My New Life as The Head of Housing Enforcement Unit

Errr... contrary to the title of this posting... I have been with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government since January 2003. My first position was Assistant Director of Public Complaint Unit, Monitoring and Enforcement Division. Later, in 2007 I joined the National Housing Department due to a major restructuring exercise by the Ministry and in October 2007 I was promoted to Principal Assistant Director and lead the Enforcement Unit.

Yes, the title make me sound like a very tough and scary person... but if i may, I prefer to be liken to Lara Croft of Tomb Raiders :P... I have always wanted to have smaller waistline and big boobs anyway... In fact I am a very simple woman (and cute), dedicated and blissfully "married" to my job ... as well as my other jobs... (not including that %^*& job).

Initially when I took over the Unit from another "iron" lady ... (oh yes. this is not a myth... only women in this Ministry can lead the enforcement team..) I knew that I need to do a lot of changes due to the ammmendments of the Housing Development (Control and Licensing) Act 1966 [Act 118]. Plus, most of the staffs were loyal to this lady especially Kak "R". Furthermore, during the reign of Dr.P, there was a fraction (like Team A and Team B of MCA) between Enforcement and Complaint Unit. So I could sense during my first day... the cold shoulders, the tensions, the murderous stares ... hehehe I exaggerated a bit here...

I knew I have to win them over and make them trust me especially Kak "R". Everytime we had a conversation I must be careful not to say bad things about the "Iron Lady". "Thesaurus" and "Air-con" must be used to the max ... and so far I am proud to say that my efforts have been paid off. My office is the busiest in the division ... maybe also due to good feng shui. A lot of backlogs have been settle, new alliances have been formed (with the project monitoring division), few paperworks have been presented and as of today I would say I have manage to "rebrand" the Unit. From the "close door policy" unit to a "7-11" unit.

Suffice to say that most of my problems doesn't come from the "old-timers" or support staffs. It is a few new PTD officers, proud of the premiership of the administrative and diplomatic service that affect my efforts... normal comments like "this is not my job", "let me minute to the support staff" irks me. If u want act like a Tuan DO (district officer) in a federal agency, you must still be living in the past...

Why? Because it is a very common scenario in the goverment service? Sorry, I don't share the sentiment. I think it is the same everywhere. I used to work for a company in Kuching and my conclusion is ... its the same for any "kerja makan gaji". I do keep the recommendation letters from all my previous bosses and I resigned not because i don't like the companies, it was because I was moving places. KK-Kuching-KL....

To me we are just typical Malaysians... we feel the adrenalin rush doing things in the last minutes, we find pleasures in finger-pointing, and we sooo love blaming the government than fate/fengshui if bad lucks befall us ... (yalah ... who wants to blame God?) ...