Offices slowly limp back to life

Attendance remains thin in both public and private offices

ISLAMABAD: While the four-day Eidul Fitr holidays may have ended on Monday, it seems some people are still not done with the revelry with offices in the federal capital witnessing thin attendance on Tuesday, the first official work day after the holidays.

All the government, semi-government and private offices, including banks and financial institutions, reopened on Tuesday observed very low attendance after the four-day holiday.



The primary reason for the truant behaviour was that more than half of the officers and employees, who had travelled to their native areas to celebrate Eidul Fitr, did not return to the capital in time to make it to work.

Even for those who did turn up, there was a festive mood in most of the offices, with officials and staff members seen exchanging Eid greetings with their colleagues.

Muhammad Hamza, a government official, told APP, that only locals who are residents of the twin-cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi had made it to work on Tuesday.



They added that it will take two or three days for life to return to normal in the offices and across the city. Most of the employees in private and public sector departments had taken leaves either preceding the Eid holidays or immediately after the festival ended so that they could spend more time with their loved ones in their hometowns.

As a result, there was scant traffic on the roads of the capital on Tuesday.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2018.