I am working for the government for nearly five years now
and it is just recently that I realized something about the way people look at
public service employees – a city hall extension.
I can recall a number of times when people would go to me to
ask help for job placement at the local government. They would normally ask
first who referred me to the job, which I would defensively answer, ‘I applied
and got hired. I didn’t ask for anybody’s endorsement’. Sadly, a lot of people
have this misconception that if you’re working at the government, somebody must
have referred you to get in, which is not always the case. In my case, my
education was my passport to get the kind of job I have right now.
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| Sheer Skills Got Us In, No Referral -Writers |
There were also instances when people would ask for my assistance
to help a child get enrolled at the PLV (Pamantasan
ng Lungsod ng Valenzuela) even if the entrance exam was flunked or the
grade requirement was not reached. I would just advise them to draft a letter
addressed to the university president and wait for the reconsideration.
Questions would still continue even if they can’t get the guarantee from me instantaneously
that they will get what they want.
It is sometimes frustrating that you are willing to help but
you are limited on your part, and the people who tried to seek help from you
eventually gets disappointed. Sometimes I couldn’t help myself from thinking,
“I was quietly just sitting here, you would bug me, I would tell you the extent
of what I can do, you’re either lazy or clueless on how to follow procedures,
we’ll end talking, and you’ll leave disappointed at me because I wasn’t able to
help.”
I confided this sentiment to a friend and he just remarked
that the situations cannot be avoided because that’s part of public service.
Another colleague who’s been a government employee for a decade also mentioned
that we should really provide results
for the people who come to us because we’re public servants. So I asked my
colleague, how do you do it? He simply said, “I just tell the officers, ‘hindi talo’.”
I wish it’s really as simple as that to because to be
honest, even if I’m a government employee, I still follow the rules, I also get
declined with my requests, and not everything is smooth for me too. So how can
I help?
One of my friends, who is now a high rank official at the
People’s Park, used to tell me that he is not fond of giving away his mobile
number to others because people loves to ask favors from government offices,
and it’s burdensome if you’re a busy person. Yes, the salary that we’re getting
is from the taxpayers but we’re taxpayers too. Are we a public commodity
because we’re government employees?
There’s a bigger culture here that for a period of time, I
refused to embrace. It may have taken me for quite a long time to realize that
my introversion has no place in this kind of environment but surely I’m more
than willing to continuously learn the tricks of the trade.
So how do I improve further? Network more to help others
more…
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