The Madness of Hamlet

The job of an MCS was not something I had the faintest clue of as an oblivious kid growing up. I was lost in fantasy world and spent my days playing make believe in a world that contained magic and princesses. This was when I was not at a desk pretending to study because my mum was monitoring me. I aimed for good grades because it was easier than listening to chastising and a good grade got me new toys.

The power I knew was of policemen's. I grew up in battalion areas. I understood that discipline. My dad said I should aim to be an IAS officer and he said: it’d be nice if you were DC one day. I took it at face value because my dad said so that IAS people became DC. I didn’t even know MCS people also got to be DC sometimes.

Me being MCS was not because I wanted to be one overmuch. I became one because it was my easy way out being able to engage in the things I enjoy with people tolerating my outlandish quirks. The things I truly enjoy are not often considered adult-like or dignified. But me liking what I like while being MCS renders me some sort of respectability, if a bit eccentric. This is sometimes the biggest perk of me being MCS.

I have always assumed I would be a productive member of society. I have always taken for granted I would work and earn a living. I have always accepted that I would have to do my best whatever my job was and contributed to the economy however I could. When I was looking for employment fresh out of Uni, I applied for several jobs that I thought could give me a decent pay. This includes me giving NET exam which I hoped I shall never have to use because I have never thought I’d be a good teacher and certainly not a good role model. It never hurts to have a Back Up Plan though. My NET exam was at Jamia Uni campus and someone stole my sister’s apple. As in one solitary fruit from her backpack which was her ‘healthy snack’ instead of her wallet. That was amusing.

I still really had not much clue when I jumped ship from MFAS to MCS what MCS people did. Mostly it was because my dad said: how about you become MCS? I was tired of sitting in a Treasury Office passing the same salary bills month after month is really the best explanation I can offer for me applying.

Today, I have a better clue what MCS people do. Mostly because I do them. I still don’t know more than I have experienced because my intellectual curiosity really does not stretch out to the real world. I could spend hours and days sitting alone or discussing with like-minded people sci-fi or fantasy fiction, theorizing about possibilities and explanations, engaging in heated debates about logic and illogic in fiction, even pretend whole-heartedly to be an ant in an online ant colony. But it was not until I assumed charge as BDO, for example, that I asked: what does a BDO do? Which was because I had to now do them.

I realise therefore that I would never be the good officer I might have the potential to be. I am not afraid of hard work so I will always give my job my best. But I will never have that drive, I fear, that motivates some of my colleagues and peers to forge ahead and achieve distinction. Any sort of awards I have ever gotten have all been incidental. No one is ever more surprised than I whenever any office I hold gets recognition. I never aim for any. My main goal is to maintain status quo and fly under the radar. My only criteria and absolute discipline have been to never let standards slip. I like to think I share an affinity with Hamlet when he said he was only mad north-north-west; that when the wind blew southerly, I would always know a hawk from a handsaw.

I take quiet pride in being MCS because it has become my life intertwined. I do not fool myself, however, into thinking it makes me anything more or less than what I essentially am. When I am off-duty and sit down to watch an episode of Doctor Who or re-read the Hitchhiker’s Guide or engage in an online discussion of Harry Potter or some other similar engagement, I am simply Esther Leihang, something of a ridiculous gremlin.