Rant, Rave

Yes, this is going to be another one of those ranty blogs about how screwed up the saf is.  Well mostly.
 
So as mentioned last week, I was at wargames all week.  Due to a rather ill-planned schedule, I was supposed to be on night shift for all four days of the exercise, i.e. 8pm to 8am everyday.  As a result, I lived in US time, fighting the desire to sleep while staring at a mostly static computer screen.  The thing about wargames is that the work is extremely bursty.  For most of the time, there's nothing much to do (mostly due to laggy computers) but once you're called into action, it's really quite hectic, which is good, if you're trying to keep awake.  In any case, the whole jet laggy affair left me quite drained and flu symptoms started to appear.
 
On Friday, rumours had it that there would be a long weekend, and so we would be let off that night itself.  However, due to my company's strange unwillingness to cancel the indentment of breakfast on Saturday morning, we were all made to stay till Saturday to consume our breakfast before booking out.  I say strange unwillingness as the other companies seemed to have no problems canceling their breakfast, while somehow, someone in my company is just too lazy to budge from status quo.  And so we did stay till Saturday morning, consuming breakfast and then booking out shortly after a spot of area cleaning at around 8.30am, since apparently the CSM and OC were not coming to camp.  unfortunately, not long after we left, news got to me that my CSM did go to camp, albeit at 9, after we'd booked out.  Obviously he wasn't amused that he'd made the journey to camp to find it totally empty, so he stomped around for a bit in rage but in the end settled for some nerve-calming car washing.  Thankfully he didn't haul us all back to camp.
 
Sounds like a pretty decent week so far, but here's the good part.  When I reached home on Saturday morning, I received a phone call from camp, just after having showered and checked my email, that there was this guy who apparently forgot he had guard duty, and claimed that he wasn't feeling well, so couldn't make it for his duty.  Well so being the honest guy that I am, I found it impossible to lie that I had anything on that day, so I reluctantly gave in to the request to go back to camp for guard duty, admittedly after screaming at the guy on the other side of the line for quite a bit.  To give you an idea of just how amazingly convenient it is for me to go for guard duty from home, I have to a) go back to camp in chua chu kang to get my uniform, boots and SBO, then b) make my way down to nee soon camp, where we do our guard duty, when I c) live in marine parade.  Yes, from the east to the west to the north.  And yes, as a result I didn't make it to Huanyuh's concert either.  Sigh.
 
The thing about the whole incident is when should one lie in order to push work away?  There is clearly a balance between being nice and responsible and acquiescent and doing all these favours for people, but somehow, it seems equally reasonable to reject requests for help by feigning appointments and what not.  I'm just not a very convincing liar so I guess I know what I'm susceptible to doing, but perhaps I should work on being assertive in rejecting these things.
 
On a lighter note, I overheard this conversation between my CSM and my OC with regards to the company cohesion day, which is supposed to be this coming Thursday.
 
CSM: Sir, I heard that we're having dragonboating for cohesion day.  It's not very well-received by the guys.
 
OC: Why?  What's wrong with dragon boating?  How do you know it's not fun if you've never tried it?
 
CSM: Sir, cohesion day is a day for them to enjoy.  Dragonboating is in the sun. So hot you know, how can that be enjoy?
 
This is my commando, special forces, free fall parachutist, ranger, bomb disposal CSM here saying that being under the sun can't be enjoyment.  :)
 
Also came up with this interesting idea after reading an article in Saturday's Life about serial novels.  Would it not be a good idea to revive the genre of the serial novel on the web?  It'd be fun for the authors and the readers I'd think.  Taking it a step further beyond mere serialisation, it could be a bit like a fictional blog, or even something cooler like choose your own adventure with multiple authors taking the stories in different directions.  But I'm not the literary sort, so I'll leave it to those who know what they're talking about to comment.