Eight Tidbits About Opening a Home Business in Thailand: An Anecdotal Lesson

1. For those moments when your home is in use of the business, you will lose your sanctuary, your 'homey' feeling as people pee on your toilet seat and call your dog 'stupid.'

2. You will, in the end, lose money, and more than you were expecting. Payments to be made on the first of the month are made somewhere towards the end, right when another payment is due, and the client will complain about how much of their money you are taking, and then take it to be their purgative to be late with the next month. I was supposed to collect over 40,000 baht today, and I collected 1,250 baht. The rest will 'pay soon.'

3. In the event that you should arrange a strict payment schedule, you will find your clients pulling fast ones, such as dropping their little ones off when you are in the shower, making it impossible to request the two month late payments, and then sending the babysitter to pick up the kids, an hour late, nonetheless, who happens to speak very little central Thai (which I can speak) and insists on conversing in Isarn dialect.

4. Upon opening a home business, it is essential that you open a restaurant as well. Thais cannot go two hours without eating no matter what snacks you buy for them. I found myself making 'mama' today (noodles) during the kids' breaks, as they are hungry and their parents didn't feed them. When the noodles were done, they wanted ice cream, water, juice and milk. The fee to the parents for raiding my kitchen? Nothing.

5. Opening a home business will only make complications with everyone you know, taking away free time, preventing friends from coming over, as they know you have business going on, and your home will soon become a lonely boring place for people to take advantage of you.

6. Do no favours. This will only dig you into a hole that will force you to give favours to everyone in your area, and they will all ask a little more, for a little less, and on their schedule. When first opening this home teaching business, I took on a family which has been nothing but misery since...Making 50 page books for the kids to help them pass their exams, and then getting hell when they only got 85%, as obviously, I didn't do my fair share. The mother has sat in on lessons, watched my teaching and commented on things like my handwriting and perfume, and then chews me out over the phone for wanting to cut down hours. That is what I have to look forward to in the morning.

7. Your spouse/partner will start to hate you. While the increase cash flow is nice, there is no reason to put this stress on a relationship. After all, they live in the same house too, right? When the dog throws up on the floor and he doesn't clean it up, you shout at him, the kids cover their mouths and start to gag, and you find yourself going to sneak a breather in the bathroom.

8. You will lose your sanity. Every waking moment you will be thinking about how to make things better, how to fix the above issues, and you will wake up to find yourself, essentially, in your office, never really getting away.

Something's gotta change. We are rewriting our contract with our clients at this moment.