Holiday hangover prevails

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.