I was on my daily morning routine of reading up on friends' writings when I came across Ayu's post regarding the announced pay hike for civil servants. She mentioned that she's green with envy with the hike, and assumed that people like moi are, in her own words, "smiling ear to ear". So, was I really smiling ear to ear? Or did the announcement have absolutely zero impact on me? Or in fact, it had a NEGATIVE impact on me?
Ayu rightly pointed out that civil servants' wages have always been low. Even with this hike, they're still comparatively low. Last night, I had dinner with the Crovens and Psych was quite surprised that I haven't reached 2.5k yet when I told him that I still didn't have to pay income tax for last year. Yes, my pay is still low. Compared to my peers, i.e. in the "ancient" age groups, I'm barely touching 2.5k now while they have surpassed the 5k mark a looong time ago. Heck, one of my friends is even chauffeur-driven in his spanking new Beemer while another friend is one of the top guns in Malaysia Airlines. But that is when I'm comparing to one extreme of the range. If I were to compare myself to the other extreme, then I should be thanking my lucky stars that I'm even employed in the first place. But I'm digressing here...
Ayu rightly pointed out that civil servants' wages have always been low. Even with this hike, they're still comparatively low. Last night, I had dinner with the Crovens and Psych was quite surprised that I haven't reached 2.5k yet when I told him that I still didn't have to pay income tax for last year. Yes, my pay is still low. Compared to my peers, i.e. in the "ancient" age groups, I'm barely touching 2.5k now while they have surpassed the 5k mark a looong time ago. Heck, one of my friends is even chauffeur-driven in his spanking new Beemer while another friend is one of the top guns in Malaysia Airlines. But that is when I'm comparing to one extreme of the range. If I were to compare myself to the other extreme, then I should be thanking my lucky stars that I'm even employed in the first place. But I'm digressing here...
Anyway, my point is this: Civil servants have always had low pay. But expectations on them have been steadily increasing. Right now, civil servants are blasted left, right, centre, front, back, top and bottom. For a "PM who himself was a passionate civil servant during his younger days", he sure isn't cutting any slacks when he bombards civil servants. Way I see it, any weakness in delivery system is NOT solely on the part of civil servants. As in my previous post, the private sector too has to buck up and get in shape. What more since they command a better lifestyle in terms of monetary gains. If you don't agree with me, then consider this incident that happened last week: I was in a whole day meeting, and we engaged this caterer to prepare the food for the meeting. We had lunch & afternoon tea prepared since the meeting started at 0900 and ended at 1900. That's a 10-hour meeting with only break time for lunch and prayers of less than an hour. And guess what the caterer requested from me? They asked whether I could tell the Chairman to finish the meeting by 1730 because they "had to clean up before leaving". So what I said to the caterer was: "Look, if we can work long hours, so can you. We are the paying customer, so you work according to our schedule and not the other way around," (of course, in Malay and not in English.) Come on, people! If the public sector can work long hours, even after the gazetted office hours, why can't the private sector do the same?! Obviously, this doesn't fit into the general public's misconseption that civil servants "only work from 0830 to 1700". And believe me, this is not a one-off thing here. I've experienced more harrowing work conditions in my five years in the public sector as compared to my seven years in the private sector. I never had to work non-stop from 0700 till 0200, then wake up and start all over again when I was in the private sector. I never had to work for almost 20-straight days without a day off when I was in the private sector. I never had to only sleep 3 days at home while the rest of the month spent staying in multiple states. I never was expected to give an impromptu speech to a villageful of people expecting gems coming out of my mouth. (btw, I'm an extreme introvert by nature, as categorised by some psychological test online somewhere that I did.) Heck, the worst "public speaking" experience I had to go through was when I was a reporter for a local tv station when I had to do what they call as a "stand-upper". Even then, I just had to say something in front of the camera and I can redo it over and over again until I was satisfied. Again, I digress...
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is the pay hike is justified to SOME in the public sector. SOME of us are working our a$$ off, putting in long hours, getting high-blood pressure in the process. All for wages that I consider as measly at best. So the pay hike IS some sort of consolation to SOME of us. That is why I'm not smiling from ear to ear... because to me, we deserved it in the first place. You might not agree with me but that's how I see it anyway... The only people who MIGHT be smiling from ear to ear are those who DON'T deserve it in the first place. People who actually clock in just the minimum hours expected of them, slack off in their work but get by just fine coz they're buddies with the bosses. I don't blame them. Slackers will always be around, no matter in whatever culture or in whatever race or in whatever country. The people I DO blame are the bosses. Because they let these slackers off without so much of a warning, reprimand or gentle reminder. But that's a different story altogether...
Furthermore, I'm NOT smiling ear to ear because of the fact also mentioned by Ayu. The simple fact that traders will, and in fact, HAVE raised their prices waaay back from even before the pay hike was announced. Let's just do some simple basic calculations here. Example: (and I DO stress on the word EXAMPLE here) say flour prices have increased by 15 sen a kg. In turn, roti canai sellers increase the price of roti canai from 80 sen to 85 sen. For every roti canai he sells, he gets an extra 5 sen to offset the 15 sen flour price increase. So, in theory, after he sells 3 roti canais, he's covered his cost for purchasing one kg of flour. But does one kg of flour ONLY produce 3 roti canais? Does it produce 6? 9? 12? I don't know, you tell me. (I mean, I REALLY don't know how many roti canais can be produced using one kg of flour, this is NOT just a rhetoric question.) But let's just say for argument's sake that a kg of flour makes just ten roti canais although I highly doubt that. This means that using one kg or flour, he can make 10 roti canais x 85 sen per piece => 50 sen extra income - 15 sen flour price increase = 35 sen extra profit. Is this logical? Why does a 15 sen per kg flour price increase inadvertently translates to extra profit for the sellers but thousands of ringgit loss to consumers who buy roti canai everyday? If one seller were to sell just 100 roti canais a day, he's making a cool profit of RM3.50 per day. That is assuming that he just increased the price by 5 sen instead of the normal practice of increasing it in 10-sen increments. Maybe it's not much for one person, but for 100 sellers? 1,000? What about consumers' loss? Multiply that 1,000 sellers by 100 roti canais a day and multiply it further by 5 (or 10) sen, what do you get? That's a RM5k (or RM10k) loss of income, just because of a 15 sen flour price increase. And that, my friends, is just one item's price increase. Take into account if 10 items just got dearer. Or a hundred. Or 500 items. What does it do to the economy? Well, more money circulating in the market, obviously. A healthy economy, you might add. But is it something that will make me smile ear to ear? I seriously doubt so...
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