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22nd January 2012

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22nd January 2012

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20th January 2012

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My Jakarta: Kurniawati, Toll Road Operator

Enricko Lukman | January 20, 2012

Ever wondered what life’s like in a tollbooth? Well, My Jakarta spoke to a 15-year veteran, Kurniawati, second left, who quit university to pursue her dream job working for Jasa Marga, the toll road operator.

She reveals the tricks to working inside a tiny booth, talks about making change on the fly and tells us why her uniform didn’t used to have pockets.

Besides taking money and making change, what else do you do inside that tiny booth?

I usually listen to music. We are allowed to bring our own music and radios into the booth, but that’s about it. We have to leave all our other belongings in a locker, including our phones and money. We also need to keep records of the money that we bring to work. Back in the old days, our uniforms didn’t even have any pockets.

We are also encouraged to contribute to the Practical Improvement and Quality Improvement Group programs by suggesting ideas that can improve our work and service. For example, one of the ideas was to install an extra camera at the tollgate, to help collectors categorize vehicles without having to look outside.

Have you always wanted to work as a tollgate officer?

Surprisingly, yes, it has always been my dream to work for Jasa Marga. I heard that the workers received a complete set of benefits, bonuses and a very good salary. And all of that turned out to be true. And the moderate workload makes it a very enjoyable job. Not once in 15 years have I regretted working here.

Back then I had just graduated from high school in Tegal [Central Java] and I decided to try my luck in Jakarta. I enrolled in Moestopo University, but not long after that I heard about a job vacancy at Jasa Marga and dropped out of college hoping to seize the opportunity. Having been at my dream job for 15 years now makes me really happy.

How does Jasa Marga decide what tollgate you will be placed at?

We get bonuses based on the number of vehicles that we serve. That’s one of the main reasons behind the scheduled rotations, making sure that everyone gets their fair share of transactions. But sometimes it comes down to your preference, like choosing a tollgate that is closer to home.

Have you ever ran out of change ?

Never. At the CTC tollgate we know the right amount of change needed every day. We have carried out surveys, make use of our own experience and cooperate with Bank BJB to figure out what the exact amounts are. We never run out of change here.

What about forgetting the toll rates?

Thank goodness no. We’ve all memorized them inside out. It’s part of the training, we have to memorize the rates, be able to calculate them in our heads and take note of tickets manually. We also need to be ready for customer complaints and be friendly to them at all times. Someone would only forget a rate right after a rate change, but even that would be rare. And most drivers are aware of what they have to pay, which helps keep the process on track.

What happens when nature calls when you’re in the booth?

We’ve also got that covered. There are two kinds of toll officers, the duty officer and the guard officer. Duty officers are the ones who deal with transactions while the guard officers stand by in a separate room. Guard officers will take over transactions when the need arises. We are all rostered as guard officers once a week.

How much do tollgate officers make a month?

A high school graduate will earn about Rp 3 million or Rp 4 million [$335 to $450] a month, with an annual 8 percent raise. This year, though, Jasa Marga will give us a 20 percent raise in July to keep up with inflation.

Jasa Marga also welcomes college and university graduates. They can take a test and if they are successful they will get a better salary and job title.

We have to work at least 14 years before we are eligible for a promotion, 10 years for exceptional candidates.

You’re here at the Tanjung Duren tollgate. How much does this gate collect daily?

The two booths at Tanjung Duren collect around Rp 45 million each day.

That seems like a lot of money, so why do tolls increase every two years?

Inflation makes the regular increases necessary. Sometimes there are cross-subsidies that increase rates for category-one vehicles and decrease them for other categories. So rate increases don’t always affect all categories at the same time.

Increases are enacted through ministerial decree, often to please investors. Thirty percent of the tollgates in Indonesia are privately owned by companies such as Bakrie. Jasa Marga mainly uses the money for road expansion, such as the toll road about to be built between Benoa and Nusa Dua in Bali.

Kurniawati was talking to Enricko Lukman.

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20th January 2012

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kari-shma:

Iranian artist Farhad Moshiri’s latest installation titled ‘Life is Beautiful’, was created using hundreds of knives stabbed directly into a gallery wall. The use of everyday objects, which on occasion can become lethal weapons, reveals the underlying sarcastic ambiguity of Farhad’s statement. | via

16th January 2012

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31st December 2011

Video reblogged from How To Talk To Girls At Parties with 4,206 notes

howtotalktogirlsatparties:

tinaratedtinaapproved:

keepsdiary:

dearcassandra:

All this shopping recently got me to thinking…

I always cringe a bit when I see things like this, especially when people outside of the industry see it. It makes the clothing industry look completely evil, but markups exist in EVERY business out there. Otherwise it’s not a business. I can make a graph about how many pennies it cost to produce the alcohol you’re paying $10.00 for at a bar, or how you theoretically are overcharging your consulting employer by 100% because you are not producing a physical product.

Please remember that markups exist so people like me and those that are working to produce these products can make a living. We to need to pay bills, buy food and pay people we employ.

I’m glad someone weighed in on this. Infographics like this can be way too misleading. I have a dog in this fight, so it’s hard to take my opinion as unbiased, but ‘markup’ is kind of a pejorative term. The idea that markups like this only exist in the fashion industry is ludicrous. Look at Apple.

How much should a designer get paid for designing something? How much would you want to get paid to sew the same thing over and over again for 5 days a week? What about the people who work in the warehouse, packing and shipping everything? They need to get paid, as do the drivers, the lawyer that helped right the terms of sale and return policies, etc., etc., etc. If you ordered the item online, what about the web developer, the credit card processor, bandwith fees, and domain name ownership?

Things like this just beg more questions than provide any real answers. Maybe a t-shirt should cost more than $6.70 to produce. What is a living wage? More importantly, what’s a wage that you would take for making something? Maybe t-shirts shouldn’t cost 15-20 dollars because it demonstrates that someone down the line isn’t getting paid fairly.

To be honest that “$6.70 a shirt” price is only going to keep going up. And not just because of inflation. And it should. The rising middle class in China and other developing countries aren’t going to swallow getting paid a few dollars on the hour for too much longer. It’s the same reason why we don’t manufacture things like this in the United States anymore - people want to get paid enough to not only survive, but enjoy their lives.

No one likes hearing justifications for things they find ‘overpriced’. But when’s the last time someone asked you how much your work is worth? Or questioned how much you get paid?

#knowledge

(Source: everlane)

31st December 2011

Link reblogged from How To Talk To Girls At Parties with 452 notes

How To Talk To Girls At Parties: 'Haters' Are Going To Hate This Story →

howtotalktogirlsatparties:

Haters are here. And there. And everywhere. And the word “hate” is in the air.

Fox has a new sitcom: I Hate My Teenage Daughter. A recent issue of Us magazine tells us “Why Scarlett Johansson Hates Blake Lively.” Psychology Today explains “Why We Hate Airport Security.” Dick Meyer, formerly of…

(Source: NPR)

25th December 2011

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