Thursday, October 28, 2004
--- I ---
WITs are becoming some shit thing.
It's like trying to find fault with every single thing within the SAF. Everyone is forced to contribute a certain amount of ideas every year for WITs, whether you like it or not. Pride camps have to be organised for such a purpose, so that we can "think" in a more relaxed and conducive environment. I'll be attending one next week.
Our platoon did brain-writing on Tuesday. What is brain-writing, you may ask, if you haven't heard of it before? Basically it's the writing and simultaneous sharing of ideas in machine-gun rapidity. Each person grabs hold of a sheet of paper and scribbles an idea onto it. Then the paper is passed to others to allow them to read. The second person will make comments or add new ideas (or both) on his friend(s)' sheet of paper. He will pass the paper to the third person and so on.
Eventually only three of the ideas are accepted. The rest are shot down.
Next week we have to rack our brains to think of five. We already have three. This means another day of brain-writing, then shooting down to whittle the list to two. To play safe, we ought to have six altogether, in case some other team's idea(s) get rejected, and we can come to the rescue with our extra idea.
Brain-writing creates hilarity. You just have to hand it to those people. We even have things like: "Toilet flush not working; replace all toilet flushes with the press-button one". Or, installing wheels on the tool bag because it is "too heavy".
Anyway, nothing is as absurd as the ideas generated during a brain-writing session as part of the WITs introductory lecture on Tuesday. The topic given: "How to increase the birth rate of Singapore." Almost eighty per cent of the ideas generated were based on sex, because - perhaps - to them it is like the "which came first - the chicken or the egg" question. Obviously sex comes first; without sex one wouldn't have babies, they think.
So we have some of the strangest responses you can ever imagine: nights-off to Geylang; make it compulsory to have sex everyday; sex parade; encourage the watching of porn . . . to the extent of one involving the aunties at the cookhouse. Cedric, Alvin and I deplore the sorry state which the activity turned out. I wonder if Sir had thought about this before he shot off the topic to everybody.
--- II ---
My respect and liking for the OC has dropped to the all-time low, similar to the affections that I show for Mr George W Bush of America.
Doraemon is one of the worst leaders, or bosses, you can ever find. He does not lead by example. He does not have a heart. He pushes the blame and the work to other people. He doesn't know how to motivate people.
Some of the bastard things he has done:
He states a company rule that no one is allowed to sleep in bunk during office hours, or else they will be "disciplinarily dealt with". Now, note the loophole in the statement. It says, "No sleeping in BUNK", which means that one can sleep on the corridor outside the bunk. Another point to note: he has been caught by many company personnel - sergeants and privates alike - at different times and at different locations sleeping the afternoon away, when his standing orders state "no sleeping".
He changes cars during office hours. I can still recall: in the morning, he is still driving his old car. In the afternoon, the car disappears. In the evening, during the last parade, we see a brand new car sitting in OC's lot.
He demands that PC 2 return to the unit to be the Company Duty Officer, even when the latter is suffering from a fever of 40 degrees Celsius.
During the recent Section Battle Course, where the Saturday live-firing was badly screwed, Doraemon blamed PC 2, who was the conducting officer. Doraemon himself didn't take any blame, even though he was the supervising officer, one step higher than the conducting.
He forces Sergeant Sheng Ming to finish reading the standing order for the guard complex - all seven chapters - by Thursday. When Sergeant Sheng Ming asks for an extension, the OC grins sadistically and says that he wants to test us on Friday. But I doubt he even bothers to read the entire document, which spans seven long chapters. Furthermore, it isn't fair if he takes out a page of the document and tests us from there. Who in the right state of mind is going to memorise the entire document word for word, punctuation for punctuation? Not unless you call in the Muggers. Even during the reading, the OC and his suck-cock buddy, the CSM, were very rude. They admired each other's car engines - as usual - but made a hell lot of noise that distracted us listening to Sergeant Sheng Ming read the document.
He returns to company line late on one of the Fridays, delaying our company-level stand-by bed and eventually delaying our book-out time. Some people nearly dialled the Safety Hotline.
He falls out during a 5km run, having completed only 2km. At least he could have the decency to walk the remaining 3km and complete the distance provided.
We wonder if he really cares for us. After the AHM, we hear that there will be off-in-lieu given for the Sunday burnt, and for those who ran 21km under 2 hours and 45 minutes. If he truly cared, he would have fought for our rights.
He is tactless, and lousy at motivating people (refer to my post on 7 August). While we have just lost a long National Day weekend thanks to our graduation exercise, he has to tell us, "Be prepared to burn more Sundays in the future for live-firing." Thanks, man. You really made our day.
No wonder, he is still a lieutenant. I feel a sense of shame when all the OCs are mentioned during the RSM's thank-you speech: captain, captain, captain, captain, and the last of them all, lieutenant. Fine, I'm discriminating against rank. But if he were good, we wouldn't mind him being a lieutenant. At least he's doing a good job, regardless of rank. But the sad fact is, he isn't.
¶ 10/28/2004 01:10:00 pm WITs are becoming some shit thing.
It's like trying to find fault with every single thing within the SAF. Everyone is forced to contribute a certain amount of ideas every year for WITs, whether you like it or not. Pride camps have to be organised for such a purpose, so that we can "think" in a more relaxed and conducive environment. I'll be attending one next week.
Our platoon did brain-writing on Tuesday. What is brain-writing, you may ask, if you haven't heard of it before? Basically it's the writing and simultaneous sharing of ideas in machine-gun rapidity. Each person grabs hold of a sheet of paper and scribbles an idea onto it. Then the paper is passed to others to allow them to read. The second person will make comments or add new ideas (or both) on his friend(s)' sheet of paper. He will pass the paper to the third person and so on.
Eventually only three of the ideas are accepted. The rest are shot down.
Next week we have to rack our brains to think of five. We already have three. This means another day of brain-writing, then shooting down to whittle the list to two. To play safe, we ought to have six altogether, in case some other team's idea(s) get rejected, and we can come to the rescue with our extra idea.
Brain-writing creates hilarity. You just have to hand it to those people. We even have things like: "Toilet flush not working; replace all toilet flushes with the press-button one". Or, installing wheels on the tool bag because it is "too heavy".
Anyway, nothing is as absurd as the ideas generated during a brain-writing session as part of the WITs introductory lecture on Tuesday. The topic given: "How to increase the birth rate of Singapore." Almost eighty per cent of the ideas generated were based on sex, because - perhaps - to them it is like the "which came first - the chicken or the egg" question. Obviously sex comes first; without sex one wouldn't have babies, they think.
So we have some of the strangest responses you can ever imagine: nights-off to Geylang; make it compulsory to have sex everyday; sex parade; encourage the watching of porn . . . to the extent of one involving the aunties at the cookhouse. Cedric, Alvin and I deplore the sorry state which the activity turned out. I wonder if Sir had thought about this before he shot off the topic to everybody.
--- II ---
My respect and liking for the OC has dropped to the all-time low, similar to the affections that I show for Mr George W Bush of America.
Doraemon is one of the worst leaders, or bosses, you can ever find. He does not lead by example. He does not have a heart. He pushes the blame and the work to other people. He doesn't know how to motivate people.
Some of the bastard things he has done:
He states a company rule that no one is allowed to sleep in bunk during office hours, or else they will be "disciplinarily dealt with". Now, note the loophole in the statement. It says, "No sleeping in BUNK", which means that one can sleep on the corridor outside the bunk. Another point to note: he has been caught by many company personnel - sergeants and privates alike - at different times and at different locations sleeping the afternoon away, when his standing orders state "no sleeping".
He changes cars during office hours. I can still recall: in the morning, he is still driving his old car. In the afternoon, the car disappears. In the evening, during the last parade, we see a brand new car sitting in OC's lot.
He demands that PC 2 return to the unit to be the Company Duty Officer, even when the latter is suffering from a fever of 40 degrees Celsius.
During the recent Section Battle Course, where the Saturday live-firing was badly screwed, Doraemon blamed PC 2, who was the conducting officer. Doraemon himself didn't take any blame, even though he was the supervising officer, one step higher than the conducting.
He forces Sergeant Sheng Ming to finish reading the standing order for the guard complex - all seven chapters - by Thursday. When Sergeant Sheng Ming asks for an extension, the OC grins sadistically and says that he wants to test us on Friday. But I doubt he even bothers to read the entire document, which spans seven long chapters. Furthermore, it isn't fair if he takes out a page of the document and tests us from there. Who in the right state of mind is going to memorise the entire document word for word, punctuation for punctuation? Not unless you call in the Muggers. Even during the reading, the OC and his suck-cock buddy, the CSM, were very rude. They admired each other's car engines - as usual - but made a hell lot of noise that distracted us listening to Sergeant Sheng Ming read the document.
He returns to company line late on one of the Fridays, delaying our company-level stand-by bed and eventually delaying our book-out time. Some people nearly dialled the Safety Hotline.
He falls out during a 5km run, having completed only 2km. At least he could have the decency to walk the remaining 3km and complete the distance provided.
We wonder if he really cares for us. After the AHM, we hear that there will be off-in-lieu given for the Sunday burnt, and for those who ran 21km under 2 hours and 45 minutes. If he truly cared, he would have fought for our rights.
He is tactless, and lousy at motivating people (refer to my post on 7 August). While we have just lost a long National Day weekend thanks to our graduation exercise, he has to tell us, "Be prepared to burn more Sundays in the future for live-firing." Thanks, man. You really made our day.
No wonder, he is still a lieutenant. I feel a sense of shame when all the OCs are mentioned during the RSM's thank-you speech: captain, captain, captain, captain, and the last of them all, lieutenant. Fine, I'm discriminating against rank. But if he were good, we wouldn't mind him being a lieutenant. At least he's doing a good job, regardless of rank. But the sad fact is, he isn't.
