Life is too short, says former civil servant who spurned his ‘iron rice bowl’ to pursue writing dream
Jeremy Tse found that giving up a well-paid, secure job in government had its rewards
Jeremy Tse Man-kit dropped a bombshell on his family and peers three years ago by announcing he was giving up what the Chinese dub an “iron rice bowl” – a job for life in the civil service.
And to make matters worse, the civil engineering graduate decided to go from one extreme to the other by becoming a full-time writer.
“Life is too short to waste time,” Tse, who was earning almost HK$50,000 a month as an executive officer back then, told himself.
“I entered the government for its pay, but I also wanted to do something amid criticism that civil servants are lazy and perfunctory,” he told the Post in an interview.
He recalled his early days in the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, when he and a few colleagues tried to improve the system of standardising letter templates and boost efficiency.
Their efforts were in vain as the plan met reservations in the department.
You gradually learn not to go the extra mile in government to avoid making mistakes