YOUNG VOICE
Stereotypes of Public Service
IT WAS 6:00 am. Sidewalk vendors each took their usual posts and began setting up their merchandise; they’re expecting their usual customers, the pissed off and the not-so-pissed off clients of the National Statistics Office waiting in line for long hours. Talk about searching for your true identity. Birth certificates work best. But how a piece of document can use up your entire day for simply waiting until it’s processed and printed may be the same resounding question of each person in the millipede-like queue are asking.
It was 6:45 am. The line was millipede-like, a hundred of millipedes end-to-end. An ensemble of premature clamors and impatient remarks urged a man in a dusty blue uniform to stand at the front of the line and raise his megaphone, “Pagpatak karon sang alas siete magasugod kita sang aton nga serbisyo. Palihog lang hulat gamay. Mahina ang kalaban.” s
Leading the line was a skinny freshman college student required by her school to pass an NSO certified original birth certificate, without which she will be ignored by her registrar for the rest of her life. Somewhere in the middle was a middle-aged lady with her thick layer of foundation cake, needing her marriage certificate to comply with her Visa application requirements.
Lining up wasn’t a choice for them, it was a must. Otherwise, they will go nowhere with their transactions. ou The NSO caters to 1,100 clients per day to re-check, receive payment and issue the needed documents.
It was 7:00 am. Everybody paid attention to the LCD screen, now serving 00. The counter windows remain translucent with the slightly closed blinds. It was 7:05 am. Everybody looked at their wristwatches. It was synchronized with the office’s time, but the LCD screen read, now serving 00. It was 7:15 am. No one was silent. The impatience virus started to spread like an epidemic. “Ang siling alas siete, ambot na lang ah, gobyerno bi mo.”
7:20 am. Finally the line started to move.
No offense to the National Statistics Office. Haven’t you become deafened by the stereotypes? Basta gobyerno gani palpak. Basta gobyerno gani mahinay ang serbisyo.
The government operates under bureaucracy, by the book. The flow of operations is carefully being designed by big-shot analysts for months, even years. They make case and organizational studies before such flow can be put into practice. But, take this advice from a young adult, no matter how intricate your processes are if the minute details are left ignored, your departments, your offices; our government will reek of stench, the stench of inefficiency.
TIME MANAGEMENT. Oh come on, 20 minutes late! You’re really giving justice to the infamous Filipino time, aren’t you? Just a thought, why not come to work 15 minutes before 7:00 am rather than arrive at 7:00 am and spend the next fifteen minute getting your hair done, putting make-up, drinking coffee or even booting up your computers. When you simply can’t open at 7:00 am then revise your office hours, make it 7:20 am.
COURTESY AND CONSIDERATION. I do not want to stereotype but through my random transactions in government offices I always get this:
Me: (smiling widely even after lining up for 45 minutes) “Ma’am, Good morning.”
Clerk: no response.
Me: “Ma’am, can I ask for an order slip?”
Clerk: Doesn’t make eye contact. Literally throws the order slip out of the window.
Me: Pissed off and with gritted teeth. “Thanks Ma’am”.
I know everybody has needs. Government employees have tribulations on their own: delayed salary, irritating superiors, impossible co-workers, faulty love-life, or bad coffee. But, the job you perform is entirely out of the picture when it comes to your personal life. Please don’t take it on an old man from the mountains trying to settle his land title, unfamiliar with almost everything you ask of him. You suffer delayed salary. He has his only source of income at stake with 12 mouths to feed, because some filthy middle-class man assumes ownership of the poor man’s land.
I do not think it is fair for government offices to be drowned in stereotypes, so I urge them to prove otherwise. These suggestions may appear puny, but try to take certain risks. These might be the last few pieces to your puzzle, the last few pieces that can evoke efficiency. I had my fair share of waiting in line in the seven enrollments I’ve been in a government-operated university. The scenario is unsurprisingly the same. I am generally patient; I can wait in line for five hours and still approach the clerks and cashiers with a charming smile. That is, if they can’t exactly do anything about the line, they started on time, ended on time and greet me with a smile in return.
Please don’t murder my birth records, NSO.
I’m only writing what I’ve seen.
Public Service.
I need to witness it before I pass this earthly life.
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NOTE: Thanks a million to readers who liked my article on the transcultual nursing experience I had with Alyssa. She’s now in Missouri applying for an Operating Room internship and still pretty.
