A jobsworth is a person who uses his or her job description in a deliberately un-cooperative way, or who seemingly delights in acting in an obstructive or unhelpful manner. “Jobsworth” is an almost exclusively British term.

Jonathan Green defines “jobsworth” as a ‘minor factotum whose only status comes from enforcing otherwise petty regulations’. The term comes from the phrase ‘I can’t do that, its more than my job’s worth’. Phrases such as, ‘that’s not my department’, ‘that’s not in my job description’, and ‘that’s not in my job description’, and ‘that’s not my job’ roughly reflect the attitude of a person to whom the term applies.

Hmmm …

How many of our own, in our own, and of our own do we encounter every other day that describe similar temperament. Every country society and environment I believe has their fair share of such individuals. It’s not my job and so why should I even bother. It may be that small particle of dust or a waste piece of paper on the floor below you, but no, you would not dare pick it up or clean it, because it was not your job to do so.

What does it really take. Bending down and picking it up, or a gentle stroke of the hand with a duster and the job is done. But what is it within us that prevents us from doing so. Does it change our status, our life, our position. No of course not. Contrarily it enhances it. Goodness, people say, it was not meant to be his job, but he did it.

In our part of the world and in the affluent sector, there is help in all concerns available. Cooks in the kitchen, waiting staff to serve to clean and scrub, drivers to chauffeur the cars, chauffeurs employing helpers to clean and wash the cars that they merely drive, staff to pick up the phone and answer and take messages, staff to get the daily groceries, staff to look after electrical failures, staff to water the lawn and to keep the greenery healthy, staff to open and close your entrance gates to the house, staff for this, staff for that … the list is endless …

And ironically, this is the environment that breeds propective jobsworth’s. One staff shall tell the other its not my job, so I shall not do it. In the environment of the city, one department shall dig the roads that have been freshly laid merely a few days ago, another shall come and lay pipes for drainage or lay wires for telephones, another shall come and cover the opening, another to seal the mud and the earth, another to lay the pathway with concrete and paving, but no one, but no one shall take the responsibility of the left overs of their work in and around the work place. Stray cement, wires, unused pipes, disheveled pavings … nothing. It remains there for eternity, ruining the aesthetics of the location, causing obstructions to passers by, becoming a hindrance to road ethics and conduct. A traffic signal system shall be devised passed and ordered. One department shall come and put in the poles, the other the electrical and neither shall bother to check if the poles obstruct view, or the branches of a tree prevent the motorist or the pedestrian to see the lights … because simply, it is not their job to do so …

Try cutting the branches that are obstructing the view to the traffic signal and the media and the municipal authorities shall be sitting on your chest for destroying the green environment. Activists shall converge at your residence. Electronic media shall take a hundred close ups of the branch in question, cut and paste it with unconnected words of the victim spoken in some other context, horror film back ground music shall fade in and out as slow motion branch waves about in the soft breeze, bewildered expressions from some film shall be cut and pasted to show disdain on the part of the subject under subjection, breaking news ticker tape shall keep filling up the space at the bottom of the tv screen, debates shall ensue on ‘face the nation’ or allied set up programs, mobile companies shall do a deal to initiate a phone in poll, large percentage of the masses shall vote in favor of the ‘branch’, money in the bank for the electronic media, money in the bank for the mobile service carrier, money in the pocket for the authorities for hushing up the matter … and ….

the tree and its branches remain in position … blocking the view of the traffic … without any change … !!!

Thats a stray example. Perhaps not of much consequence either. After all we are talking of an urban problem. We are talking of a problem that concerns traffic, cars, vehicles, motorised and expensive .. it does not affect the common man, the man on the street that lives and strives and works hard for a single meal … he does not own a car, he does not even have a roof, think of it man, the irony, he actually uses those pavements as his temporary home … and you are bothered about a tree branch obstructing a traffic signal !! Are you insane. Have you no concern for the poor and needy …

Ok … stop here .. before they start another campaign on our complete lack of concern for the poor of the country … these affluent rich, these nabobs, how dare they ridicule the guy on the pavement !!!

Hey !! I was just trying to help the functioning of a facility that has been put up by the system, by the governance. I mean no disrespect for those that do not possess, for the ‘have nots’. If you do not like our concern do away with the facility. Remove the roads and the traffic and the cars and the motorized vehicles, symbolic of the industrialized world, of the developed world. I have no problem with that. Shall bike it to work or walk it. No problem. But … when you provide facilities for the people, then follow the modes of their existence and their functioning. Thats all I am saying. Build proper roads. Build proper facilities. Make them efficiently functional. Teach the diaspora what they mean and how they need to be used. Punish the law breakers and the guilty. Discipline them. And … if you cannot do them, allow me to volunteer my services, back me up, give me the strength of authority and allow me to demonstrate to the people that even though it is not my job, I am willing to do it to build a better environment a better society a better locality, city and country.

I am Amitabh Bachchan .. and I am not a jobsworth !!

Love

Amitabh Bachchan

More love ….