When I was an innocent school boy, my dad used to tell me that I must study hard so that I could become a Dasho and serve Tsawa Sum.

Dasho for him is any government official.

It didn’t put any sense in me then. But as I grew older, I realized what he meant was I must study hard and get a government job with a good income. Otherwise, my life would be fucked!

It is more about earning money for my life and less about serving the Tsawa sum. The only thing is he wasn’t truthful about it.

But my father isn’t alone in this. Most Bhutanese especially people working in the government jobs, view it from this perspective.

Why aren’t we admitting we are working for the government mainly for money? It would make us all less of hypocrites.

Are we really serving the Tsawa Sum?

One of my close friends working in the civil service would often brag himself of being someone serving the government.

The way he talks about it makes him look like someone very patriotic working for our government completely free.

But he was turned off when the LTC and leave encashment of civil servants were withheld due to a budget problem.

Take our politicians. When they resign from whatever posts they held previously and join politics, the first thing they talk is wanting to ‘serve the Tsawa Sum’.

They make us wonder if it’s the only way to serve Tsawa Sum. Or they can serve Tsawa sum only by joining politics.   

If salaries and other benefits for MPs aren’t as attractive as they are, would they come out to serve Tsawa sum, which I mean to contest elections.

We work for money. Don’t have to lie

Aren’t we getting served to serve the government and not the other way around? Aren’t our services more of ‘Rangdhen’ and less of ‘Zhunglu Zhabto’?

If working in a government job has never been about self-interest, we won’t need a compulsory retirement age for our civil servants either.

Worse, there are many who do what-nots to remain in the service even after crossing the retirement age.

Therefore, it has never been about patriotism or serving Tsawa sum. Otherwise we won’t hear many civil servants leaving Australia, and many misusing millions and millions of government funds.

My nephew, who now treats being a Desuup as his fulltime job, won’t be in it this long if he wasn’t paid the monthly salary.

I personally observed the more a person claims he’s serving Tsawa Sum the more is his higher self-interest, especially in making money.

Don’t mix our self-interest with patriotism or about serving Tsawa sum. Our work ethics and consciences might get compromised.

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