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Hit the road, Jak


With most residents out of Jakarta for the Idul Fitri holidays, you’d think that the city authorities would use the opportunity to complete the busway. Construction of the busway has been the bane of Jakarta motorists as they considerably narrow the roads causing massive traffic jams.But instead of completing the construction during the holidays, the workers have also been given leave to go back to their villages because, says the city’s public works agency, Wisnu Subagya Yusuf, they have rights to holidays too.Jakarta traffic on a normal day

Fuzzy thinking here. The customary practice is to offer premium wages to workers who volunteer to work during holidays. It is fair exchange of premium time with premium wages. Nothing to do with deprivation of rights.

But because the city authorities are limited by their intellectual capacity for democratic notions we now will face massive traffic jams next week as everyone – including the construction workers – trickle back to the Big Durian after the holidays.

Shit-for-brains tag to the city’s fathers here.

clipped from thejakartapost.com
Busway construction halted for holiday
The Jakarta Post, JakartaWhen Jakartans return to work next week from the long Idul Fitri holiday, they will find the city’s streets as chaotic as ever as the administration moves forward with the construction of new busway corridors.

Work on the three new corridors will restart this Thursday, after being stopped since Oct. 10 for the holiday.

The project was halted so the construction workers could celebrate the holiday. The workers have been on leave since Oct. 10, or two days before the official holiday began.

“They deserve holiday, too,” the head of the city’s public works agency, Wisnu Subagya Yusuf, said Monday.

He said like officials in the agency and in other city offices, construction workers had the right to travel to their hometowns and celebrate Idul Fitri.

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2 responses to “Hit the road, Jak”

  1. sufehmi Avatar
    sufehmi

    Really crazy.

    When I was in UK, where holidays are sacred, there are still people working on Christmas, the biggest holiday season there.

    I still remember when our manager asked us who can provide cover for the Christmas holiday, with people looking at me and smiling, knowing that I’ll volunteer myself. Not a problem at all, working during that time is very enjoyable, the office is really quite so I can focus on my job. Much less stress too than usual, with the pace much slower than normal work days.

    Also, construction work in their city is usually the busiest during the holiday season, so the roads will be ready when people returned from their holidays.

    While at it, I recall that my father discourages his employees from doing “pulang kampung” / “mudik”. He will even scold those who blew their savings in that ritual in front of others.

    Later I found out that with less “mudik”, the employees are able to accumulate savings (which will be spent in an instant if they went “mudik”), their family benefit greatly from this, and in return they ended up happier than if they’re doing “mudik” every year.

    Many of my father’s employees, most doesn’t even own high school certificate; own house(s), car, and/or motorcycle(s). And they can provide educations to their kids up to university level.

    Amazing to see what can one achieve when he/she manage to eliminate just one useless tradition.

    Some of his employees who disagree with his policy on this left the company, and usually ended up miserable. When they met again with their ex colleagues who’s still in my father’s company, those ex are usually wealthier & happier than them.

    To this day, my father still scolded his employees that’s doing “mudik” every year (he got no problem with those who do “mudik” occasionally and spend their money there carefully).
    And I’m glad he actually bothered himself with this, showing that he truly care about his employees.

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