“Even on Sundays, John still reports for work to take advantage of overtime (pay). Anyway, they’ll just sit there and do nothing. That’s how it is in government offices.” Thus said an acquaintance while talking with my mom years ago, referring to her son who used to work in another department of the same company where I am employed for more than 3 years now.
As far as I’ve known John, he’s diligent, goal-oriented and intellectual so it’s not like him to be the sloppy employee you might think he is even if that statement came from his mother. Yet, we may reasonably assume that the double pay was really among his motivations for working until Sundays.
I am not sure whether it is due to my sensitivity inherent as a Cancerian or it’s simply because I’m employed in the civil service that’s why such negative perceptions affect me somehow. However, it would be dishonesty should I deny the flaws and negligence of public offices and employees. For several times, I too had been annoyed waiting in long lines of government offices which should not have been only if the people concerned have realized more efficient procedure to facilitate business. Sometimes also you are in the convenience of your home or office yet it can get equally frustrating to expect when you shall receive feedback on the status of your transaction. I may not exactly know what “unavoidable circumstances” causes the delay of their services but I believe it would not take an Einsteinian IQ to revise a slow-paced system. Matter-of-factly sometimes practical brainstorming and common sense is all it would take to consider scenarios and identify the weak and maybe redundant parts of the process and apply appropriate revisions to make business easier. Further, I’d be deceiving my self should I deny that in the span of my employment, not once have I had a gut feeling or at least heard of something anomalous in our local offices. It is foolishness to claim that 100% of our colleagues were hired based solely on their competence and attitude. And no matter how seldom I attend to personal matters and charge my cell phone during office hours, I am guilty of violating office rules if not yet classified as corruption.
Corruption – exactly the word that is so commonly associated with our government that it could have replaced Manila as the capital of our country.
The civil service has been my job since I became of legal working age hence my professional motivation could be greatly attributed to it. The keen observer that I am, I have seen and experienced the joys and pains of being a public employee and in the span of my stay, each day gives me realizations that serves as antidotes to the disheartening perception on the system I am part of. Although these are but specks which could hardly be noticed, I’m glad to still find a few in our agency.
First of these things is the dedication of my fellow civil servants to jobs with modest pay vis-a-vis their qualifications. I’ve been told that blogging rules include not mentioning anything about salaries but to support my point, I am citing our senior IT personnel for instance. With their skills and experience fortified with trainings they had undergone, rational and tempting career opportunities for them abound. Yet here they are striving to perform to their duties and make ends meet with their salaries which are tens of thousands short of what people in the same profession earn in private firms. It may be easy for us to shrug this off and say they chose to stay despite having the option to work for employers which could pay them substantially but some simply could not afford to risk the security of their current careers for various and valid reasons. I have a high regard for most of my co-workers who, over a decade ago, started in the company as volunteers perhaps only holding to the hope of securing the jobs they now have.
I believe that being a [truly qualified] public employee requires equally rigid if not more effort. To get an entry level technical position, we got to pass the eligibility examination or at least earn a skill certification. In well-off private companies, you go up the corporate ladder or get incentives when you exceed the standard quota – not the case in a public office. Performance seems to be a secondary criterion for a promotion. To hold a position equivalent to senior supervisor, one must have completed a master’s degree while to be appointed permanent as a manager is either to hold a doctorate or earn an Executive Eligibility, or have both.
Dedication would also imply professional flexibility. This I realized more during when conservation measures were imposed a couple of years ago and among the strategies taken was manpower control by having stiffer criteria in hiring personnel even in renewing contractual employees. Since then, we were compelled to operate understaffed especially that election ban is regulated every election period and we cannot hire additional manpower thus we resort to maximizing our skills even if this means performing the functions of 3 persons but again the salary of one.
Working here also taught us to be resourceful. Often, budget for our operations ends up quite small yet the vouching process could be detestable. And in the end, if the efforts to justify the significance of the acquisition simply did not work or if funds really were insufficient for until an indefinite time, then there’s nothing we could do but make use of our existing resources/equipment to the greatest extent until it is all consumed or becomes completely unusable. For instance, not once had we experienced the absurdity of being in an IT Department with about 30 staff sharing only two printers because we ran out of toner supply yet purchase is “being processed”.
Eventually, some of us became generous due to such instances. Sometimes, we would rather purchase office supplies with our own money than rely to the unreasonably lengthy process of requesting for finance. My officemate and friend often commits this act of charity especially when the item is very much needed within at most 3 days. Just recently, it took almost three weeks for us to purchase 2 reams of paper and few small locks by petty cash. We started with Stock Availability and Purchase Request, then canvassed from vendors, has had budget utilization approved before petty cash was issued. Fact is, that isn’t the end of it. It could have sufficed to submit the official receipts but we still had to show the actual purchases to the Supply Department for acceptance certification. I think this is the effect of the corruption-tainted image of the government hence the strict regulatory measures. Nonetheless, it is tedious.
The overtime pay is now obsolete in our company yet here we are some thousand civil servants still giving extra hours if needed despite some admitted disappointments arising occasionally.
Again, this is not to polish the negative impression that most Filipinos has on or to white-wash the existing flaws of the system in government agencies neither am I trying to convince anybody that we are very responsible workers. Rather, I am hoping to have shone a different light over public employees and although it may not be bright enough to be noticed but somehow I wish with this flicker, we could catch a glimpse of people who, as our HR Department refer to as “A Breed Apart”. MGGM
Originally, this article was intended to be written in early May with relevance to the Philippine Labor Day but I was occupied with a lot of work since the past month and that include that 3 weeks of purchasing the copy paper and the locks. Today is May 31 but I believe there is no such thing as “too late” when you want to uplift something and show appreciation to people hence I persevered to get this published tonight. Name of person involved was intentionally changed to protect reputation
No comments:
Post a Comment