The Problem With Being ‘Legal’
A friend of mine, recently emailed me with the story of his troubles after changing jobs and since reading it I’m thinking that the benefits of being legal (ie having a work permit) are few and far between. Read on for the full story.
I will describe my painful Friday afternoon trying to fix my visa issue.
This morning, the lawyer called me to tell me that the immigration officer had made a mistake with my visa when I came back from Singapore. He told me to go to Suan Phlu to fix it at the immigration headquarters.
I arrived at immigration headquarters after lunch and explained the problem for 15 minutes, the officer told me that I needed to leave the country and pay the overstay for one and a half months. I complained that I had already gotten a new visa from Singapore and that there was a mistake. He replied that he couldn’t do anything because my work permit from the previous company was not cancelled. I had to go to the
Gawwwwd, that sounds horrendous! I’ve never actually have to deal with bureaucracy in Thailand yet, but living in Germany at the moment gives me a taste of the rigid German bureaucracy.
Any ideas I had about changing jobs evaporated upon reading it.