The anonymous nature of this forum, though wonderful for most of us, allows for irresponsible comments to be made. Its a two-edged sword so do please judge for yourself what is reality and what is imaginary.

Without naming names, there are current or retired public/civil servants that have evidently had a meteoric rise through the ranks so never ever preclude that possibility from occurring. If you can't see yourself or anyone around you rising so quickly, it does not mean that it cannot happen.

I've seen fresh grads being hired at MX13 and then asked to cover MX11 duties due to exigencies of situation under the "acting" title and subsequently get promoted within two years, purely due to capabilities of the staff matching up to the opportunity.

I view that HR policies are what the bureaucrats hide behind when challenged "why or why not" for certain situations, and in other situations to justify why, they have plenty of reasons to support why it should be. Like why such a farmer-stock staff can rapidly rise through the ranks within such a short time frame, beating known principles like scoring enough Bs in preceding appraisals, length of service, etc. Likewise, long serving staff can be put off just a bit longer by saying, "Sorry, you don't have enough Bs in the past 3 years", or "Sorry, your time of service is not long enough to promote you".

At the end of the day, HR principles and policies are very very very very very (I cannot emphasize this enough) subjective and very dependent on VISIBILITY. You may have come up with the brilliant-est best-est idea but if you were too shy to present it at senior management level, and let someone else do it, then senior management will view that someone else as the figurehead for the idea, even if he/she did the right thing by crediting you with it.

When we mention Apple, Steve Jobs come to mind - for his entertaining product launch presentations. Who knows/remembers the designer of the UI, or the product packaging outside of Apple themselves?

My advice for fellow Civil Servants: never ever forget your core job. Or how to do it. But make your efforts count by ensuring it is visible. On the other hand, if 100% of your effort is spent on visibility and none on job skills, it will not take long for anyone to realize that you're just an empty vessel.