21 May 2008 - Well it got it a bit heated today... so I have been sent to my office to calm down while my wife is talking with the tourist police.

Today Pepsi Samui were out front putting up a sign for the squatters. It is totally illegal as well because it is outside the line of the electricity poles (only because the squatters have built around the electricity poles). I was asking the supervisor how they can put up a sign like that and he went on a tirade about me being a farang and to go away. At one stage he wanted to see my Chanote peg which denotes where my land boundary is located so I was standing behind it and he pushed me away saying I have no rights, he got very abusive including swearing etc. I asked him for his name so I could report him but he would not give it to me ... so I took a photo.

Pepsi Supervisor

This man abused me and pushed me with his open hand while I was standing on my own property

 

As I was taking a photo one of the people who was standing with the Pepsi Samui team but who evidently works for the local village chief (Poo Yai Wit) showed me his gun and told me to go away. I was not quite quick enough to take a picture of the gun, but the outline can be seen as well as the tip of the holster (I am sure some high tech equipment from CSI could extrapolate it out to a clear image)

They did not need to push me or try to scare me by showing me a gun.  I was vocal as usual, but I was a single person and they were a group of more than 10 people.  I did not touch anything of theirs, I did not touch anyone ... I just talked.

The photos are all below; I will add some order and more comment when I calm down, just thought I would get it on the site first (in case anything happens overnight)

22 May 2008, 10.30 am

We received a visit from 2 Pepsi Thailand management staff, The District Manager and the Regional Sales Manager based out of Suratthani. They had received calls from Bangkok who had received calls from USA and had already been to see the Koh Samui staff concerned as well as the squatters and were now coming to see us - impressive speed of action. Business cards shown here:

It was a very good meeting lasting about 1 hour so just the summary points here:

The Pepsi Thailand management were very apologetic and admitted it was a stupid thing to do and totally outside corporate policy.

The Pepsi Thailand management agreed the sign was being placed in an area that was considered illegal as it was essentially on the road edge.

The Pepsi Thailand management agreed that there was a hand gun present although the person with the gun was not a Pepsi employee. (At the time, I was surrounded by as many as 12 people, other than the squatters who I know, all of the others were just a group of people involved in putting up a Pepsi sign - why was there a need to carry a gun, let alone show it to me and tell me to go away when I was standing outside my own house?)

The Pepsi Thailand management agreed that there was no excuse for a gun being shown at all.

The Pepsi Thailand management stated that the supervisor evidently had been told lies by the squatters but should not have pushed me.

The Pepsi Thailand managers stated that they are going to transfer the installation crew to another location (we pointed out that we did not want them fired as then we would feel less safe as it could cause personal grief to the crew ... they were aggressive once, maybe they would do so again).

The Pepsi Thailand management offered to get the staff to come and apologise in person, but we realise this is quite a big "face" issue and stated that we were not requiring that. We appreciated the fact that Pepsi Management came and apologised in person so quickly after the event.

The Pepsi Thailand management feel they are stuck in the middle - they said that if they take away the sign and the support of the bar then the squatters might get angry at them. We pointed out that they must be lucky to sell 5 cans a day so cannot see the value to Pepsi of getting into such a large dispute.

The Pepsi Thailand management asked us not to go and write a police report as that would take it out of their hands (we did talk with the police but did not go to the station and lodge a formal complaint ... yet). We stated that we were waiting for Poo Yai Wit to come and talk with us before we escalated it further but if nothing was positively forthcoming we would certainly go and lodge a police report. Obviously since it was involving Pepsi sign and staff, we would have to mention these in the report.

We reinforced the fact that I was not pleased to be scared while standing outside my own home, that we are a family with 3 children and it is not a pleasant feeling being pushed around and shown a gun and it resulted in me getting an extra security guard last night and not being able to sleep all night.

So we will see what happens next.

23 May 2008

A bit of a sleepless night again. While we have always known there were guns on Samui, it is a bit traumatic to actually be shown one in a threatening gesture. We'd like to think it was a one-off act of stupidity but it does leave a concern especially the way it was part of a group showing off - like a pack of kids ganging up on a weaker kid at school. What happens if they get together again and think it is fun to go and scare the farang again? We will try not to think about it.

Pepsi Thailand management were in the restaurant again at 3.30pm yesterday explaining that they had decided to remove the sign as can be seen below:

Poo Yai Wit has not come around yet so we are a bit in limbo.

25 May 2008

The whole family is still on edge and getting sleepless nights. We did go to Pang Ka beach yesterday on the other side of Koh Samui to try and get as far away as possible. But we still worry about home and the restaurant etc and end up coming back.

We cannot understand why there was a need to bring a gun along. We do not have guns, we have never been violent, we have never threatened anyone.

I know about 12 - 18 months ago Pepsi Samui was getting very aggressive in a marketing sense.

We just sell Coke in our restaurant and on Kia Ora and have some Coke signs outside (although we do sell Lipton Ice tea which is a Pepsi product, but we don't buy it directly from Pepsi). Pepsi Samui came to see us nearly every day for 2 weeks trying to get us to put in Pepsi product, offering free fridges, free signs etc. We said no thanks, with the reasons being 2-fold:

1. In the 6 years we have been open, I can only remember 2 or 3 customers actually asking for Pepsi, so see no demand for it, and

2. We are a relatively small business. Having a second product brand means we need to have twice the stock which is additional cost and additional management - only minor but certainly not worth the value of having the product for sale.

The Pepsi Samui sales team kept at my Thai staff and my Thai wife quite aggressively as it seems that Pepsi is popular with the Thais and has a stronger market share in Thailand than in the general market. But in essence Coke is the preferred brand for the majority of our customer base who are generally European so we stick with Coke.

I can see this as one reason for not liking us, but most sales people revert to trying to offer sweeteners and incentives to get the customers, I don't think it is appropriate to try and illegally put a sign in front of our place and to bring along someone with a gun. Seems more like something you would see in a gangster movie.