Everything Is Nothing

The big event is a calendar leaf away. But still no hustle and bustle from the removal of hands on the table. Either they are just calm and graceful under pressure or they simply don’t care.

If they are like the first ones, then it’s a sign of maturity. The perfect formula to win a game is to never lose composure, no matter what. It’s good to have someone brewing something and surprise you at the end. If they are like the other ones, then it’s a sign of management gone wrong.

In an organisation, everybody should be good at recognising signals of inefficiency, mismanagement, and mediocre performance.

What if the top management is disconnected? Can we blame the big bosses? Do they really know what is going on? What if the middle managers are the ones not doing their part and they are just “working” in a nearby café?

Middle Manager (MM) A doesn’t care if an employee resigns because of indirect contact. The other Middle Managers do not care either because they are working on Task A-Z. The Top Manager “manages” everyone; talk about giving orders and checking outputs of rank and file employees and middle managers. So if I resign, nobody would care.

When Employee AA did not renew her contract, Middle Manager F requested a meeting with the Top Manager and all Middle Managers. During the meeting, Middle Manager F voiced out that Employee AA, who is in-charge of Task No. 1, is about to resign. Well, they did not have the time to check on the status of employees before they even started considering non-renewal of their contracts.

Talk about a work environment revolving around the mantra “Everything is nothing until it becomes personal.”

All In A Day’s Work

It’s mid-year and requests to submit performance reports are raining.

I received a request to fill-out a form. When I opened the file, I found out that I only have “viewing” access, thus, I cannot edit the file. When I told the sender that I can only view the file, I got a “you should have requested access”. I am asked to provide and indicate information in a file that can only be accessed or edited upon request.

I was asked to provide information, but I have to request access in order to provide the needed information? What is the logic? I learned that access should be requested to track those who will edit. But then again, they asked me to provide information that should be indicated in the given blank sheet.

This is a prime example to illustrate what the general public say about government service or government agencies or government employees. That government is inefficient. As a government employee, I get offended by such statement. I am always doing my best to provide a good service to people, to give them something they can be proud of. But it is disheartening when your co-government employees are giving the best examples of inefficient government service.

We are not even talking about trust yet. And trust is critical in government service. The people entrusted their lives to government officials and workers, whom they think can guide and assist them in all facets of development. If one government employee cannot trust another government employee, then there is definitely wrong with the way we serve the people.

The online sheet where we would be indicating the needed and requested information was sent to a “known” group of employees. It has several subsheets or tabs assigned per member of the “known” group. Did they think that a member of the “known” group would sabotage or destroy the work or the information provided by the other member in the other subsheet? If I would get a “Yes!”, then I am greatly diminished. We trust them but they don’t trust us. We celebrated our Golden Jubilee years ago, but it is apparent that we have yet to reach the level of maturity where employees do not pull each other back to the ground.

It is saddening that the oath of government employees we recite during a Flag Ceremony is only good for memorisation. And that it has no place at all in a day’s work.

No Reason For Me To Stay

This week has been bad for Facebook, at least in the Philippines. Head of government agencies are getting furious with it because of FarmVille. Majority of employees are busy planting, harvesting, gifting, plowing, collecting eggs and milk, brushing kittens, sharing gifts and compromising the work they ought to finish. This is the very reason why employees are falling in terms of their performance.

In my office, there were no restrictions. I can surf sites like Facebook and play FarmVille the whole day. After all, a government employee like me needs to go and stay in the office from 8 AM to 5 PM to work, no matter what. Until that news program aired the growing problem in government offices. This made me furious because even the 12NN to 1PM slot known as lunch break was not spared from the restrictions. Wait…. that’s not even the worse, Facebook is now banned in the office forever!!

Pathetic you may call me, but being free to access Facebook and its attached applications are the only reason I opted not to accept job offers with better salary and compensation package from other agencies. Now that the wall against the social networking site has been elevated in my place of work, I have also commenced re-routing my career path.