Working in the Thai PR industry will kill you.

Surviving the Hell that is many a Thai Public Relations firm

Physical burnout, mental ill health, impossible workload, low pay, zero career prospects. Many quit the Thai PR industry only to find out that the appalling conditions were done to them on purpose - and with malicious intent.

For anyone considering moving to Thailand to work, a study of the tricks and traps used by some Thai public relations companies against their own staff serves as an important warning for expats considering taking creative agency jobs (or any job) just to get a work permit and visa in the Land of Smiles.

There is a common sequence of abuse that many who work long-term for small Thai companies and especially Bangkok media agencies report as being known occurrences that push employees to the brink - and with intention.

Below is a curation of contributed experiences, leading to the realization as to how some of these sweatshops operate. And it's not pretty...

14 Ways some Thai PR companies and other firms commonly abuse Foreign Employees

1. Constructive Dismissal – The Brutal Overload Tactic

When they can’t fire you outright (because you have a valid contract or work permit tied to them), they’ll try to make you quit.

This is “constructive dismissal” — death by overwork.

You’ll suddenly be flooded with impossible workloads, overlapping deadlines, and contradictory instructions. Tasks will appear without context or support, and any request for clarification will be treated as weakness. Your weekends vanish, your inbox fills with “urgent” emails at midnight, and you’ll soon feel guilty for even thinking of rest.

When you finally buckle and end up in hospital, your laptop will be brought in so you can continue to slave.

It’s not a management failure; it’s a strategy. They want you to collapse or resign so they can replace you with a cheaper foreigner desperate for a visa.

2. Gaslighting – Questioning Your Ability to Cope

After months of pressure, you start asking if it’s normal to feel overwhelmed. Cue the gaslighting.

Your Thai boss smiles and says, “Oh, but everyone works like this — you just need to adjust. It's your attitude that is the problem”

Suddenly you’re the problem. You’re too emotional, too Western, too rigid, not a team player.

They’ll use your foreignness as a shield: “Maybe you don’t understand Thai culture — we’re flexible here.”

The goal is psychological destabilization. Once you doubt your own perceptions, you’ll stop pushing back. And they know it.

3. Deflection / Confidence Undermining – “You’re Not That Busy”

Here comes the killer combo: you’re drowning in work, but they pretend you’re lazy.

You’re told, “We’re not sure what’s taking so long,” or “Other people finish faster.”

This is a subtle form of gaslighting that undermines confidence. It’s designed to make you work longer hours just to prove your worth.

In a Thai PR firm, for example, you might be managing ten clients, writing press releases, organizing influencer campaigns, and yet your director says, “But your job is only content — we're not interested in your opinion or your consulting.” That's despite you being dragged into sales meetings for years under threat of being fired if you don't.

The insult is deliberate. It keeps you hustling for validation that never comes.

4. Pool Mitigation Technique – “We’re All Busy”

When you complain about overwork, the response is communal guilt:

“We’re all busy, not just you.” Or, "I don't listen to you when you're being like this."

This “pool mitigation” tactic diffuses individual suffering into a collective fog of exhaustion. It’s an emotional trick of the narcissist — by lumping you into the “everyone’s struggling” pool, they erase your legitimate complaint.

The Thai office culture thrives on harmony and face-saving, so any individual protest is seen as selfish. You’re no longer an overworked employee; you’re a troublemaker disrupting group unity, and you should take your blue pill and be thankful for your work permit.

At least in the eyes of a brutalist narcissist who will pull out all the stops to make sure your perceived problems are not brought into the real.

5. Teflon Technique – “We Don’t Discuss Budgets Mid-Year”

Ever wonder why you’re still waiting for that raise, or why your promised bonus never materialized?

Enter the Teflon Technique — where all financial accountability slides off.

You’ll hear lines like:

“We don’t review budgets until December.”

“Let’s discuss after the next client project.”

“We don’t review budgets mid-year.”

By endlessly postponing any monetary discussion, they keep you trapped in a holding pattern. You’ll eventually give up asking. The company saves money, you save face, and nothing changes.

Meanwhile, the last you will see of the CEO is him running for the hills with his client's money sporting a skintight triathlon leotard and four divorce papers, such is their inability to think about anything other than their own greedy ego.

6. Closed Ear Tactic – “When You Complain Like This…”

If you ever raise concerns about ethics, pay, or mental health, the tone shifts.

You’ll hear something like:

“When you complain like this, it makes people uncomfortable.”

That phrase — polite yet chilling — means your feedback will never be welcome again.

The “closed ear” tactic is how Thai owners neutralizes dissent while appearing calm and reasonable. They’ll nod, smile, and then quietly blacklist you internally. You’ll notice fewer invitations to meetings, fewer updates, and your authority quietly evaporates.

You stop being put on a pedestal and idolized because you've outlived your usefulness now the company is of a certain size and you can be replaced by another foreigner keen to stay in Thailand.

7. Breach of Contract Ruse

You think your contract protects you. It doesn’t.

Small Thai companies (especially PR or marketing outfits) often use template contracts that violate labor law but look official. When things go wrong, they’ll flip the script and claim you breached the agreement.

Common tricks include:

Saying your work permit only covers “marketing,” but you “illegally” worked on “sales.”

Accusing you of damaging “client relations” without evidence.

Claiming your freelance side projects breached “company loyalty.”

Their goal isn’t to win in court — it’s to scare you into quitting before they have to pay severance under the law for their unethical labor practices.

8. Out-of-Hours Calls – Overtime Abuse

If you’re in PR or digital marketing, expect 11 p.m. Line messages about “client panic.”

Thai agencies are notorious for out-of-hours work culture — partly because clients treat agencies as servants, and partly because responsible managers are afraid to say no. Unfortunately, this fear rolls downhill.

You’ll be called on weekends for events, or asked to “help out” with client dinners. Or asked to attend media events posing as a journalist as they are under the event KPI. Refuse, and you’ll be labeled “not committed.” Agree, and you’ll burn out.

Either way, there’s no overtime pay — because you’re on a “fixed salary,” remember?

Amazingly, you will have this happen even as an unpaid intern or trialist. It's common for 20+ year old agencies in Bangkok to have a workforce that is over 30% non-salaried - think yourself lucky you get to work for such an illustrious firm. Don't be surprised when your Uni thesis is presented to the client as the agency's own work, in exchange for a 36,000 EUR event retainer. For them.

9. Ego Positioning – The Insubordination Threat

When they can’t outwork you, they’ll out-rank you.

In Thai business culture, “seniority” often trumps competence. If you question a bad idea or point out a flaw in strategy, they’ll reframe it as disrespect.

“You’re being insubordinate.”

“You shouldn’t talk to the client that way.”

“You’re not senior enough to decide that.”

This ego-based hierarchy protects weak leadership and ensures no real progress ever happens. Foreigners who speak plainly or take initiative are punished — not for being wrong, but for being right too soon.

All the while looking down on you from behind a white wig, while sitting on a towering throne made of fine gold and the ground-up dust of intern's bones.

10. Flog a Dead Horse Stratagem – Even During Hospital Visits

Even when you’re visibly unwell, they’ll push you to “just finish one more task.”

It’s not unusual to see foreigners answering client emails from hospital beds, IV drip in arm, because their boss demanded updates “before tomorrow’s event.”

This “flog dead horse” stratagem disguises exploitation as admiration:

“You’re such a team player!”

Don’t be fooled. They’re not praising you — they’re normalizing abuse.

11. Maimed Animal Strategy – Cruel to be Kind ('Just Put it Down')

This one’s dark, and sadly, real.

When management wants you gone but can’t fire you directly, they deploy a four-pronged strategy — the “4 maims”:

Starve the hungry animal – cut your resources or isolate you from clients.

Beat the wounded animal – assign impossible workloads or public criticism.

Poison the weak animal – turn colleagues against you with gossip.

Kill the terminally broken animal – claim “performance/attitude issues” and terminate you quietly.

The “terminally broken” metaphor comes from how they frame your removal:

“We had to cut out a cancer in the team.”

They poison your reputation before you even leave — ensuring you won’t find another local employer willing to sponsor your visa.

12. Client Contract Malpractice – Making You Culpable

This is one of the dirtiest tricks in Thai PR: making the foreigner legally or operationally responsible for client mismanagement. Or they will add new roles to which you never agreed and tell staff in meetings you have kindly volunteered to do it - albeit with a gun to your head.

You’ll be CC’d on financial correspondence, or asked to “liaise” on an account that’s already in trouble. Later, when the client complains, you’re the scapegoat. This happens often to Thai account managers also; the CEO will always fire a staff member if a client asks for it, because the retainer value is many multiples of any backpay they have to cover at termination.

Sometimes, they’ll even have you sign documents without explaining the Thai text — effectively shifting liability onto your name.

Always read what you sign, take a copy on your phone as you will never see the employment contract again, and never agree to “handle” accounts, tasks, or external work not explicitly in your job description.

13. Refusal to Put Anything in Writing – No Record, No Law

Thailand’s labor system leans heavily on written evidence. And unethical companies know this.

When you ask for clarification in writing — about pay, leave, or policy — they’ll insist on a face-to-face talk. “No need to email — we’ll just discuss,” they say. A friendly informal chat.

That’s deliberate. Verbal conversations leave no record, no proof, and no legal trail.

If you push too hard, they’ll accuse you of being “untrusting.” But remember: trust is not policy. Documentation is.

14. The Tobacco Industry Scam – The Four Dogs / My Dog Doesn’t Bite (also the brainchild of a PR company)

When cornered, certain Thai companies follow the same script the global tobacco industry perfected: deny, deflect, delay, and distort. It’s the corporate version of:

“My dog doesn’t bite. My dog does bite, but it didn’t bite you. My dog bit you, but did no harm. My dog bit you and harmed you, but it was your fault.”

That’s how they handle internal abuse or malpractice complaints.

When you first raise an issue — unpaid overtime, visa irregularities, client misrepresentation — they’ll start with flat denial:

“That’s impossible, we’d never do that.”

Then comes minimization:

“Yes, but that wasn’t really a problem — you misunderstood.”

Next, damage control:

“Maybe it happened, but it wasn’t serious.”

Then blame reversal:

“If you’d followed procedure, this wouldn’t have occurred.”

Finally, they’ll moralize your exhaustion:

“We all deal with stress — you just need to be more professional (accepting) about it.”

By the end, you’re exhausted, confused, and half-convinced it really was your fault (more gaslighting). Meanwhile, management walks away clean, just like the cigarette executives who insisted their product was harmless — even as the smoke filled the room.

This tactic isn’t just denial; it’s gradual erosion of accountability. Each stage buys them time until you either give up complaining or ready to leave the country the day you quit.

Conclusion - Key Takeaway for anyone considering doing agency work in Thailand

Never go into a verbal meeting where you are being given any sort of reprimand for performance or attitude. Be wary if it's just you and the company owner in the room; this is irregular, and they are likely hiding contract malpractice. Say that you will record the conversation for your own reference at a later date. If they refuse, you have just forecast constructive dismissal.

Always keep a copy of your employment contract. In the PR industry, this is usually just a couple of sheets of paper, kept intently loose as possible to hedge as much legal wiggle room and abuse scope in the agency's favor as possible.

You rely on the employer for work permit, but that does not mean you have to suffer structural violence or contract abuse. It does not mean you have to suffer human trafficking under threat of being fired (lots of external events in PR that you haven't signed up for or get paid for).

And always, always, ... if you are told the employer is unhappy with your attitude or some other non-quantifiable and they are changing your areas of responsibility or working location or condition, you ask for it in writing.

If the answer is, "I'm your boss you have to do what I say," then you are already in the trap of a criminally-run sweatshop. You should take the advice of a HR lawyer at this point, because all of the hard work you've done over the last few years, in growing the company through your unwavering hard work and covering for the CEO's lies, indiscretions and client subterfuge, will not make any difference to an egoistic psychopath with nothing but money on their mind, plus a desire to see you hurt as much as possible to show what little power you have while you depend on them for a work permit.

So don't.

Final Thoughts ...

Not every Thai company (or every Thailand-based comms agency) is exploitative, of course. There are professional, ethical employers who treat foreign staff with fairness and respect. Large corporates are nearly all a safe bet. But small agencies — especially those run by Western owners obsessed with image and profit — often use foreigners as workhorses to support an unfair volume of total work, and sometimes only as props: a Western face for client credibility, easily replaced even before the visa paperwork expires should they rear up and ask for fairness (after however many years of being subjugated and exploited in an unending conveyor belt of unrewarding toil).

So, if you’re planning to work in Thailand, don’t just look at the job title or WP. Look deeper: at the structure, the culture, and the patterns of how they treat people. Ask former employees or add LinkedIn contacts, people who do or have worked in the industry you are looking at.

Remember: a work permit isn’t a favor they’re doing for you. It’s your legal right — and your shield against becoming another silent casualty in Thailand’s glittering, smiling workforce.