By OP Singh

DGP and  Head of Haryana State Narcotics Control Bureau

“Welcome to the service.” It’s a phrase you will hear in the coming weeks, often with warmth, sometimes with envy, and occasionally with a knowing smile that says more than words ever could. For many of you, clearing the Civil Services Examination feels like stepping onto the grand stage. After years of monastic discipline, sacrificed social life, and caffeine-powered midnight study marathons, you’ve arrived.

But could you allow me to propose an alternative metaphor?  You’ve not entered a stage; you’ve stepped into an arena. Here, applause is rare. The lighting is harsh. And the crowd watching you, unlike your parents, mentors, and online followers, isn’t necessarily rooting for you. Because this isn’t a coronation, it’s an initiation.

The Overnight Celebrity—and the Long Day After

To be young, idealistic, and newly minted as an IAS, IPS, IFS, or IRS officer is to inhabit the Indian imagination as a minor deity briefly. Your social media followers swell. Distant relatives remember your name. Newspaper supplements beg for your study plan. You’re the headline: “Village Boy Cracks UPSC”; “Daughter of Daily Wager Tops Civil Services.” And then, the silence of your first office.

A steno yawns as you walk in. Files—fat with bureaucratic inertia—await your signature. A peon points you to your desk, which might wobble. The ink pad is dry. Nobody cares how much you scored in GS Paper II. This dissonance between the halo of selection and the humdrum of service can be jarring. The party doesn’t last. It’s not supposed to.

Deep End, Murky Waters

Your entry into the civil services is less like being anointed and more like being thrown into the deep end of a pool—one teeming with overbearing seniors, competing batchmates, cunning subordinates, and an ecosystem whose instincts are survival, not transformation.

Service rivalries aren’t just real, they’re institutional. They lurk in seating arrangements, file markings, WhatsApp groups, and who gets the microphone at a conference. Your contemporaries—once allies in coaching classes—are now players on a different team. And your juniors, trained by years of handling greenhorns, can read your insecurity faster than you can remember Rule 3(1) of the All India Services (Conduct) Rules. It’s not personal. It’s just how the machine works.

Rules of Engagement

The civil service exists within a deeply rule-bound framework. You will sign things you don’t fully agree with. You’ll be responsible for outcomes you didn’t author. Service rules will sometimes protect you. More often, they will bind you like invisible ropes.

Promotion isn’t purely about merit. Performance doesn’t always trump protocol. A single act of boldness may earn you media praise, but an official memo in your service record is more lasting. Non-conformity is romantic only in movies. In real life, it isolates.

You must learn to operate within these constraints—sometimes bending, rarely breaking. Every idealist must wrestle with the disappointment of discovering that many changes cannot be made quickly. Some cannot be made at all. This is where most officers either grow up or give up.

The Job Within the Job

Here’s the paradox: though the machinery may seem slow, the job itself is relentless. You’ll attend more meetings than you can count. You’ll visit sites where human suffering has no filter. You’ll work late on budget files only to be transferred weeks later. You’ll write draft after draft of a policy note, only to see it die in committee.

Much of your job will feel repetitive. Surprise inspections, grievance redressal, law and order drills before festivals or elections. The grind is real—and so is the fatigue. Your dream job is also a desk job, a field job, and a thankless job rolled into one. There will be moments you’ll

wonder if your talent is being squandered. And maybe it is. But this is where real learning begins.

Playing T20, Measured Like a Test

 The truth is, you’ll need the agility of a T20 cricketer while being judged like you’re in a Test match. Public expectations are immediate. Media cycles are ruthless. Yet your performance indicators—transfers, empanelments, ACRS—move at a geological pace. This duality can crush the unprepared.

The only way to survive is to quickly match your aptitude to your assignment. You must find slivers of space where your skills and the system can co-exist. If you’re a tech lover, make your district dashboard smarter. If you write well, pen the circular that everyone else copies. If you empathise, build that shelter home with dignity, not just under budget. There are jobs within the job. Find them. They’re your real playground.

Adapt. Don’t Abdicate.

Agility will matter more than brilliance. Flexibility, more than force. This doesn’t mean you must become a chameleon. But you must learn when to fight and when to endure. Not every wrong is yours to right. Not every hill is worth dying on.

But where you do choose to intervene, could you do so with your whole self? Lead with clarity, speak with reason, and act with integrity. Remember that silence is also a message in government. Make sure yours isn’t mistaken for surrender.

Build Quiet Capital

Start investing in relationships that matter: a trustworthy subordinate, an honest vendor, or a mentor who answers your calls after hours. The system often operates through informal networks of influence, not through formal memos. Build your capital—not in the currency of favours but in the currency of goodwill.

And protect your sense of self. Read widely. Travel when you can. Maintain friendships with those who knew you before the world did. The bureaucracy is all-consuming—but it must not consume you.

Legacy Is Not a Posting. It’s a Pattern.

The most successful officers don’t look like heroes. They look like habits. They show up. They follow up. They keep promises small and keep them. Over time, they develop patterns of honesty, efficiency, and empathy.

You may not be remembered for a single grand act. But you’ll be respected for how you handled a flood, a transfer, a tragedy, a tough file. That’s legacy—not a newspaper headline, but a whispered recollection that you were good at what you did.

Final Word

 Your story as a civil servant will not be written in the first 100 days. It will be written in your ability to navigate contradiction, to endure boredom, to act in ambiguity, and to care even when the system forgets to. I’m so happy, congratulations. You’ve cracked the exam. Now, lace up. The arena awaits. And it doesn’t clap. (Views expressed by the author are personal)