Saturday, May 07, 2005

Ups & Down

As with the cliche out with the old, in with the new, we had our brand new 6-inch mattresses delivered this week; albeit with double-decker bed frames. Finally, we could have beds where I could stretch out my legs fully without touching the frames, not have beds where the sponge peeled off every time one changes the bed sheets (up till a point where I figured it would eventually disintegrate).

A downside to our welfare was that we had to carry the bedframes up 5 levels; along with our mattresses and I can tell you it was no easy feat as our mattresses were located at the hall and we had to go up another couple of levels to get them.

I thought double decker beds were of my father's era and that they had eventually been phased out due to the repeated and increasing numberof injuries suffered by serviceman. Just only recently, a recruit got his head chopped off by the ceiling fan as he climbed onto his bed. Ok, I exaggerate about his head being chopped off but the rumours speculating were that he was trying to commit suicide by letting the fan cut his head and eventually had his blood splattered as graffiti around his plain looking bunk. Of course we now know that it was purely an accident and you can spot the recruit easily from the rest as he looks like a mummified soldier with his head bandaged up.

Oh well, as I quote one of my bunkmates:
"We seem to be taking one step forward, but infact we are taking two steps backwards with this move."
How aptly described.

(Not being racist or demeaning to bangladeshis or anything) but we now basically cover what bangladeshi workers do, with nearly the same amount of pay and slightly less benefits - we do construction work (yeah we operate all the machinery you see on the roads), sweep roads, clean toilets, furniture transportation, and the mix, so what's next?

We also had our beret presentation this week, resulting in a flurry of activity whenever we fall in for lunch as everyone jostles to ensure that their beret is near and in order (alright, me included). Well, not that there are any women to impress but vanity is the name of the game. MAB are back in action as well, my propellant move to the higher echelons has seen me waking up having been attacked by a deluge of MAB, leaving me persistently scratching and cursing for hours. Need to reload on my OFF soon i reckon.

9 comments:

Mr Miyagi said...

Dude, put the full post here.

quivalen said...

about the saikang...well, yes sometimes the things you're tasked to do can get pretty ridiculous but things like cleaning toilets, well, do you expect cleaners to be hired?

and construction work - you're an engineer, yes? isn't that what your vocation does?

anyway at least you've got machines - i've had to chop down trees with an axe before in the course of an exercise myself. ;-)

Linus said...

haha abt the saikang yeah i'm juz emphasizing my point, but yes in certain camps they do hire cleaners!

to mrbrown: eh what do u mean abt posting the full post here?

Linus said...

oops sorry abt all that

k said...

c'mon, what would the army be without sai-gang and tekan? It'll just be a pile of shit, like what I do right now.

Even if camps hire cleaners, the trainees usualyl end up doing a healthy amount of area cleaning anyway, since it's to much trouble to get the cleaner to clean again. something to do with the amount of paperwork involved in assessing customer (i.e. trainee) satisfaction.

Mr Miyagi said...

Dude. Be prepped. Reservist also have to do area cleaning. Even if the Training Centres have cleaners who come in once a week. Officers also chip in to do area cleaning. Then again, we have cool officers in my NS Bn (like those who go 'eh, guys guys, help leh, you blur, I also blur, so you all don't blur ok?')

Agagooga said...

MAB?

It's more cost effective to hire banglas. At least they'll get the job done pronto and the furniture won't be damaged (I took part in some furniture moving and it was horrible - everything got damaged)/

The cleaners are only for offices and the like. Bunks and living quarters' toilets get cleaned by you.

quivalen said...

why should they care very much whether the furniture gets damaged? we're the ones using it after all.

i doubt they're thinking so far ahead as to take into consideration the cost of replacing what we damage.

not that they'd -would- replace it, really.

and our time is free, after all.

vance said...

Hey you from Plant is it? I was from Plant engineer and operated the heavy machinery too. If you would believe it, it is a common misconception that Plant engineers are the most slack engineers, thus the CSMs and other officers always look for Plant engineers to do their dirty work.