Nasty NS Days

I’m probably one of the few Singaporeans when asked whether I feel that I’ve wasted time serving National Service who answers, “Nope.” I honestly felt that I had a blast picking up new knowledge in my unit, which actually paved quite a nice foundation into IT and networking for me. 

That was until my Platoon Commander showed up. 

[This is where the nasty bits come up. Do not ever read the rest of the post if you’re easily offended or too sensitive.]

This guy who is the same age as me, attended the same junior college, joined the company a few months later and became my PC. He picked up the know how of the system that we’ve been operating fairly quickly. However, he hadn’t spend enough time with the system to understand it thoroughly.

The issue was he didn’t consult us about his decisions.

I understand the tricky relationship involved. On one hand, we’re his subordinates; on the other, we’re his “senior” in terms of man-hours spent with the system. He may very well understand the theoretical part of the system, but those lousy poorly designed systems act eccentrically and do not perform as promised.

He became a source of my frustration because we are on the receiving end of his poorly made decisions. It’s extremely stupid that a group of people have to suffer due to poor management that could have been prevented if the leader bothered to ask for help. 

[Then again, we did try to give some advice but it was like talking to a bottomless well — little to no echoes ever came back]

And so yes… My NS days would have been perfect if I hadn’t have him as my PC. But I have him to thank for teaching me what not to do when I’m leading a team. Don’t bother to save face man… And communicate more with your team… It can make wonders, and prevent a lot of painful mistakes.