Dreamers Side

I'm going to share my experience as a Civil Servant in Marine and Fisheries Agency of West Kalimantan Province.

It all started when i was reading newspaper that there was vacancies for Civil Servants in West Kalimantan Province. At first I thought i just wanted to see how good I did on the entrance exam.

Many people applied for the exam but only a few passed it. "It must be damn hard to get in" that was on my mind, so i applied for the exam.

Applying the exam was not easy, there were a lot of preparation needed such as "Kartu Pencari Kerja", "Identity Card" and it's copy, "Certificate" from elementary school to high school and their copies as well as some photos, and what i hate the most was some statements ("surat pernyataan") because it must be hand-written and follow several rules. I had to write it for several times before I got the final one.

Application

As i thought about it over and over, i became more and more interested in becoming civil servant. Well before that, i'll talk about the application first.

I applied civil servant with my friend Adi. We were both from "Sekolah Tinggi Manajemen Informatika dan Komputer Pontianak" majoring at Information Technology.

There were six vacancies for us from Information Technology major and many more for other major.

I handed in my application to the commitee at Civil Servant Board of West Kalimantan Province ("Badan Kepegawaian Daerah KalBar"). It was very crowded and took a long time because the commitee had to checked every required documents.

While checking my application, the commitee told me to come back the following day for the exam id card.

A week later, from the notice board infront of Civil Servant Board of West Kalimantan Province i found out that there were about 54 peoples from the same major who were competiting for this vacancies including me and Adi. Actually our chances were pretty high compared to other major, about one to fifty four (1/54) while the other might be down to one to hundreads.

The Exam

The exam was what i called as a luck competition. It was damn hard.

The exam was divided into three kinds. The first one was general knowledge, math and then maturity scale.

When i looked at the first part, i felt like "What the f*ck". This was the reason why i called it a luck competition, i can't do any number in this part, so i just randomly picked answers.

Well the other two were completely piece of cakes. hehehehehe :-)

The Results

It was about a month later until the notification (Desember 2010). I went back to the Civil Servant Board of West Kalimantan Province. On the notice board i found out that i scored 70.2 and rank 2nd for Information Technology major. While Adi didn't make it :-(

Around February 2011 i was contacted by the commitee, i was told to attend an acceptance event at Kapuas Hotel.

The new recruits were appointed to each board/agency, so was i. I was appointed to Marine and Fisheries Agency.

I was pretty confused, i don't know anything about fish except they're edible >_<

There was 17 new recruits for Marine and Fisheries Agency, so at least i was not alone. Though i was the only chinese guy. Hahahaha. . . .

Work

I started working on the first of March. I was enthusiastic :-)

Some friends warned me about the treatment from the other officers. But luckily i got good friends at the office and got the same treatment as any other new recruits.

On the first two weeks, we (the new recruits) were being introduced to each division. There are five divisions at Marine and Fisheries Agency of West Kalimantan Province; Division of Capture Fisheries (Bidang Perikanan Tangkap), Division of Culture Fisheries (Bidang Perikanan Budidaya), Division of Processing Fisheries (Bidang Pengolahan dan Pemasaran Hasil Perikanan), Division of Coastal Surveillance (Bidang Pengawasan Pesisir dan Pulau-Pulau Kecil) and Secretariat (Sekretariat/Tata Usaha). While each division still divided into several sections.

We were divided into several groups consist of two or three recruits, and each group appointed to each division for three days. After three days the group appointed to the next division.

Then at the end of the introduction, we were appointed to each division. I was appointed to Secretariat, Planning and Monitoring Evaluation Section (Bagian Rencana Kerja dan Monitoring Evaluasi).

Reasons

Many people asked me "Why a chinese guy like urself wanted to be a civil servant, aren't chinese guy more attracted and talented to becoming a merchant?". I smiled :-) and i answered "there are so many things i can achieve by becoming a civil servant".

More stable salary, better financial security, postgraduate schoolarship, and what made me sure was earlier off hour so i could look for other business possibilities.