In His Majesty's Service

I am often asked by friends and by people I meet as to what is it like to be in the service of His Majesty the King. What does it really take to be there? It is a question that may be lingering in the minds of many people.

To answer it in simple terms, job is a job – except that out here you have to do it well and you have to give your best. But then, ideally, in life that’s how it’s supposed to be in every other job, task or responsibility one is assigned to. Whether one is an elected leader, a civil servant, a private sector employee or even a private citizen one is supposed to do one’s best.

Getting deeper, however, there are few more differences. First and foremost, His Majesty works all the time. That implies that people around him have to work, be at work or think of work, all the time. There is no such thing as off-duty hours or holidays unless you take one specifically. Anything can happen anywhere and we have to be ready to start up our laptops, call up people here and there or fire-up the engines of our cars. And for many of us, especially for my colleagues in the office of Gyalpoi Zimpoen, they have to get moving at any time – day or night. If we were computers, our default mode would be “powered on”. Sometimes we could be on “standby” but we are never “switched off” from our duty. Neither can we (to stay with the technological metaphor) be even “temporarily disconnected”. Now that comes at a cost - in terms of your family life and your circle of friends. Our spouses get fed-up of us (my wife calls me unrecoverable) and our friends have long given up on us - making the circle smaller and smaller. But I guess on the positive note - there lies the true test of friendship or marriage.

In the service of His Majesty the King, there is no room for error. That is because of the large implications that your blunder could possibly cause. So you give your best in any assignment. There is no big or small assignment. All assignments have to be treated as important – and most of the time as emergency. We don’t just do the extra mile. I f time and circumstances permit, we go for another full length of the marathon. We have to check and crosscheck, think and rethink of all the ramifications of our actions, decisions, thoughts and intentions. So unless one puts one’s heart and soul and time and energy there is no way one could get things done well – and on time. Having said that one cannot again shy away from tasks and assignments. As for me since failure is not an option anyway, I have long stopped thinking I would fail in any assignment I am given. This sure helps, more often than not, to get it right.

Again, it is not enough to be available or give your best or get it right. One should be selfless and be loyal and also have the mental bandwidth to deal with all kinds of people – rich and poor, young and old, smart and dumb, powerful and the humble. This is, of course, the easier part. The trickier side is, in trying to get your job done, you have to strike a fine balance between being humble and maintaining your status or between being accommodative and being able to reject – depending on cases and circumstances. If you are incapable of finding this balance, you easily become the soft target of criticism and gossips. At worst you won't be be able to get anything done.

Having said all the above though, for me being in the service of His Majesty the King is a wonderful journey – a journey full of discoveries and self-discoveries. A journey where you discover yourself as a person and as human being. It is a discovery of the fundamentals of life, work and responsibility – and of duty, dedication, altruism and patience. It is also a discovery of your full potentials – mental and physical. It is a discovery of the best and the worst in our Bhutanese people. It is a discovery, or a rediscovery, of things that we Bhutanese have more and more made lip services of - love, compassion, values, integrity, patriotism, hard work, culture, tradition and impermanence.

Above all, it a journey of humility. Seeing the King at work humbles you and often one finds it difficult to control one's emotions. Coming across thousands of people struggling with life makes you rethink of your greed, desires and ambitions. Being in great places with great people are great emotional experiences. Living the historic moments directly makes you cherish every moment of your life. And above all, the trust, confidence and the opportunities that His Majesty gives you makes you not just humble - it helps you be a better human being.