They are still there!
I used to believe that such a type of person no longer existed in our reality, but each time I discover that they are still there—through one person, or a few more—restoring my confidence in the government apparatus as a whole. Years ago, I wrote about Mr. Khalid Al-Fadhala, who was an official and advisor at the Social Security Institution, and how his presence in that position was a “blessing” for everyone with dealings with the institution. Today, Dr. Nadeen Al-Jumaa, who is in charge of one of the most important medical institutions, has been discovered, and before her, Dr. Reem Al-Radwan, who is also responsible for another institution.
The fundamental principle in government work—and this is found in directives to officials across all government institutions—is to facilitate and ease matters for citizens, especially the common people, while adhering to the spirit of the law. Yet there are those who put a spoke in the wheel, disrupting the apparatus they head, and even other government bodies, due to their failure to understand the role entrusted to them. At the same time, we also find those who are a step ahead in achieving results and making life easier for people, dealing with them with a rare sense of sportsmanship.
The issue is not about “counting” hours or measuring performance by numbers and reports. Rather, it is about another metric that does not appear in the books of accounts, nor can institutions include it in their performance tables: conscience. It is the conscience that drives an employee to come to work not because an eye is watching, nor because a manager is standing behind them, but because within them there is an awakened eye that never sleeps. People like these are not produced by attendance and departure systems (three signatures), nor are they the product of training courses. They are the result of deep upbringing, firmly established values, and a belief that a person is known by what they do when no one is watching.
There are many such people with living consciences, perhaps we do not know them and never will, but despite that, they do not care much whether people recognize them or applaud them. Each one works as if the institution were their home, and the task before them is a trust that must not be betrayed. The time for which they are paid is a right belonging to others before it is their own. An institution that recognizes the value of such people should not treat them as mere numbers on a payroll sheet; rather, it must realize that they are the spirit that gives work its meaning.
Nasser Al-Abdali
