You nailed it right squarely on the head. I too was shocked and quite pissed the first time someone asked for one of these tips, but my wife and our accountant acted like this is how it's always been done, the gov't workers make such small salaries anything we can do as the "elite" class is good for our karma and so be it. I have to laugh at your from one desk to another comment, I too have now come to ask in every conversation with any official what would it take to have this done more quickly, amazing how fast we adapt. Yes I would believe it I too was wondering if there was something I could do to make this process happen more quickly...but then my Canadian roots kicked in and I realized it was time to queue up and get comfy.... when friends come over to visit they love all the stories about the stuff we've paid for in that manner etc and lament how they could never do that in Canada.. but of course after some reflection they realize that it would be a total breakdown and explains why about 40 families control about 85% of the wealth in Thailand.. a pretty tough cycle to break. Be careful what you wish for was coined for good reason.
In Jamaica, the way of it is expressed as, "It's now who you know, it's who knows you" and quite often the best way to be "known" was to pay someone a little extra on the side to get things done. All manner of things used to be available for a "smalls" on top of the normal fee. There was a time when government driving inspectors would fail would-be licensees wholesale, just to try to force them to pay money to get their driver's license. People began going around this by skipping the driving tests outright and just paying someone inside the tax department to get their paper applications approved. A test conducted by the Traffic Authority some years ago concluded that up to half of all public passenger vehicle drivers might be barely literate to functionally illiterate, yet somehow they all had perfectly legal driver's licenses!
Service inside government agencies where one acquired such things as passports, birth certificates, marriage certificates etc would be so terminally slow, it was not unusual to either pay someone to wait out the process for you, and usually this person knew someone on the inside to whom they would directly take the applications, and share with them part of the "fee" they charged, or else to pay someone directly inside whom you most often came to know via a "link" from someone else.
Some government reforms have made headway against this corruption, and in many instances it is no longer quite so blatant. It still exists though, it's just a great deal more subtle. And "links" are still very important in getting things done smoothly and in a reasonable timeframe here, otherwise no-one can be bothered offering you anything even remotely resembling "service".
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