Punishment posting anyone??

I had a very interesting experience today. I was invited to a south indian family's house for dinner. Well to tell you the truth, my parents were invited coz the gentleman had a 'maragatalingam'. For the uninformed, it is a shivalinga that is considered to be very powerful and special. My parents were keen to see it. The gentleman was kind enough to invite me to dinner [something that has not happened in a very long time:-)]
So here I went along, prayed to their gods (their?? wat about ekam satyam??) and had a sumptuous dinner.
Then the gentleman began regaling us with tales from his office. He is a government employee and due to office politics, he was posted as a telephone operator during routine shifting in the office. He was very upset coz he was the most senior person around. He took 5 minutes to compose himself and took on the task with lots of enthusiasm. He did his job so well and so conscientiously that the telephone bill of the office that was ranging from 40k to 50k per month was cut down to 8k to 10k per month.
People who were bypassing the system to make personal calls at government's expense found they could not enjoy free telephone services any more. They began to rue the fact that he was sent on this posting in the first place. After four months of control, the people who played dirty politics were desperate to get this man out of there. The gentleman said that by the end of the four months, he was enjoying his punishment posting coz he had never been able to trouble these dirty politics players as he was able to as a telephone operator.
He is not an extraordinary man or something. Everybody in their house is related to government in one way or d other. They firmly and even stupidly believe in job security. Ordinary humans living honest lives and finding ways to do their job honestly despite all odds.
I read in our Prez Kalam's Wings of Fire-
When you are the hammer- strike
When you are the anvil- bear.
Met such a person today. It was a nice experience.
[tags]government, politics,job security,Kalam, Wings of Fire[/tags]