Holiday hangover prevails
Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Jakarta slowly started to return to its normally hectic, overpopulated routine on Wednesday after the national holiday of Idul Fitri with the return of hundreds of thousands of migrants from their home villages, mostly in Java.
"All of the employees in my division are already in today. But we are still not working at our usual pace," an employee of the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) on Jl. Sudirman, Central Jakarta, told The Jakarta Post.
"But I am sure most things will return to normal by Thursday."
She also added that the traffic was still light, which made for a pleasant commute from her house in Cibubur, East Jakarta.
But some, like post office employees, could not afford to ease back into the routine as there was lots of work to do.
"Some of our employees were even working last Thursday as well as on Monday and Tuesday although we only provided limited postal services," head of holiday task force at the Taman Fatahillah Post Office, West Jakarta, Hasrat Tannor, told the Post.
Nevertheless, the post office opened 30 minutes late, at 8:30 a.m., to allow the employees to partake in a brief Idul Fitri get together, locally known as silaturahmi.
"Customers rushed in as soon as we opened. Most of them wanted to pay electric and water bills," Hasrat said.
He added that none of the employees were absent as they would face severe consequences if they skipped work without a valid excuse.
The Jakarta History Museum, located across from the post office, also resumed operations on Wednesday.
There were some 130 people, mostly families, visiting the museum.
The mass exodus back to villages around the country, which started last week, was especially evident among civil servants, but many private company employees also returned home.
It was expected that after the long holiday, civil servants would be back at work.
However, they seemed intent on living down to their reputation of having notoriously low discipline and work ethic. Most public servants did not show up at all on Wednesday, as discovered by State Minister of Administrative Reforms, Feisal Tamin, who conducted inspections at several ministries and other government offices.
During his inspection at the East Jakarta Mayoralty office, he saw that some time cards had been signed out all the way through Dec. 17, but they were nowhere to be found.
"This is immoral behavior showing a shallow understanding of professionalism. We cannot tolerate this kind of action anymore," said an enraged Feisal as quoted by www.detik.com online news provider.
"It would still be acceptable if the employees returned home earlier after at least doing some work at the office," he added.
Feisal also inspected the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the office of the State Minister of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises and the Ministry of Health only to find most of the employees still absent.
"I will evaluate the policy of granting leave to public servants.
"We have given them the opportunity but still there are so many employees who regularly fail to perform their duties," he said.
Meanwhile, most streets were still relatively quiet although there was some congestion at several areas, such as in Glodok business district in West Jakarta and nearby Jl. Gajah Mada.
The traffic jam, however, was not as severe as usual, especially due to the absence of street vendors whose stalls were demolished on Monday night by City Public Order officers.