SHORTSTORY ANALYSIS (A VISIT TO A MINE)

 “A Visit to a Mine”

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This wonderful short story was written by Franz Kafka. He was a son of a wealthy Jewish family, Hermann Kafka and Julie Kafka. He was born in the Old Town area of Prague, Czechoslovakia on July 3, 1883. Kafka attended only German schools from 1893 to 1901. He studied in literature subject, but in second semester he moved to study law subject. Then, he earned the doctor of law in July 1906 and worked as a clerk in a law office in 1907. He required to work only for six hours which gave him an opportunity to focus on his writing. In 1902 he met Max Brod who pursued his literary interest to be published. But, actually he died in 1924 because of tuberculosis. He published only a few works in his lifetime. His works were a story of The Metamorphosis (1915), the allegorical fantasy In the Penal Colony (1919), and the story collection A Country Doctor (1919). His unfinished novels The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926), and America (1927). His visionary tales have provoked a wealth of interpretations. As a proof, he was regarded as one of enigmatic and culturally influential authors in the 20th century.

This story entitled “A Visit to a Mine” told us about a chief engineer and his engineer team in a mine. The chief engineer had a duty on making an initial survey to born a new galleries in the deepest part with employing their clerks. But, the job was not successfully carried out because their clerks were too much talking and observing one another. From the tittle, it was obviously concluded that the setting was in a mine. It was happened especially in the morning when the clerks usually worked.

Although this story was hard to be understood, but in the first part we were given a relaxed atmosphere. It can be seen from the clerks who tend to work with their free will. They were aware of what they had to do in the mine but they just do an unimportant thing outside their work. While the tone of this story were formal, objective, and satirical to political views. Satirically, this story told about a bureaucracy which did not has its efficient time and good staff personnel. The writer used an objective appraisal to describe the clerks’ personality one by one. It was so formal because it happened in our daily life, particularly in public agency.

The action when character “me” (it could be the reader as the first perspective) observed a sixth and seventh man. It became the conflict which move to climax of this story. “me” started to realize that the clerks actually did their work relaxively. They did nothing and just observing one another without an earnestly to finish their work. As the chief engineer and his team left the mine, the resolution was resolved with full of disharmony in the end of this story. The chief engineer felt mad with their clerks because they were not eager to do their work as it should be.

There are several characters in this story. They were chief engineer as the main character, the engineers, “me” as a clerk, nine men as the clerks too, and the office porter. Since this story used its first person perspective, so “me” was included into a figure too.  Every mentioned character above have their own characterization, especially the relationship between the chief engineer, the nine clerks, and me as the clerk too. Each of them were having a relationship each other. With the main character provided in this story, it surely had a relation between him and the other characters. First, the chief engineer had a responsibility from his superior to make an initial survey to a mine. The goal was to born new galleries there. Of course, he was certainly needed a team to do that. So, some engineers were ordered to help him. A story without any conflicts was not interesting to read, so the clerks were popped out as the characters to make a conflict itself. The clerks talked too much and only observing the other works. Without self-awareness, they did not realize their own position. They did not conscious about what services they had already commit on (getting mixed-up with hard-working) and an eagerness to do their deadline work boring the mine. The evidence was “how sure these two must be of their position; yes, what services must they have already rendered to our mine in spite of their youth, to be able here, on such an important survey, under the eyes of their chief…”. While “me”, as the same as the other clerks, I just wanted to make sure if another clerks done their job well or not. “me” was each of the clerks who caused a problem too, especially with only observing the situation and the surrounding. In fact, a main character and another character were like a system. They affected one another in this story, the clerks made a problem and the chief engineer solved it (although there was no obvious resolution, the chief engineer left the place without permission because he felt annoyed with the clerks).

Actually, there was no figurative speech written in this story. But the writing style showed the detail description. It made the plot was not easily to conclude. Almost all the sentences used a complex sentence. This story was told as a parable of the life. So, the meaning of this art work could be distinguish. It also could be interpreted by everyone as their own perspectives.

From those arguments, I can say that the theme of this story was a triviality to a given task from a superior to his subordinate. All of the content consists of description about the characters in the story and the way they worked itself. The work and the time were waste away because finally the workers did not do it well. An important thing had done without giving the best effort to what they should have done, boring a new galleries in the deepest part in the mine. So, all of them could not reach their goal and let their responsibility without finding the resolution. Maybe, it was the one experience of the writer, because he had ever worked as a clerks in law office too.

And the last, based on the experiences reflected on the story, I have some criticism and evaluation for the content. Despite not having read any of Kafka’s stories, but I liked his art very much. Comparing with another works entitled The Silence of the Sirens and Friendship, this story was more interesting and rather easy to understand. The contents of both stories were told in simple language but more complex and the meaning seemly endless. It learnt us not to be trivial to every responsibility we got, we have to do it best. Furthermore, this story was awesome and using a different language in a way no other writer’s has. The writer has a modernism style and it was appropriate in this 20^th century era. The whole of Kafka’s story was compelling the reader to re-read his art. So, it made the readers return to read his story once again and hoped finding guidance for it. It consequently became a self-challenging for the readers. 
    But, the translation were using a complex sentences and an unexpected impact just before the full stop, so it rather difficult to interpret the meaning. Furthermore, Franz Kafka did not write this story in standard High German. He wrote rather in Prague German which heavily influenced by the Yiddish and Czeshlovakia languages, so that it was difficult to translate his works in English. Not only that, but the other stories were also written in Germany, so that it needed a good translator to translate Kafka’s work appropriated with the original one. The difficulty we usually found was when the translator could not provide us an equivalent effect found in the original story.

KETIDAKPASTIAN PENEMPATAN LULUSAN D1 STAN BC

 Ketidakpastian Penempatan Lulusan        

~D1 STAN BC~

  

  “Hanya ada dua hal yang pasti di dunia ini, yakni pajak dan kematian”. Begitulah kata bapak besar kita, Benjamin Franklin. Ya, hal itu memang benar, tapi sebenarnya yang lebih benar dari itu adalah bahwa satu-satunya kepastian di dunia ini adalah ketidakpastian. Lhoh, bagaimana bisa? kalau statement saya salah, mengapa di statistika ada bab probabilitas alias kemungkinan? Berarti ketidakpastian itu termasuk kemungkinan juga bukan?
ah sudah, daripada bingung lebih baik kita membahas hal-hal yang pasti pasti saja, yaitu ketidakpastian. Hehe

   Salah satu ketidakpastian di STAN ini adalah masalah penempatan setelah kelulusan. Lantas, bagaimana alurnya sehingga didapat pendapat yang subyektif seperti itu? Baiklah, jadi begini:

   Sebagai calon aparat bea dan cukai yang baik, kita tentunya tahu bahwa instansi kita memiliki banyak sekali kantor2 bea cukai yang tersebar di penjuru negeri ini. DJBC memiliki 12 kanwil, 125 kantor inspeksi, 62 kantor bantu, serta 349 pos bea cukai di seluruh indonesia.

  Dari sinilah akhirnya muncul pertanyaan, kira2 saya ditempatkan dimana ya mak?

   Menurut informasi yang saya dapatkan dari kakak tingkat, dulunya kronologi penentuan penempatan itu seperti ini. Wewenang penempatan dari tahun ke tahun dulunya memang dilakukan oleh BPPK, namun sejak tahun 2010 dengan dikeluarkannya PMK No. 94 tahun 2010 tentang cara penyaringan dan penerimaan CPNS gol II dari lulusan prodip I dan III STAN diatur oleh Biro SDM sekjen kemenkeu.

  Nah lhoh, mungkin dulu dari pihak BPPK masih mempertimbangkan IP dan juga mempertimbangkan aspek  lainnya agar kita bisa memilih penempatan yang pascok (pasti cocok) dengan keinginan kita. Memang, hidup ini adalah pilihan, senang atau sedih adalah suatu pilihan, punya pacar jelek atau rupawan juga merupakan pilihan, tapi apa boleh bikin jika sekjen tidak memberikan kita pilihan? Hehe…

   Mungkin kita semua (termasuk saya) masih deg-deg nyos mengenai penempatan setelah kelulusan. Kata orang, tidak masalah apabila kita ditempatkan di BPKP, karena kantornya berada di ibukota provinsi, bagaimana kalo di KPP, yang notabene tersebar ke seluruh negeri antah berantah ini.

    Tahu pulau apu-apu, atau pare-pare?? Hmmm…LHOH, jangan salaaah ! Indonesia ini luas, dari sabang sampe merauke, bukan hanya melulu jawa dan bali saja. Banyak pulau-pulau kecil di nusantara, yang bahkan di dalam peta tidak terlihat seperti apa gambar dan rupanya.

   Jadi, kita semua tidak pernah tahu. Terlebih, apa daya kita? penempatan itu seperti misteri, layaknya takdir. Semua telah digariskan dari awal, kita hanya bisa terima jadi.

   Ingat ! pada waktu verifikasi, kita sudah diminta untuk menandatangani berkas yang berisi kontrak kerja untuk SIAP ditempatkan di berbagai belahan bumi Indonesia. 

   Lalu, kita harus bagaimana kalau ditempatkan disana? Kita ini kan orang hebat? Masak iya orang hebat mau ditempatkan di pelosok negeri? Trus bagaimana caranya kita bisa mengembangkan bakat kita? nah, justru itu, spiderman pernah berkata jika “Great power comes with a great responsibility”, itu artinya semakin kita dirasa hebat oleh yang mengecat cabe (bukan cabe-cabean lho ya), maka semakin besar tanggungjawab serta amanah yang akan kita emban, ya salah satunya jika suatu hari ditempatkan di pelosok negeri. Sadar atau tidak, itu semua ujian, yang akan membawa kita ke level atau maqam yang lebih tinggi. Selanjutnya, jika kita kaji lebih dalam, kembali ke sugesti, bahwa semua ini hanyalah persepsi yang di dalamnya mengandung pemaknaan bahwa di setiap kesulitan pastilah disitu ada kemudahan.

   Pada akhirnya, yang bisa kita upayakan adalah do’a. do’a wujudnya memang gaib, namun sebenarnya nampak. Disini, saya ingin mengutip salah satu statement dari ustad yusuf mansur, beliau mengatakan bahwa do’a itu dimiliki yang kaya maupun yang miskin. Mungkin selepas ini, bisa dicari hadist atau penguatan hukumnya lewat googling.

   Selain do’a, kita juga harus banyak2 bersyukur. Banyak orang yang stres karena tidak diterima di kemenkeu. Contohnya? Banyak ! sebut saja satu peristiwa di BDK III Jogjakarta ini. Bahkan, saya terlibat di peristiwa itu sendiri. Masih ingat mahasiswa gadungan yang berasal dari flores? (maaf saya lupa namanya) Jadi intinya, waktu itu mahasiswa tersebut gagal dinyatakan lulus USM STAN, namun karena dia  belum bisa menerima kenyataan, akhirnya dia mengikuti dinamika STAN tanpa mendapat rekomendasi dari kepala kantor. Singkat cerita..dia lama2 malu karena diinterogasi banyak orang, dan akhirnya dia pun mengundurkan diri seiring dengan penegasan dari pihak BDK sendiri.

    Kita harus ingat, dunia yang akan kita hadapi kelak adalah dunia kerja. Di dalam dunia kerja, ada ikatan tanggungjawab kita kepada rakyat. Jangan merasa besar, kita ini hanyalah seorang pelayan, pelayan masyarakat. Dan rakyat itu sensitif. Mereka bisa melihat dan menilai kita. oleh karena itu, kita juga harus menghargai mereka, karena kita adalah bagian dari mereka. Salah satunya dengan mengabdi, memberikan pelayanan demi kesempurnaan.

   Posisi, lokasi, maupun penempatan tidak boleh dijadikan alasan untuk berkata “saya gak bisa tuh mengabdi untuk negeri ini, apalagi memperbaikinya”. Kadang memang terasa susah, angel kalau dalam bahasa jawanya. Namun, THIS IS OUR COUNTRY. Ini negara kita. negara ini negara yang indah, cintailah dan tunjukkan rasa cinta kita kepada negara tanpa rasa takut. Kalau takut, PULANG SANA ! PULANG KE KANDANG ! PULANG KE PANGKUAN IBU DAN BAPAK ! karena jiwa bea cukai, bukanlah jiwa-jiwa penakut.

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