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Hmmm...what's that posted above the whiteboard?


Ah yes. Well, it happens.

I've been working in government for the past 12 years or so...

And the experience is not the sort of thing I would wish on even my worst enemy.

While government service pays pretty well, especially if you're working for one of those high-paying government owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) or government financial institutions (GFIs), the sad truth of the matter is that unless you have friends in high places, opportunities for ascending the corporate ladder are few and far in between.

In a perfect world, government service should be a meritocracy, that is, you are given responsibilities and compensation in relation to your capabilities..."merit and fitness" in government parlance. Sad to say, this hardly ever happens in real life.

I have seen employees who do nothing but nod their heads even when presented with hair-brained orders from even more hair-brained superiors and yet they still make their way up the ranks. I have seen ineffective people get promoted for no other reason than the fact that they are going to retire soon. I have seen people make wrong decisions left and right, and yet still get promoted for being pals with the powers-that-be. Stranger still, I have even seen people who don't possess the minimum qualifacations as required by the position, and even people who are saddled with administrative and even criminal cases...and yet they still get promoted.

Just because of who they know.

Hey, I even know of this person who got promoted even though she just made coffee.

I guess that must be real good coffee if she got to outrank other more qualified people.

Frankly it's sickening...but that's just how things are.

It's therefore no surprise why the quality of your typical public servant somehow falls a bit short of their counterparts in the private sector, and that's where I may find myself soon at the rate things are going.

The problem with working in government is that government culture as a whole seems to frown on those who are opinionated, those who are not afraid to say what's on their mind, those who are willing to say if something is wrong even if no one else is saying a word.

"Principled" in other words. And due to the way principled individuals in government service are ostracized and labelled as "boat-rockers", they tend to move on to other means of employment after realizing that they are reduced to being frozen assets and pariahs in their offices.

And why not? Be vocal, be critical, and you're soon branded as a threat to their way of life. And before you realize it, they have made an example of you, a clear and unequivocal warning to others of how doing the right thing and wanting to institute change can derail your career faster than if you were charged with for graft and corruption. And as if being idealistic was a disease, they "quarantine" you by assigning you to some forgotten back room which not even the janitor visits before you pollute other people's minds with all your crazy talk of "competence" and "integrity".

That is more or less the state I am in now. I still earn relatively well, but for the most part, I no longer have a career. I have a job, but no real career to speak of. Hey, it gets the bills paid, so who am I to argue?

I guess it's my fault. There was a time that I thought that I could help institute change in how government works, and naïve as it may be, I had always thought that if you work hard and show integrity and competence, you will make your way up the ranks. Despite my efforts, I have been bypassed a number of times by people with friends in high places or people who will say or do anything just to get ahead. And you know what the worst part is? It's not actually not being promoted that sucks. It's being outranked by someone whose I.Q. is only a few points higher than an eggplant.

Hey, it happens.

So, if you value your sanity, stay far, far away from government service.

If you're a nice guy, work somewhere else. If you're incompetent, unprincipled, a suck-up, or if you have friends in high places, well, working in government may very well be your ticket to the good life.

By the way, I was being sarcastic. :-)

As for me, I probably should be on the hunt for other means of livelihood...while I still have some sanity left.

If you spend all of your time arguing with people who are nuts, you'll be exhausted and the nuts will still be nuts.

- Dilbert

I was feeling out of the weather early this morning, so I decided to report for work at around noon. Unfortunately a convergence of circumstances forced me to abandon that plan, despite my efforts to make it.

I left home, and went my normal route of going through Tandang Sora towards Pasig via Katipunan. Tandang Sora was jammed, so I backtracked and tried going via Kalayaan and Aurora. It was also packed but moving. Eventually I made my way back to Katipunan just before entering White Plains. White Plains was packed, so I took the underpass going towards Libis. For some reason it was also packed. Diverted through Green Meadows but again, it was jammed as it entered Ortigas.

It was almost 1 PM. I should have been at the office 30 minutes ago.

At this point I gave up and turned around.

What a waste of time, effort, and fuel.

Some days don't you just wish that you stayed in bed?

So, how many times has this happened to you?

e-Games announces a 2x or 3x EXP event. You're looking to level up your character, so you buy a training rosary, log-in your character and start looking for a party.

After what seems like hours of trying to look for a party, so finally get to join one. Unfortunately, you're only a temporary member since one of the permanent members was disconnected (which is a normal thing when it comes to playing RAN Online nowadays). After a while the disconnected player doesn't seem to be returning, so you're told that you're now a permanent member. You put on your training rosary and lure for all your worth (or cast buffs if you're a support shaman). When the the mobs have all been killed, and as the dust fades from the battlefield...

You get perhaps half a percent (or some other other amount which is significantly less than you expected). Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less.

Half a percent? With a 3x/2x event? And with a training rosary?

What gives?

Sooner or later some other player figures out that the EXP event doesn't seem to be active. One may shout out: "GM bakit walang 2x/3x?. More bold types may try to PM a GM. Then an announcement will appear: "The 3x/2x event is active. Please make sure you are playing at a map appropriate for your character's level. Anyone spreading false information will be chatblocked." or words to that effect.

You just bite your lip and continue playing. What else can you do? You're already wearing the rosary, so you might as well use it.

Does this sound familiar to you?

This has happened to me a number of times already, but it was only the events yesterday which compelled me to make a blog post. I don't really bother with the e-Games forums anymore, the forum moderators tend to lock unsavory threads or move them to some other category where the thread will never see the light of day again.

When I use a one day training rosary with a 3x/2x event active and a level 80-100+ character, I typically get anywhere from 6 to 10 levels by the time the rosary expires. No, I don't actually play for 24 hours straight, I play on/off during the entire time the rosary is active, and I usually manage to use up to 12 hours of the rosary actually leveling up. And for a 80-100+ character, you typically level them up at the trading hole or the carpark.

Yesterday, for some reason, the EXP event didn't seem to be active during the hours I was playing. A 2x EXP event was scheduled during the morning, so I put on a rosary at around 8 AM, but my 90+ character was getting only around half a percent or so per lure, and this was at the wrestler and baldie spots at the carpark. I stopped playing about a little more than four hours later, managing only one level up.

At around 1 PM I tried again. Even though the 3x EXP event was supposed to be active, I only managed to level up once in about five hours of play. I tried again later in the evening, but I still got abysmal EXP despite the supposed EXP event and my training rosary.

Then an emergency server maintenance was announced, I think it was about 9 PM. I logged out, and logged back in after about twenty minutes. Now the EXP I was getting was huge (4-6% per lure), and in the couple of hours left before 12 midnight, I managed to level up twice. And this EXP was earned mostly by killing mostly skating masters, not wrestlers or baldies, which I have killing earlier in the day.

A 90+ character with a rosary will probably level up at a rate of once every three hours or so without an EXP event, assuming a good party and a good spot. With a 3x EXP event, the same character will probably level up once every hour or so. Unfortunately, it was already late in the evening when the EXP really started pouring in.

The end result? In about 11 hours of playing, I managed to level up only four times.

This is definitely not how it should be, especially with an EXP event ongoing, since I have a number of characters and I'm quite familiar with the rate that different character levels gain experience. I was expecting to earn about six, perhaps seven levels out of the 1 day rosary I purchased. I got only four.

And the breakdown?

First four hours - 1 level. (Morning, supposedly 2x, lots of mobs.)

Next five hours - 1 level. (Afternoon, supposedly 3x, not that many mobs due to several nearby parties competing for the lures.)

Next two hours or so after emergency maintenance - 2 levels. (Late evening, obviously active 3x, lots of mobs.)

I don't mean to nitpick, but the obvious explanation is that just because e-Games announces an EXP event, it doesn't necessarily mean that the EXP event is actually active. It is my theory that when the server gets overloaded and starts spitting out players (which happens every several hours or so, when Strife makes it to the top of the server list) the EXP event somehow gets deactivated. Or maybe the GMs just forget to activate the EXP event. I don't know. Perhaps you have better theories.

The funny thing is that the GMs rarely admit that there is a problem with the EXP events, even at times when it is painfully obvious that the EXP event isn't active. They seem to forget that as regular players, we know very well how much EXP our characters should be getting when there is an EXP event. Occasionally a GM comes out clean and announces: "The 2x/3x event has been reactivated." but such occurrences seem to be few and far in between.

Am I the only one noticing this?

I only wish that when e-Games schedules an EXP event, they actually activate it instead of making us feel stupid.

Hey, we waste hours on this game. Why the heck should we level up in maps where the mobs don't suit our character level?

Oh well. Just another rant in the long list of criticisms against e-Games.

Government service can be pretty weird. And the big shots in high places...well, sometimes they just go for broke and give the word weird a whole new meaning.

Take this instance for example, which supposedly happened not so long ago.

There is this story going around about the head honcho of a major government owned and controlled corporation (GOCC). Let's call this head honcho "Zod", after the lead villain in the movie Superman II.

The officers and employees have requested the release of a rather fat Christmas bonus, computed as a multiple of their monthly salaries. The monthly salaries of these officers and employees are already huge as far as civil servants are concerned, so the bonus is really nothing to sneeze at.

During an assembly of all the officers and employees of the said GOCC, Zod allegedly required everyone to kneel before him like some god or king before he approved the release of the bonus (not that dissimilar from how Zod asked the son of Jor-El to kneel before him in the movie). So what did the officers and employees do? Well, they knelt down of course. After the assembly knelt down, Zod, perhaps in an effort to salvage the pride of his flock, or at least to reduce the humiliation, knelt down as well.

Well, the bonus was released, and the officers and employees of that GOCC are doubtless pleased with their windfall. Nonetheless, it begs the question of how the seemingly limitless power vested in some government positions can corrupt, intoxicate, and distort realities.

What would you do if you were there? Would you swallow your pride for the sake of a bonus, and kneel like some slave? Or would you hold on to your pride and remain standing?

Me, I don't know. Truth be told, as much as I hate to admit it, I would have probably knelt down as well. I may have my pride, and I may not need the money (not wanting to be a hypocrite, I use the term "may" here loosely), but there are others who certainly needed the money and did not possess the luxury of holding on to their pride. If you stood your ground and be the only one who refused to kneel, the head honcho could have refused to approve the bonus, and that proud soul who refused to kneel would have taken the sole blame for the economic plight of the thousands of names on the payroll.

Like I said, weird. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

To be fair, I wasn't their during the event, so I can't vouch in all certainty that this actually took place, but the source of the story is supposedly reliable.

None of the officers and employees who where there dare speak about the incident, more so considering that they got what they wanted.

I'm almost half-hoping that this story is nothing more than idle gossip, because it's just too plain weird for the head of a government agency to ask his officers and employees to kneel down before him for the sake of a bonus. Just imagine how arrogant and egotistic you have to be to in order to stomach that. But then again, if it really did happen, I wouldn't be surprised in the least.

It just makes you wonder what kind of government we have.

It's just too bad Superman wasn't there to kick his behind and bring Zod's ego back to earth.

Note:

Turn off the background audio first at the bottom of the page before clicking the play button.

How To Save A Life
The Fray

Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life
How to save a life

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
How to save a life