Bureaucrats chased out of their offices

At one location, on the third floor of an 11-storey building in Soi Aree off Phaholyothin Road, 200 staff from the Consumer Protection Board are packed into a small room, where there are 10 chairs available for 40 desks.

"It's like musical chairs. Your seat is taken immediately you move away," said Nirote Jaroenprakob, a deputy director-general.

Jullayuth Hiranyawasit, ministry permanent secretary, said the rest worked on the floor and took turns using computers.

Many documents need immediate processing due to their legal nature.

He added that board staff had disguised themselves as People's Alliance for Democracy members and sneaked into Government House to retrieve documents.

However, since Friday they have been unable to do so. PAD guards spotted them.

A staff member who gave her name only as Duangporn said the PAD refused to allow out documents about investment deals or government trade contracts with foreign countries.

She said it was extremely difficult to coordinate with other agencies or private businesses because details were in the compound.

She said many staff had problems getting to the new government office at Don Mueang airport.

"Travel patterns of their whole families are changed drastically, including more time needed to get longer distances. Many tell me they have had to enrol children in new schools nearer the airport," she added.

Another staff member who called himself Somsak said he was once proud to work where he could meet prime ministers and national politicians. Now he felt like crying. "How could this have happened? The headquarters of the entire administration has been seized. This is unimaginable to me, as a government official, who now has not even a desk."

Others at agencies under the PM's Office Ministry are scattered around Bangkok. Those with the Government Spokesman's Bureau are at a printing office near Taksin Bridge. Those with the Permanent Secretary's Office and the Auditor-General now work at Phitsanulok and Manangkhasila Houses.

Work space at TOT Corp on Chaeng Wattana Road is being prepared for staff.

Jullayuth said this was the first time Government House staff had been forced out of their offices.

"Even when it was briefly seized by a military coup in 1981, before prime minister Prem Tinsulanonda fled to Korat and set up an anti-coup command there, the soldiers returned our workplaces as soon as they deemed the seizure unnecessary," he said.

With no PAD announcement on the end of its protest Jullayuth said he and some officials close to retirement would likely never again enter their workplaces of decades' standing.