巫师面对改变2怪:Working at the grassroots

Working at the grassroots

从大学生到公务员 挑战与成长同在

导读：成功人士大多不是起步就一帆风顺(plain sailing)的，生活中挑战无处不在。今天就让我们一起来看看看似平淡的公务员工作中存在的挑战吧。

Online applications for the civil service examination were opened on October 15. In two days more than 50,000 applicants nationwide had entered hoping to grab an “iron rice bowl”.
国家公务员考试于10月15日启动在线报名。两天内就吸引了全国范围内5万多名申请者，他们一心想端上“铁饭碗”。

The number of civil service vacancies, at about 18,000, is believed to be the biggest in history, according to the Beijing Morning Post. And 73 percent of them are frontline jobs, in city-level units or below.
《北京晨报》报道称，此次大约有18000个公务员职位，据说是史上最多的一次。其中73%是市级或以下机关的基层职位。

Two thirds of these posts are open to fresh college grads. 21st Century reporter Xu Jingxi interviewed three grads who are now civil servants at the frontline. Take a look at the challenges they have met at work and what they have learned from the experiences.
这些岗位中，三分之二是向大学应届毕业生开放的。《21世纪英文报》记者许靖烯采访了三位正担任基层公务员职位的大学毕业生。一起来看看，他们工作中都遇到过哪些挑战以及他们从中都学到些什么。

Yu Liangde, 24,
余良德(音译)，24岁

Tax bureau at the district level, Harbin
区级税务局，哈尔滨

A job offer in the civil service is not a ticket for a gravy train.
一纸公务员的录用书可不是一张踏入致富之门的门票。

Yu had expected that he could get off work on time before he took the job. But it has turned out that he often sacrifices lunchtimes for work. It’s not appropriate to leave queues of taxpayers and go for lunch.
在入职之前，余良德还期望自己能够准点下班。但事实上，为了工作，他甚至常常连吃午饭的时间都没有。放下排长队的纳税人去吃午饭这实在是不怎么合适。

Besides, taxpayers are usually surly-looking after waiting for a long time. Yu said: “As a civil servant, I have to keep a smile on my face at all times.”
另外，纳税人在漫长等待后常常脾气不好。但余良德表示：“作为一名公务员，我必须时刻面带笑容。”

At the front line, the office usually has a complex division of labor, according to Yu. For example, he has been giving invoices to taxpayers and taking them back for 18 months.
据余良德说，在基层工作，单位里面通常分工复杂。拿自己为例，他已经负责向纳税人收发发票有一年半的时间了。

Yu admitted that it could be monotonous, but it was still challenging.
他承认，这项工作可能有些单调，但同时也富有挑战。

“The civil service examination is mainly about applicants’ general qualities. It doesn’t involve much assessment on specific skills at work,” said Yu.
“公务员考试注重的是报考者的综合素质，并未过多涉及对于具体工作技能的测评。”

The grad majoring in law found that he hadn’t probed deep enough into tax laws. He also studies finance and accounting in his spare time.
主修法律专业的余良德发现自己对税法的研究还不够深刻。他在业余时间还会学习一些金融和会计知识。

Dai Shaoshuai, 25,
戴邵帅(音译)，25岁

Huangdao Customs, Qingdao黄岛海关，青岛

Heavy trucks come and go on the wharf. The noise and exhaust can make Dai dizzy. To examine goods, he goes from one container to another in the chilling sea wind.
码头上重卡来来往往，噪音和废气令戴邵帅感到头昏。为了检查货物，他得在凛冽的海风中穿行于一个个集装箱之间。Dai and his colleagues work in shifts round the clock. Staying up late on a night shift may harm their health. But Dai and his colleagues offered to do a 24-hour service of custom declarations.
戴邵帅和同事们每天24小时倒班工作。尽管上夜班熬夜会伤身体，但他和同事们还是提出进行24小时的海关申报工作。The service used to be available from 8 am to 10 pm. Truck drivers sometimes had to waited on the wharf all night to go through the procedures.
过去这项服务只在早8点至晚10点这段时间开放。卡车司机们有时需要在码头等上一晚才能办成手续。

“It’s important to know about the people we serve,” said Dai. “We wouldn’t have revised our policy in response to drivers’ needs if we didn’t get out of the office and talk to them.”
“了解我们所服务的人群这很重要。”戴邵帅说道，“如果不走出办公室与司机师傅们交谈的话，我们可能不会根据他们的需求来改进我们的制度。”Compared to the office work, it’s also eye-opening for Dai to work at the frontline. He enjoys meeting people from different backgrounds ― truck drivers, longshoremen, importers and exporters ― sharing their stories and learning from them.
比起那些在办公室中的工作，对戴邵帅而言基层工作还意味着能开阔眼界。他很乐于跟不同背景的人打交道——卡车司机，码头工人，进出口商——分享他们的故事并从中受益。

“This is good for a fresh college grad, whose life used to be restricted mainly to the campus,” said Dai.
戴邵帅感慨道：“这对于一个刚刚走出校园的大学毕业生来说益处多多，过去我们的生活主要被限制在校园里。”

Liang Simin, 24,梁思敏(音译)，现年24岁

Subdistrict office, Shenzhen
社区街道办事处，深圳When you work at the frontline, you should be prepared to deal with emergencies.
当你在一线工作时，需要随时准备好处理紧急事件。

Liang ran into a riot in a factory when she was on duty for the first time. The workers cut off the water and electricity and demanded their salaries.
梁思敏第一次当班就赶上了一起工厂闹事。工人们切断水电，要求拿到自己的薪水。She handed out water to the protesting workers but got fierce stares.
她把水分发给抗议的工人们，反倒遭到怒目相对。

“That’s how I realized that people may sometimes have misunderstandings about the civil service. We need to be patient,” said Liang.
“这令我意识到人们有时可能会对公务员的工作产生误解。我们需要耐心。”梁思敏说。It’s a bit understaffed at the frontline, Liang added. For example, she was the only one to organize an event promoting popular science in her community.
梁思敏还表示，一线工作的人员配备有些不足。例如，在她所在的社区，只有她一人组织活动，推广大众科普知识。She did the marketing job, going from government offices to schools and to museums. She also did the PR job of taking care of the guests.
她奔走于政府机关、学校和博物馆来做推广，同时也包办了接待来宾这样的公关工作。“But it’s good to have explored my potential by being a jack of all trades,” said Liang.
“但这种多面手的工作对于挖掘个人潜能很有好处。”梁思敏说道。

(Liang Simin and Yu Liangde are not the real names of the interviewees.)
（本文中梁思敏和余良德并非被采访者真实姓名。）

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