has a plastic bowl for parking my bottom, and a splay-legged arrangement underneath. It is set at a silly, fixed angle: the bowl is tilted backwards rather than forwards, which pinches the underside of my legs, and hurts my back.

No one wants to hear this, I know. But it upsets me, as I spent B1500 on the chair, and the thing is next to useless.

Maiyuu's workaround for a hard seat 2

For years, I took a painful 40-minute bus trip to work in central Bangkok from the wilds of Thon Buri.

The seats in the German-made bus were the same: set too high, and tilted backwards, which hurt the legs.

Now, my old seat nightmare is back again.

Maiyuu and I have tried out various cushion arrangements to ease the pain of sitting on the thing, but nothing works.

We strapped a cushion to the thing, to help prop me forward (see picture).

That was no good, so I swapped the new chair for one we use on the balcony.

This one was also tilted too far back. For padding, we stuffed two cushions into an old woollen vest.

When propped up on the seat (see picture), it looks as if a person is sitting in it.

That one was no good either. Now I am using a chair which normally sits at the dining table. It is also no good for typing purposes or office work (I can’t adjust the height, or tilt it forwards), but it will have to do.

I have given the new office chair to Maiyuu, who has no problem with it. ‘It doesn’t hurt my back, or my legs,’ he said happily.

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Maiyuu has offered to supplement our income by looking for baking work in the tourist area close to our place. One shop has just opened. Run by a European, it sells Danish-style bakery.

In the next day or so I will pay a visit, and ask the staff if they would like to buy in bakery from a new supplier (us).

Maiyuu wasted several hours today looking for work on the internet: the type of labour where you get paid for clicking aimlessly on websites.

‘You will never make money doing that. Why not focus on something you are good at, such as baking,’ I said.

I doubt Thais could bring themselves to look for work in the way we do in the West. If I was really keen, I would walk the streets, asking at restaurants or eateries if they have vacancies. Thais, however, have as sturdy sense of entitlement. They'd rather just starve.

I have offered to look for him instead.

I might copy pictures of some of his cooking and bakery treats on to a memory stick. Then, as I do the rounds of shops around here (two or three should be enough humiliation for one day, I expect) I can show the boss some examples of his creative work in the kitchen. If a shopowner is interested, he can get in touch.

It never works that way, of course. If Maiyuu as the job seeker is interested, he should make contact with the shop himself, not wait for a call from his would-be employer.

I give the job-search experiment 24 hours before I retreat into failure.