Monday, July 10, 2006
Well then, I've settled into my work, my understudy seems to be coping quite well with his training. Apart for a few things he hasn't grappled with yet (Like the administrative side of the Job) he's doing fine.
But today wasn't so great for me or rather the day before today. See I was the BOS for that day and the OCS training frame had just arrive. With my typical luck with duties this was going to be a busy one for me. I'm not keen to go into details but let's just say cadets are a troublesome bunch.
I could be wrong but whenever there's a OCS frame in town there's bound to be loads to breakdowns throughout the camps and ridiculous requests. Accidents seem to thrive in this environment like some radioactive bacteria.
For instance a Cadet broke the window (get this), while attempting to open the window. How he ever achieved that is beyond me (though there is the possibility that he tried to open it by delicately pushing it outwards with a sledge hammer). So the mess had to be cleaned up and the contractor contacted. It's the typhoon season now, and me being the occasionally nice person that I am decided to help them by giving them some trash bags, tape and a pen knife. At least with that they would have some protection from the rain.
When I handed them the items they looked at me with their doe like Cadet eyes that spoke on volume, namely " Aren't YOU going to fix this for me?". I smiled my infuriatingly orichimaru type grin and left them at that.
Came back in the afternoon to check on how they've done and found to my utter disgust some very shoddy work. Unceremoniously taped to the window was the trash bag and the window had been shifted ( it's a sliding one if you haven't realised this by now) such that the beds would still get wet. The geniuses. So I got another trash bag to seal it off properly and shifted the window so that the bed wouldn't get wet when it rains.
Of course alot of other things happened throughout the day that aggravated me but it's alright, I've recently re-adopted the motto :" What doesn't kill me can only make me stronger". The same motto that nearly drove me insane but with a little tweaking in perspective I think it's quite a good motto to adhere to.
Bad night to be doing duty because it was the world finals. Which basically translates to keeping the mess open till the everyone is sick of watching full grown men chase a modernised inflated bladder (See previous posts regarding lack of soccer interest), you'd be surprised at how long that takes. So in other words with no mess boys or mess aunties, the mess had to be checked on occasionally which leaves me with very little sleep after such a hectic day.
But that's not so bad, apart from being woken up in the morning by extraordinarily anal retentive and not to mention dumb (like BMT dumb) sentries.
BSM was pretty understanding in that he wasn't his usual "this must be done" mode which was good, the BOS taking over was also nice because he said he would take care of most of the nitty gritties that the BSM had told as to do. That left me with just ONE task; Reminding the MT WO ( See previous posts to gauge my opinion of him) to put on certain vehicles a pass to facilitate access control. Here's a rough highly bias, fairly inaccurate sample of what our conversation was like:
Me: Sir, Bsm told me to remind that the stickers for the vehic
MT Wo: !$$@!#$!@#$!#$!@#$!!!!
Me (turn and walks away)
(Background: !@#$!@#$!@#$!@#$)
Me (Looks at Don (a colleague) who is at the smoking point, with a tired
look. Turns to look at MT Wo one last time before walking back to bunk to nurse sore eye and lack of sleep)
(Background: !#$!#$^!%^&!$ (reference to duration spent in army)
Me ( Heads back to bunk, only to be awakened another 1 hr later by understudy to fill in a form)
So I walked away, which was against my policy of dealing these kinds of people head on and in greater volume. But with 20/20 hindsight i think it was the better solution. Namely because I really didn't have the energy to deal or care for confrontation, and even if I did confront him on his rude and unprofessional behavior, it would be infront of the training troops and it would have reflected badly on the institution. Not only that making him look bad in front of so many people (worse still considering alot of officers and strangers) would just be courting trouble with a bruised ego.
So today wasn't a fantastic day, but it certainly wasn't my worse. For that matter, any day that doesn't break that record is fine with me.
Also today we went out for an excellent dinner, at this very nice restaurant where (this is the most exciting part) you can order in English. Is that great of what?!? I don't know about you but I love being able to order in English. The food is excellent AND they serve it in HUGE portions. Plus they serve brownies the size of Yugoslavia. Though something happened at the restaurant that i'm not too happy about, the involved parties apologized and I'm decided to let it go rather the adopt a passive aggressive stance or go into hiding. No doubt a mark that I've grow, especially with such a sensitive issue. I won't say what it is but my closer friends should know what it's about. The type of false accusations or line of questions that can send me into a homicidal rampage. On hindsight I don't really blame them, the circumstantial evidence does point towards these allegations false as they are. Though a little more subtle sensitive probing (gosh that came out wrong) would reveal a more satisfactory answer.
Okay I'm tired
That is all
Jon.P™
But today wasn't so great for me or rather the day before today. See I was the BOS for that day and the OCS training frame had just arrive. With my typical luck with duties this was going to be a busy one for me. I'm not keen to go into details but let's just say cadets are a troublesome bunch.
I could be wrong but whenever there's a OCS frame in town there's bound to be loads to breakdowns throughout the camps and ridiculous requests. Accidents seem to thrive in this environment like some radioactive bacteria.
For instance a Cadet broke the window (get this), while attempting to open the window. How he ever achieved that is beyond me (though there is the possibility that he tried to open it by delicately pushing it outwards with a sledge hammer). So the mess had to be cleaned up and the contractor contacted. It's the typhoon season now, and me being the occasionally nice person that I am decided to help them by giving them some trash bags, tape and a pen knife. At least with that they would have some protection from the rain.
When I handed them the items they looked at me with their doe like Cadet eyes that spoke on volume, namely " Aren't YOU going to fix this for me?". I smiled my infuriatingly orichimaru type grin and left them at that.
Came back in the afternoon to check on how they've done and found to my utter disgust some very shoddy work. Unceremoniously taped to the window was the trash bag and the window had been shifted ( it's a sliding one if you haven't realised this by now) such that the beds would still get wet. The geniuses. So I got another trash bag to seal it off properly and shifted the window so that the bed wouldn't get wet when it rains.
Of course alot of other things happened throughout the day that aggravated me but it's alright, I've recently re-adopted the motto :" What doesn't kill me can only make me stronger". The same motto that nearly drove me insane but with a little tweaking in perspective I think it's quite a good motto to adhere to.
Bad night to be doing duty because it was the world finals. Which basically translates to keeping the mess open till the everyone is sick of watching full grown men chase a modernised inflated bladder (See previous posts regarding lack of soccer interest), you'd be surprised at how long that takes. So in other words with no mess boys or mess aunties, the mess had to be checked on occasionally which leaves me with very little sleep after such a hectic day.
But that's not so bad, apart from being woken up in the morning by extraordinarily anal retentive and not to mention dumb (like BMT dumb) sentries.
BSM was pretty understanding in that he wasn't his usual "this must be done" mode which was good, the BOS taking over was also nice because he said he would take care of most of the nitty gritties that the BSM had told as to do. That left me with just ONE task; Reminding the MT WO ( See previous posts to gauge my opinion of him) to put on certain vehicles a pass to facilitate access control. Here's a rough highly bias, fairly inaccurate sample of what our conversation was like:
Me: Sir, Bsm told me to remind that the stickers for the vehic
MT Wo: !$$@!#$!@#$!#$!@#$!!!!
Me (turn and walks away)
(Background: !@#$!@#$!@#$!@#$)
Me (Looks at Don (a colleague) who is at the smoking point, with a tired
look. Turns to look at MT Wo one last time before walking back to bunk to nurse sore eye and lack of sleep)
(Background: !#$!#$^!%^&!$ (reference to duration spent in army)
Me ( Heads back to bunk, only to be awakened another 1 hr later by understudy to fill in a form)
So I walked away, which was against my policy of dealing these kinds of people head on and in greater volume. But with 20/20 hindsight i think it was the better solution. Namely because I really didn't have the energy to deal or care for confrontation, and even if I did confront him on his rude and unprofessional behavior, it would be infront of the training troops and it would have reflected badly on the institution. Not only that making him look bad in front of so many people (worse still considering alot of officers and strangers) would just be courting trouble with a bruised ego.
So today wasn't a fantastic day, but it certainly wasn't my worse. For that matter, any day that doesn't break that record is fine with me.
Also today we went out for an excellent dinner, at this very nice restaurant where (this is the most exciting part) you can order in English. Is that great of what?!? I don't know about you but I love being able to order in English. The food is excellent AND they serve it in HUGE portions. Plus they serve brownies the size of Yugoslavia. Though something happened at the restaurant that i'm not too happy about, the involved parties apologized and I'm decided to let it go rather the adopt a passive aggressive stance or go into hiding. No doubt a mark that I've grow, especially with such a sensitive issue. I won't say what it is but my closer friends should know what it's about. The type of false accusations or line of questions that can send me into a homicidal rampage. On hindsight I don't really blame them, the circumstantial evidence does point towards these allegations false as they are. Though a little more subtle sensitive probing (gosh that came out wrong) would reveal a more satisfactory answer.
Okay I'm tired
That is all
Jon.P™
