KLUANG: A sales champion shares his personal story of joining the police force in order to experience life.

Supt Lim Chun How said he was a sales champion one year after taking up the sales job, and was rewarded an opportunity to travel overseas.

His boss even promised to promote him as a branch manager.

However, Lim quit the job to join the police force.

“To me, the sales job is repetitive. I meet customers every day doing the same thing.

“However, after I became a police officer, I got to meet different kinds of people.

“To me, this is a great experience,” he said.

Lim, an officer at the Crime Prevention and Community Safety Department in Johor, shared his story of becoming a cop during a talk jointly organized by the prime minister’s political secretary Chan Ming Kai, Media Chinese International Limited, and the Mengkibol constituency office in Kluang on Saturday.

Lim said a police officer gets to assist members of the public.

“The satisfaction is hard to describe even though it may only be a very minor case,” he said.

Kluang was the venue of the first of five sessions. The other four sessions will be held at 8 pm at the Melaka Chinese Chamber of Commerce (July 4), Kedah Chinese Assembly Hall in Alor Setar (July 5), Jit Sin High School in Bukit Mertajam, Penang (July 6) and Sin Chew Daily headquarters in Petaling Jaya (July 8).

Ethnic Chinese police officers from various states will take turns to share their stories to encourage more Chinese Malaysians to join the police force.

During the talk in Kluang, Segamat deputy OCPD DSP Ng Swie Chait urged the Chinese people to discard the traditional perception of “good man does not become a soldier.”

He said he was once an investigating officer.

Citing himself as an example, Ng said, “The job satisfaction is something you can’t buy with money, especially when a criminal is charged in court and you assist a victim to fight for justice.”

Chan Ming Kai, political secretary to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, said many Chinese Malaysians are keen to be civil servants but they find it hard to get recruited.

As many as 500,000 Malays applied to be civil servants during the first half of this year, but only 11,000 Chinese did so.

The recruitment rate for the Chinese is about 47%, higher than the Malays at 30%.

Chan said encouraging more Chinese to join the civil service is not just about increasing the number but to give the Chinese an opportunity to deliver their best in the service.

Chan admitted that it is challenging for the Chinese in the civil service but he hoped they will take up the challenge to become civil servants or police officers.

“I can’t promise you that you will definitely be recruited, but you will be given a fair chance,” he said.