One of my old works. Let's put it down for you to read for fun.
era of unemployment
In a small, compact rental room Sommai and his close friend lay silently playing on their cell phones for more than a week as they waited for good news from dozens of companies to which they had applied, but no response. This causes unemployed people like them to try to spend sparingly, but their savings continue to deplete.
And it was almost running out, making both of them feel discouraged and hopeless...
Sommai is a twenty-seven year old young man. His background is from Bo Thong District, but his father sent him to study at a university in the city. Even though the private university tuition is quite expensive, his father is willing to pay in the hope. To see his son graduate and have a job that is more stable than himself, but it is a pity that Sommai was unable to meet those expectations because Thailand is entering an era with the highest unemployment rate. In history!
In fact, it's not only in Thailand. But different countries All over the world are experiencing similar problems.
Going back several decades to around 2017, Thailand was once known as the country with the lowest unemployment rate in the world, causing global institutions like Bloomberg to rank Thailand as the country with the least suffering. for many years in a row, coupled with the fact that Thailand at that time was moving towards being a completely aging society (
AgedSociety)
With this, experts are predicting that Thailand's unemployment rate will remain this low for many decades to come. It is also worrying that Thailand will have a labor shortage in the future because there is a small population of children and teenagers. As people become old, the government must try to issue policies to prevent such problems, such as extending the retirement age to 65 years, etc.
This labor shortage has been a national problem for some time. But after several decades have passed As various technologies develop, humans can use machines to help with various tasks, making it possible to reduce the use of labor, such as work in an industrial factory that used to require hundreds of workers. When this era arrived, machines were used as the main work, with only a few foremen taking care of the machines' operation.
Work like an operator who has to listen to various problems from customers who called in When it comes to this era, artificial intelligence systems can talk and interact like humans, so there is no need for humans to do this work anymore, even for jobs that require skills and abilities like driving a taxi. When it comes to this era, every car It has an artificial intelligence system that can drive itself and has accident statistics that are tens of times lower than driving by humans. As a result, these driverless taxis can take away all the jobs of taxi drivers.
When Sommai graduated, various jobs were already very difficult to find. Due to his poor grades, the company he applied to chose to accept other applicants. with a better profile Finally, after failing to apply for jobs dozens of times, Sommai decided to apply to be a salesperson at a convenience store. Even though the income was not much, he thought it was better than being unemployed. Working at a convenience store gave him I became close with a co-worker and decided to rent a room together to reduce expenses and have lived together until now.
For the five years that Sommai and his friends worked in a convenience store, the store gave them a salary increase once a year. Even though it wasn't much, it gave Sommai the encouragement to continue working at this job. But one day, The manager told him that the store would bring in new technology to use as a system to detect criminals who came to steal things or cause disturbances.
It uses closed-circuit television cameras to scan the faces of everyone who enters the store if anyone takes anything out without paying. The system will send a picture of the criminal's face to the police system, which will be able to immediately check and know the name and address of the offender from the public database, thus eliminating the need for a store attendant anymore (as for charging the machine. Cashiers have long been able to work on their own)
Because of this, only a few months later Sommai and his friends became unemployed like today.
“How much money do you have left, Mai?” his friend asked as they sat together eating instant noodles.
“Over a thousand,” Sommai replied shortly.
“So, if I don't get a job this month, I have to move out?”
“Well, it must be like that.”
“So what are you going to do? Are you going back to your old house?”
Sommai was silent for a while. The truth is that he doesn't have an old house. His father has been working as a rubber tapper for the plantation owner since the time he was not born, so he lives in the worker's house that the plantation owner built for him. He himself used to live there before. I would have moved to the city to study at university many years ago, but now my father has passed away. His father's room would probably belong to someone else, so he would have no home to return to. However, the rubber plantation seemed to be his last resort at this time.
“Um, probably have to go back and tap rubber there.”
“Do you have a rubber plantation at your house? Take me and do it with you.”
“Just hired him to do the cutting. You'll have to ask the garden owner. I don't know if they'll accept it or not. These days, it's even more difficult to find work."
“Let's go talk first. In any case, it's better than dying here.”
"um"
“Let's try inviting Ai Ton and Ai Wut too. In case they are interested in seeing that they are losing their jobs as well.”
“Um, that's good.”
The next morning, the four men took a minibus out of Chonburi to Bo Thong District. While traveling, Sommai thought about his childhood. During the time he lived with his father in a rubber tapper's house, his father tried to tell him to study hard. He will graduate and become a wealthy businessman like the owner of a plantation.
But Sommai didn't care, he just played with his friends all day, not interested in studying. Finally, when he finished Mathayom 6, he was unable to take the entrance exam for a public university, but his father agreed to take out the last sum of money to send him to study at a private university, which Sommai himself did not know that his father actually had one. There was not enough money to send him to school until the end of his 4th year. I had to ask the garden owner to help me pay off the shortfall, amounting to tens of thousands of baht.
By this time, Sommai had just realized how hard money was. His father must have worked really hard to be able to save up money to send him to an expensive university. Perhaps his father was seriously ill and died. In the fifties, it may have been the result of hard work (each rubber tapping worker will have different incomes depending on how diligently tapping the latex). When looking back and looking Himself now makes him feel so guilty and ashamed that it is difficult to face the people he used to know, whether it be the plantation owner or the rubber tappers who were close to his father. But if he didn't come back to He didn't know how to continue living his life, no matter how embarrassed he was, he just had to give in and come back.
Sommai got out of the minibus and walked leading his friends. Enter the rubber plantation that he is familiar with. He walked past the house he had lived in when he was a child. The atmosphere in the house was quiet. He understood that the workers were probably sleeping because they had to tap rubber until the early hours of the morning. He brought his friends.
Walked all the way to Achalerm's house. The owner of this fifty rai rubber plantation called after him for a while. Achalerm opened the door to welcome him.
“Hello, Aleum,” Sommai raised his hand in greeting. His other three friends did the same.
"Oh, hello," he greeted, "Is this Uncle Cham's son? We haven't seen each other in a long time. Come in and take a seat."
The four men walked into the house and sat down. Uncle Chalerm's wife brought glasses of water on a tray for the young men when Sommai had finished drinking. Archalem asked.
“Since Uncle Cham died, we haven't seen each other. How did you get here? What did you think of coming back here today?”
“I mean, I'm unemployed. So I would like to ask to come work at Ah Leam's garden," Sommai said straight to the point.
“Um... I don't know if you haven't been here in many years. Well, let's take a look at this.”
He said then got up and walked Sommai to the workers' house where Sommai used to live. When he opened the key, he went to look inside. Sommai learned that now it was no longer for workers to live in. Inside, the Sommai saw a type of machine about a meter tall. Below it were wheels that looked like straight tracks and a puppet with hands and arms. and has a pipe Looking at it, you can guess that it is a machine used for tapping rubber.
“Do you know what this machine is used for?” he asked.
“Is it for tapping rubber?”
“Um,” he nodded, “I've been using this machine for many years and it works very well. Just enter the command. At night, they disperse and go out to tap rubber among themselves. During the rainy season, they can also use it to fertilize rubber trees. It's really a lot more convenient.”
“How many machines like this do you have?”
“Ten machines”
“So you don't need workers anymore?”
“Um, Uncle Cham is the last generation of workers. And now I have another job and have all gone my separate ways...I've spent a lot of money on this machine. Since I got it, I haven't hired any more workers. I'm sorry.”
Sommai listened and was upset that this visit was a waste of time. When Uncle Chalerm saw this, he asked.
“By the way, you graduated from university here. Why are you still unemployed?”
“My grades aren't very good. Apply for ten places. Nowhere did he accept it.”
“Right now it's very competitive. What did you graduate from?”
“Manage the business.”
“Um, actually you should study mechanics or something like that. Nowadays there are a lot of robots and all sorts of things. The government has also said that there is a shortage of technicians, so vocational schools should open up to more students.”
“To know now is not too late,” Sommai said.
"Um..." Archalem acted thoughtfully. “Is this a good idea? I'll lend you money to study mechanics and charge only one percent interest. And when you graduate, you can work and then pay it back, is that good?”
Sommai listened and then turned to look at his friend as if asking his opinion. The four of them looked at each other and one person nodded and told Sommai to answer in the affirmative, so Sommai did so.
“It's up to Ah Lim. We are truly defenseless. If Uncle Leum didn't help us, we would probably starve to death.”
“Then tomorrow, I'll call a lawyer. You all meet here at noon. We will make a contract together.”
“Thank you very much, Alem.” The young men raised their hands in greeting, “Then we will bid farewell. I'll come again tomorrow.”
"Oh, good luck."
That afternoon, the Sommais sat and talked at a rice and curry shop not far from Archalerm's rubber plantation.
“Are we really going to borrow money for him to study? What do you guys think?” Sommai asked the three men's opinions.
“So now you want me to go back to school? Are you crazy?”
“That's right, even though you study, you have to compete for jobs when you graduate. And I'm ten years older than the young people, who would want to hire an old person to work?”
“Then why did you tell me to say yes?” Sommai asked the friend who started the idea.
“Just cut to the chase. The real thing happened tonight,” his friend said.
“What do you mean?”
“Uncle, he only lives at home with two wives, right?”
“No, you have another daughter. But today, Wednesday, I should be at school... Why? Don't tell me that..."
“Huh, he seems rich. Isn't it okay if we share some money?” His friend smiled cruelly.
"Do you want me to rob him!? It's not as easy as in the movies."
“So what? Or do you want to starve to death?”
“I think he's right. It's not easy... In the middle of the forest, just parents and children, I'm sure this uncle must have a gun.”
“What are you afraid of? I have one,” said Tonkid's friend.
"TRUE?"
"Yes, Thailand invented this cheaply, but if you shoot it, you'll die as well."
Sommai frowned tensely. "Even if you're going to kill and curse each other? Ah Liem, he helped my father a lot."
“It depends on your uncle whether you resist or not. If you don't fight, you won't die.”
Sommai still has a tense face. His friend then continued.
“Why are you thinking so much? We do it to survive. If you don't do it, do you have any other ways to survive? Or do you have any ways to earn money? And another thing, I don't think your uncle really cares about anything. What do you have? We traveled all the way to find the place. You can't just give me a little money, you don't have to make a loan contract.”
“Oh, I have money to buy ten puppets. I'm just so salty about this matter. I think you're disgusting,” another friend added.
Sommai thought about what his friend said and finally agreed to join the plan.
After returning to Ai Ton's house to get weapons, including two pistols and two large knives. Sommai then took the car back to Bo Thong District and sat to pass the time until 1 a.m. before walking nearly ten kilometers towards the rubber plantation where they had visited earlier in the day.
In the darkness, the four men heard the sound of machinery working. They saw the silhouette of a rubber-tapping robot working diligently. The robot didn't pay any attention to the Sommai at all. As soon as he finished tapping rubber from one tree, he moved to tap another tree and the Sommai walked past it without any problem.
Sommai walked to the area of the workers' house where he used to live. He couldn't help but think that if it was like before. If Achalerm still hires workers Even though people can't work as well as robots, at least they can help watch over the house. Help take care of your safety.
As they approached Uncle Chalerm's house, the four men heard the sound of a car coming from behind. When they turned to look, they saw a pickup truck with its lights off running closer, almost reaching them! And when The car turned on its headlights and shone in the faces of the Sommai men, and several men jumped out of the car and shouted.
“This is a police officer! Put down your weapons and put your hands up now!”
The Sommai men were blinded by the bright light for a moment. When they saw the four policemen pointing their guns at them in readiness, they reminded them of the news that they had often read about police shooting dead robbers. So he decided to throw away his weapons and surrender for good...
When the Sommai men were handcuffed and seated in the back of a pickup truck, Achalerm walked over and talked with the police officers.
“Thank you very much, policeman. These kids walked all the way to my house.”
“It is already my duty... But these thieves are really stupid. Didn't you know that rubber plantations these days have sensors all over the place? When someone comes in, they'll send a signal to the homeowner immediately."
“Maybe I really don't know, or else I wouldn't have come... But it's understandable. These days, work is hard to find, so many people are turning to thieves.”
“Oh, no need to feel sorry for him. These social bastards...if they really want to work honestly, the government has many vocational training centers open for teaching. It is not an excuse to turn into a thief.”
“It's true of you...”
"Well, I think you should find a security guard robot to watch over the house. In case thieves break in and we don't arrive in time, we'll have something to fight the thieves without having to risk bringing a gun and shooting them ourselves."
Achalerm listened and nodded. “It must be like that, police these days, thieves are really common.”
“Okay, then let's hurry to the police station. Let's go give a statement and make a statement. When you're done, you can hurry back to sleep.”
“Um,” Achalerm nodded and walked to drive his pickup truck to follow the police to the police station.
As a result, Sommai's life has deteriorated to the point of having to go to prison. But at least he doesn't have to worry about starving to death. Plus, while he's there, he still has the opportunity to practice his career. Maybe living in prison will be beneficial. It's the best solution for him, who knows...