"... you know how it is in government jobs ..."

After a well-deserved break in Hyderabad for Christmas and New Years', I traveled back to C'garh. On my train from Delhi to Chandigarh, I sat next to a nice chatty lady who works in C'garh. She works in a govt. office here and lives in Delhi, so she commutes each weekend back to Delhi to visit her family. Perhaps the most interesting thing I learned about her was her schedule. Apparently she usually prefers to travel by bus when she goes back to C'garh and this train trip was the exception. Usually she takes the bus on Monday mornings. Now, I asked her, wouldn't that bus come into Chandigarh pretty late? "Well", she replied, "I make it to work by about 1pm or so, and you know how it is in government jobs, as long as I make it before the end of the day no one complains."

I'm obviously aware of the notorious levels of slackitude in government offices in India but this was clearly a new low. Not only does she talk about getting in to work late, she does that every week. And later she mentioned that she left work early on Fridays to get back home (to Delhi) in time. This means that in an average 40-hour week, she's working only 34-hours. That's 15%, or almost an entire day. I suppose if money is not an issue, a government job IS the best thing to do.