Rules for tea break

Teabreak

The dreaded "pegawai keluar minum (the officer has stepped out for tea)" response over the phone may be a thing of the past soon in some government departments. The Human Resources Ministry, and its associated departments and agencies, has directed its staff, with immediate effect, to take no more than a 15-minute tea break — including the time taken to walk to the canteen and back.

The move has been lauded by Cuepacs. This is believed to be the first time a ministry has introduced such a ruling.

Ministry secretary-general Datuk Dr P. Manogran said the move was intended to encourage staff to be more productive, especially as they have been working a five-day week since July 1. "We must not be ridiculed by the public for taking long tea breaks," he said. Implicit in the ruling is that staff should also not spend working hours playing golf, should not become agents for direct-selling products, or surf the Internet for personal work.

The Public Service Department, which normally issues the dos and don’ts for civil servants, has yet to issue such a directive, although it has specified the duration of lunch breaks.

In 2002, Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Samsuddin Osman reminded civil servants that tea breaks were a privilege and not a right. Civil servants should not keep the public waiting.

Our legislators and delegated legislators are like Sophomore mollycoddlers to our civil servants. They behave as montessorians and treat civil servants as urchins cum delinquents. These montessorian even have to continually teach them how to behave, when to have tea break and for how many minutes, how to treat the public and how to squirm a smile.

What? You mean the civil servants are dim-wits or imbeciles, and without civic conscoiusness and do you know that most of them are university graduates? Oh ya, so what? Otherwise, why is it that, so often that we need to have minister's eruditory exhortations?

Then, do we need to sent all civil servants back to school to study moral science and ethicology? NO, sent only the ministers and their acolytes; they are the ones that are schleps and klutzs; but they are the ones we voted in to manage us. So, who are the patsies? hahahaha!!!!!!