jjamed's Weblog Site • NuTang.com

On July 1st Terence posted '5 more months. 5 more months. 5 more months' as his status. Then only two nights ago after finalising plans with my CO and B2 about relocating existing OA terminals from godforsaken places in the unit to ramp up productivity of the Admin Office (more affectionately known as the 'fishtank' as one wall of the office is glassed). Pity then it took the threat of an imminent manpower crunch for everyone to focus on us. In light of the change, my B2 casually asked on FB whether I will be reluctant to leave just as I will finally be getting a terminal along with a desk after seven months of running around the whole camp searching for an unoccupied one in order to rush my projects and tasks.

To my surprise I actually think I will be reluctant to leave this place, in spite of June being such a busy month for all of us. Even though I was not inside the GOH contingent for SAF Day, I still stayed back with them on quite a number of nights just to finish up my chart, reports, plans, slides, write-ups and every other type of menial admin work thinkable. I'd never imagined my NS life to be this fruitful and enriching or to even be doing work such as this (I'd resigned myself to two years of rushing up hills and dashing through forests every other week prior to passing out).

And boss did treat me lunch at Shokudo Japanese Coffee House at Bugis Junction after taking time off work to watch SPDS Section 3 deliver their final performance at NLB during Mindef PRIDE Day 2011. That respite from camp was pretty surprising, but did wonders as it was the first occasion I could converse with him informally and find out more about his beliefs and also his family life as well.

Anyway, I'd successfully identified my understudy after an interview session with the help of my fellow PAs from the sub-units (save from School) and Terence from HR ^^ All of us were from the same batch and hence we will often meet up in camp just to chill out and talk about things from our side. The selection process for the interview was rather screwed up though. Thankfully our choice, even from such a limited number of people already destined to be posted to my side, seems to be vindicated from the two weeks I spent shadowing them during our unit induction programme. For starters he does possess the neatest handwriting from amongst his peers.. Hm..

Sometimes I just hope for proper S1, S2, S3 and S4 Branches in my sub-unit so that I do not have to, along with two other guys, deal with all of these especially when you have close to three hundred individuals and lots of platoons to look after with only a handful of guys to help me. Anyway, I'm sure there's a reason why they consolidated it all at HQ side. I guess on our part we can attempt to synergise our workflow processes in line with our requirements in order to cut out duplication and redundancy from our work. Guess that will help a big deal (Bottom-line - We need more terminals to further distribute work amongst us more effectively)

Ultimately I shall try to incorporate an open office concept when we start to revamp the place - and Solyh has a friend over at School who studied Interior Design in poly to help us out (hopefully he'll agree). Then once it is done five months on I can say that I'd truly left behind a legacy for Henry, Solyh, Jaime and our future replacements to better enjoy their remaining time (and work) in the office (: And our bosses will never again have to complain that we seem to be doing nothing and just crowding over a single terminal like fishes waiting for dinner time.

The last analogy was made popular by this guy, who's actually one of my superiors in reality (and a well-respected one at that) ^^

By the way, I've removed the Feedjit widget it was getting rather irritating. Also, I do not see the need for it now. Times have changed, to put it across simply.