I don’t know who needs to read this, but I do know that it’s important enough to be written – even if I have to create an account to post it here.

For those who have cleared the written exam, please don’t take my opinion as an indictment on your achievement; congratulations on passing and best of luck with the rest of the process.

For those who did not pass the written exam, reading this post is unlikely to make you feel less sad, depressed and disappointed. But – with the shared optimism that forces us to appear for a highly arbitrary, outdated, mismanaged & overhyped exam such as the CSS despite such skewed, random & implausible odds of passing – I will nevertheless try.

It is time to confront the elephant in the room: we have been tricked! The lack of state welfare, unpredictability of jobs in the private sector and historical concentration of power with executive state institutions has all conditioned and brainwashed us into believing that a career in bureaucracy offers a Pakistani citizen one of the only stable ways of leading a life that can be deemed a success. And the perpetuation of this belief by our generation of elders has ensured that this brainwashing continues to be inherited down.

But this is a hoax: the CSS - unfortunately - is a gateway to glorified mediocrity, and nothing more. In an increasingly capitalist society, careers in the private sector - apart from being more objectively meritocratic - can be much more lucrative, rewarding and satisfying. Likewise, the barriers to entry for setting up entrepreneurial ventures despite little to no funds are the lowest they have ever been, not to mention the unprecedented gains one can now make using the internet and technology. And then there is the possibility of immigrating to another country where you are more appropriately compensated for your skills whilst getting access to great social welfare.

Now obviously this is just the opinion of a 3-time-failing bitter candidate, who probably would not have made this post had he passed (and I’ll own that hypocrisy), but I think no one else has an incentive to inform you about the ugly truth buried underneath the exaggerated glamour masquerading the gritty life of a CSP Officer. Sure, well intentioned people can and often do pursue the CSS to serve the country. But that doesn’t disprove the brainwashing that happens around that pursuit. I cannot disagree with the unfortunate fact that passing the CSS increases your social mobility overnight unlike any other thing in Pakistan. And my privilege prevents me from understanding the true extent of the helplessness and desperation aspirants feel. But the unreasonable and supremely one-dimensional extent to which our society overvalues performance in the CSS as a sole metric for success ends up destroying the mental health of aspirants from underprivileged backgrounds. And the regrettable irony is that the arbitrariness involved in checking the written exams (mostly by aged university academics with archaic marking rubrics) only benefits those privileged by birth; in the form of learning English from an early age, easily affording expensive academies, having the guidance of friends or family members who are CSPs and not worrying about taking time off from work. In fact, the most empowering change for underprivileged aspiring candidates would have been, at the very least, to make Urdu a compulsory subject for the written exam, which still hasn’t happened and is symptomatic of this exam’s ugly colonial remnants.

Having said all of this, if you still have attempts remaining, haven’t appeared at all yet or have cleared the written, it might behoove you to maintain a positive and optimistic outlook about what this exam is, your ability to hopefully clear it and the impact it can have on improving your life. That doesn’t mean that you need to automatically disagree with my opinion; in fact, it can be liberating to approach the CSS with a pressure-free mindset where you accept ultimate failure as a possible outcome despite the magnitude of your hard work. But if, like me, you have failed the written exam for the 3rd and last time, it is important to move on, knowing that - on some level - we were tricked into believing this was the only thing that mattered; and you should not equate your failure as a fair reflection of your true capabilities. It might not be possible to convince the people around us about this fact, but the journey to building the necessary mental fortitude and healing from this heartache starts from self-acceptance.

Because not being 1 of 393 candidates out of the 20,262 candidates who appeared for a written exam, comprising of 12 - almost consecutive – 3 hour papers in the heat of May, checked under one of the most arbitrary and secretive exam rubrics in the world (where the thickness of your marker’s tip and your handwriting rather than the substance of your answers can be the difference between passing & failing), the result of which is announced after more than half a year and the entire process concluded in almost 1.5 to 2 years – one of the longest and least efficient recruitment processes for any bureaucracy in the world, only to transition into a lifelong career where you earn close to GDP (PPP) per capita on average (Pakistan ranking 134th in the world) and forced into a deeply entrenched system of corruption for advancement or even survival, seems nothing to lose sleep over.