Etiquette in terms of having a business in Thailand is hugely important and it can often make or break your company as well as the way you are seen amongst your staff and peers. I will tell you a personal story related to this. I once worked for a little known IT company in Bangkok and we were a small group of staff of about 10 people and the business was foreign owned. Suffice to say the boss was well versed in Thai etiquette and law and always greeted Thai staff in the official manner and always treated them with respect. Suffice to say I found working in Thailand a little strange to start with as I was not used to the way things were. Back where I am from I am used to people coming to work on time, having meetings on time and of a reasonable duration and generally getting things done according to a deadline. In Thailand though this is not always the case. Work relationships are valued in Thailand just as much as they are in the West, perhaps even more so but I could never understand why staff were constantly late and never disciplined or anything like that. When I asked my boss about this he just said that if you want to do business in Thailand then you need to learn to look the other way and accept these flaws and learn to embrace them. One time we were due to have an important meeting but the staff leader was late because it was raining. We were all waiting for the meeting to start and nobody was informed and it turned out they never came to work that day. Instead of cancelling the meeting or moving forward the meeting was rescheduled around them. Suffice to say not a lot of work was done that day and it impacted the company and the company no longer exists. This is by no means being disrespectful to Thai staff or traditions or what have you but you need to know and to be prepared and to learn to deal with such behaviour. It can often take months for work to be done that would usually take anywhere else a few days and be prepared for some near miss deadlines or all nighters because sometimes that is the only way things will ever be achieved and so you have to learn to deal with it and embrace it and my boss told me some very useful advice that is that you should always have a backup plan no matter what. I have since found that invaluable and very true when working with other companies who are doing business in Thailand but I cannot help but think that if I read this article years before I would have been more the wiser but that is the beauty of wisdom and hindsight, you always learn what you need to know after you the period of time that the knowledge was needed and that is probably what makes having a business in Thailand and life in general so interesting.