Thaifficiency

In our minds, Thai police officers are good for 2 things: setting up checkpoints to take bribes and wearing tight little uniforms.* After today's events, we will happily add being helpful to the list.

We paid a visit to the Thai police department at Siam. No, it's not because of the helmet incident of 2006 (evidence below).

Rather, we had to get our fingerprints taken for our next job at ASL to prove we don't have a criminal record. Conveniently we chose today (Superbowl Monday) to take the day off of work and get this done.

As we walked into the police department complex we were greeted by a friendly policeman who kindly (and in English) directed us to the correct building. Once inside, we were once again greeted by another friendly policeman who told us (in English) exactly what we needed to do. In case we couldn't understand him, there was a step-by-step poster explaining the details. Next to the poster was a plaque stating that they'd won an award for outstanding service in 2004. If you have any doubts as to the merit of this award, please read on.

We saw no less than 7 people and each of these wonderful souls had a specific job, including:

• helping us fill out the form
• taking our picture
• placing our fingers in the ink and then helping us press our fingers down onto the paper
• directing us to wash our hands
• looking over our form for correct documents
• stamping our form
• taking down our mailing address

I'm not going to lie...I liked being treated like a first grader. Apparently this process is made to be farang proof.

What impressed us the most was that every one of the 40 police officers in the building seemed to know the process and the entire thing took only a half hour. Added bonuses were that we didn't have to bribe anyone and we got to stare at men in tight uniforms. Just kidding, that last one was only a plus for Ryan. Never mind that we had to answer questions that would make any Western HR department cringe, including questions about our religious beliefs, our parents' names (they might come looking for you John, Barbara, Roxana, and George), and our skin color. To this last one, we were directed to write down "white," to which I almost interjected, "But what about this tan I've been working on?"

Thank you, Thai police officers! You certainly deserve the 2011 award for outstanding service, and you definitely made our day!

(A note on taking bribes....Thai police officers make at most half as much as we do per month, and they have to provide their own guns and motorcycles. If your government valued your service that little, you would also take bribes to supplement your income. It's OK, we're not judging you.)