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T A G B O A R D

talk, talk somemore

9:26 AM - Saturday, March 01, 2008

I am actually supporting local music by using daren tan's song on my blog. LOL

Anyway, yesterday I met one of the most ridiculous sergeants in tekong, I think his surname is Chua. It just furthers highlights my point that many paces in the SAF do no have quality control and rank is not a good gauge of ability, especially for specialists and enlistees level. The scenaraio was that my department was taking our usual vehicle up to the ammo magazine and at the same time pegasus company was boarding the tonner for their IFC. So it ended up that either one of their drivers or vehicles was unavailable and they wanted to share a vehicle with us. We were kind to agree, only to meet with a rogue such as Chua. From the first look, no one will guess that he's a sergeant, as he looks like the average punk who hangs around in void decks during school hours because he got thrown out of school. So kalai and me went to the front seats because we were on duty as the recruits started boarding at the back. I realised that he was the only sergeant around and deduced he'll be sitting with thr recruits at the back as they needed someone to watch them. Surprisingly, he decided to try his luck at sitting in front and I totally gave him a really hard time because of the simple fact that I don't like him.

Chua: (opens door and points to the back) Thank you.
Me: (understanding what he means but feigning ignorance) Welcome. (and attempts to close the door)
Chua: Aren't you supposed to sit at the back?
Me: Aren't you supposed to sit with your recruits at the back?
Chua: These are my recuits. (obviously not understanding what I meant with his pea brain)
Me: Ya so sit at the back. We're on duty, so we always sit in front.
Chua: But the driver needs a vehicle commander right? (once again insulting my intellegence by expecting an answer)
Me: Ya, we can be the vehicle commanders.
Chua: (using his last tactic) So you expect a sergeant to sit at the back while u corporals sit in front.
Me: (seriously pissed already) Ya.

Bear in mind throughout the process, he was talking like a gangster and in a "beng-ish" tone, as if we were responsible for the loss of his already pea-sized brain. But as I thought everyone was waiting for us to settle our dispute, we decided to give in to him and went to the back, only to realise that it was packed to the brim. This doesn't make sense as we were doing them a favour and ended up doing ourselves a big disfavour. So I purposely refused to board the vehicle until the last second and even my colleagues felt it was ridiculous that Chua was sitting in front. What was the final solution? I sat in front with their PC and Chua was sitting at the back closst to the end of the tonner, simply because they needed a SERGEANT to be at the back and being the only SERGEANT around, he gets to do the honours. Trust him to try to dispute with me.

So the whole morning I was already very pissed off. Ironically, when I reached the office, their ammo IC was already waiting quite a while to draw ammo, largely delayed through their own wonderful SERGEANT arguing with a CORPORAL. I admit I'm a very calculating person, so I decided to take more revenge. When I entered the office, I refusued to hurry into issuing ammo to them. Why must I hurry for them when they didn't even show a bit of gratitude for us giving them a lift? So it was another 20 minutes when I decided to issue to them and I specially warned the ammo IC that I will book them should they return with any problems that I can book them with. I got to know from her that Chua was notorious for his antics, hence I decided to forgive him a bit for his mental retardation. Also, when the ammo IC returned with the ammo, I decided not to book them although I could because she wasn't the one to offend me.

Moral of the story: Alan is nice to people who are nice to him. Rank is not everything and I think Chua left his courtesy at home.