The One With A Lot Of Sighs

Sigh . . .

This morning, I woke up so early, felt great. Had a delicious protein enriched breakfast. Had my hair all nice and in tow. My White Musk smelling divine on me. Came to the office in a cheerful mood.

Then, as I read through the day's news, my morning just went down and down.

Sigh. . .

I want to rant and voice my frustration at the current government that I am unsatisfactorily employed with. But, alas, I do not know where to even begin.

I want to voice out my frustration at the fact that the brilliant mind(s) of the government last week announced an increase of the petrol price. This AFTER telling the general public that only visitors, foreigners and expats will have to pay a higher price - the citizens will have to show their identification cards to continue paying at a subsidised rate. A lot of reports in the media were made on this. Then, KABOOM! Our fearless leader goes and announces that there will be a 40% increase in prices of petrol - and further goes to talk about the rise in world prices of petrol and food shortages, etc etc etc. And the "genius" first plan was suddenly ignored. As if that wasn't bad enough, an increase in price of petrol will automatically lead to an increase in price of other things, thus increasing the inflation. Yet, only one thing remains the same - the salary of the rakyat.

Oh, shush on the "Malaysia has among the lowest price of petrol in the world" mumbo jumbo. Heard that crap before. Somehow, they forgot to mention that Malaysia also has among the lowest civil servants salary in the world. Where's THAT story?

Sigh . . .

And then some GENIUS Minister goes and tells the government employees that its now ok to go and find a part-time job. This, he says, is to help the lower staffs (main focus) to keep up with the increase in living expanses. Ah, such a smart guy he is. Let the rakyat do part time jobs to help make ends meet. BULL CRAP! As it is, the civil servants already has it in the by laws that state they can have part-time jobs - just requires a written approval of the boss.

And of course even then, there's pre-requisites:

• The side-job cannot be done during the working hours or during when the employee is expected to carry out official work;
• The side-job will not affect the usefulness of the employee as a public servant; and
• It does not conflict with the importance of the public sector or goes against the role of the employee as a public sector employee.
  

So, this means we'd have to do our work either at night or during the weekends? As it is, where I work, we already clock out long after the sun sets and at times have to "voluntarily" come to work on weekends. What options are we given then?

Maybe it's time I take up those modelling offers . . .

The Press Release: Peraturan Bagi Melakukan Pekerjaan Luar Oleh Pegawai Awam can be found at the Public Service Department website.
(Sorry, it's only in the Malay language).

A look on both sides of the matter can be found at The Star's wesbite article: Second Job Not The Answer

Sigh . . .

And now, our fearless leader made a statement stating that there will be no more hikes in petrol prices this year. Wait, I think I've heard that before. Oh yeah, didn't he say almost the same thing a few days before the 40% price hike? He's just lucky MALASia people aren't the rioting type - or are we? I quote: ". . . the cabinet decided that there will be no further increase in petrol and diesel prices this year." Well, seems like the decisions made these past few weeks seems more on a unilateral level. What ever would cabinet have to do . . . have to do with it?

Sigh . . .

And now the latest bombshell: Civil servants will be paid their salaries in two instalments per month, effective this August 2008. Oh, joy. So, let me get this straight? We'll be getting half of our salary in the second week of the month and the final at the end of the month? And the deductions that are enforced upon our salaries take place for the second instalment at the end of the month? So we'll be getting the lesser amount then? Around the same time that the bills, loans, etc need to be paid? Oh, ok. That makes sense.

NOT!

Sigh . . .