We have spent the last 2 weeks preparing for the upcoming IQA inspection (now postponed till next month - yeh!). Being intimately involved in the preparation, I have had opportunity to meditate on the ridiculousness of all this ISO and Quality business, sprung from the body of New Age Management Rubbish (ala Dilbert).

IQA assumes that we live in a perfect world, and expects us to deliver perfection, or at least the appearance of it. Draw your own conclusions about what happens.

Among other things, we have to fill up paperwork that absolutely no one looks at except the inspection team (which brings to mind the question of why it's needed in the first place, as it doesn't help us provide Quality Service to the patients). Wasting time on the paperwork, we have less time and energy to spend on doing -real- work, so our level of productivity actually goes down. Also, we are not supposed to leave anything inside the temporary slots of medical dockets - what then are the slots for, I ask (except for lazy - mostly Tekong - medics to stuff visit summaries instead of filing them properly)? I find that the slots are good for putting fragile things - like x-ray reports, printed on thin paper. So now I've to file the reports in, and they'll probably tear in a few years. Furthermore, we're not supposed to stock more than one month's supply of drugs at anytime. The problem is that stock takes forever to come, so the alternative is to run out of drugs (and get screwed by the MOs).

All these requirements were probably thought up by people in High Places who envisioned them as leading to a improved quality of health care, but the sad reality is that on the ground, most of it doesn't work and in fact backfires, not only resulting in time, effort and resources wasted on paperwork and skulduggery, but an ultimately lower standard of work. The most laughable - and ultimately indefensible - part of the ISO requirements, though, is the Quality Manual (and related gobbledy-gook). Now, these grimoires on the Philosophy of Customer Service, Quality Policy and related Dark Arts (which staff are supposed to memorise?!) are so thick, jargon ridden, repetitive, unused and in a word: useless that how anyone in a proper frame of mind can think they improve standards is totally beyond me. The only reason why all this rubbish exists in the first place is to provide employment for the ISO people, pure and simple. Since they are the ones setting the criteria for ISO certification, they take the opportunity to stun clueless top-level management with their Arcane Manuals and Incomprehensible ISO-Speak, who then believe that these are Good Things (TM), when they are mere ploys to increase the bulk and complexity of the bureaucracy needed to adminster ISO certification, which benefits - surprise - ISO by allowing it to grow, hire more employees and generally better sucker companies of their money.

Of course, the SAF wanting to be a World Class Organisation (and to hell with the real situation) is not the only reason why all these measures are foisted on us. Us being unwilling slaves, there is no incentive for us to work well, so this is a way of making sure we do our work. Unfortunately, the law of Unintended Consequences applies again, as always.

Why we work so hard, I do not know. Maybe it is out of a misguided sense of responsibility.

The madness of inspections does not only affect us. We asked a unit for a vehicle to send someone to A&E, but they refused at first, because of their own upcoming inspection. Well done. So since the medical centre is preparing for an inspection, we should refuse to see all patients or give out any medicine and ask them everyone report sick outside (actually that way both the patients and us are happy - the former get bountiful MCs and we get less work while earning the same amount of money).


I am rather pleased with the SAF's handling of the POW training incident. There is greater transparency now, and less covering up. Perhaps this is due to a change in mindset. Or perhaps they realised that IRC chat rooms can spread the news faster than Pioneer Magazine can! As a fellow malcontent remarked: "The country is moving towards the right direction. The higher command can no longer be complacent. Not the increasingly critical tone of the st."

As I probably have mentioned before, the doing things by going up the Chain Of Command is useless. Your superiors don't care, and they are all friends, so complaining about one to his superior may not do much good, and may bring retribution. If your CO does not care about your problem, you supposedly can call an "Armed Forces Council", but few know that they exist and nobody (except the Chief Clerks) knows how to summoned one, and even if they do, is there any guarantee that one will be convened? Is it any wonder then that people like to write letters to their MPs, pull strings or otherwise circumvent military channels? There's always the SAF Hotline, but I venture that that's more to stop servicemen defenestrating themselves, thus resulting in a gargantuan PR disaster. For real complaints, the average serviceman has little recourse. For example, in the recent POW training incident, there isn't supposed to be physical contact, but they'd been drowning the trainees for god knows how long. Nobody bothered to report about this breach of training safety because they feared reprisals or being ignored. Hell, the people they were supposed to voice their concerns to were condoning or actively encouraging the drowning, and going beyond them was either unfeasible or unlikely to bring results (probably due to collusion?). The very chain of command that is supposed to solve servicemen's problems creates them by perverting training (among other things). There really should be an anonymous hotline to report abuse or other cock ups in the system.

Jason tricked me one day. He needed 10 oxygen tanks changed at the Army Logistics Base, and claimed that since Ban Xiong wasn't around, he had to remain behind, being the only specialist. I was suspicious of his motives, but not having been to ALB, I had no idea of the horrors in store for me. So me and Yao Shun merrily went to ALB. The vehicle we used was also sending patients to A&E, so it could not pass the ALB gate. Consequently, me and Yao Shun had to trudge all the way to level 3 of the warehouse with our heavy loads. By the time I got there, my shirt was thoroughly soaked. When we finished, we had to wait some time for the vehicle and so decided to eat at their canteen, since we wouldn't be able to return to the cookhouse in time. Their canteen turned out to be horrible. I had Chinese Fried Rice, normally a safe dish, but somehow, it was the only place in the world to cook Chinese-style Fried Rice with Chilli in it.

One day, Melvin and I were tasked to cover NSmen's IPPT... in Tanjong Gul camp. This camp was rundown, hard to find, and perhaps even further from civilisation (factories in Tuas don't count) than ours. Further, the mess we had breakfast at was both expensive and lousy. The people conducting the IPPT were very on-the-ball - they even asked the NSmen to count timing for their warmups louder (of course, the NS men ignored them). I sure hope I don't go to this sort of NS unit. The sole beacon of light in our visit was the E-mart. There, they had packets upon packets of white and black socks (out of stock in our E-mart for *months* - now we know what happened to the stock) and even several field packs! The food and toiletry selection was relatively extensive too.

The ATC cookhouse is learning from the old SMM's - I saw "Fish Fillet ala Meuniere" (fish with a lemon sauce) and "Vicky (Vichy?) Carrot" (which turned out to be diced carrots) one day. Oh no!

I am used to seeing instant noodle particles in the toilet sinks and water coolers, but what I saw one day dwarved my previous sightings - what must have been at least 1/15 of a packet of instant noodles was clogging up the sink of the water cooler. After a day, no one had bothered to remove it, so I nobly scooped most of it up with a piece of newspaper, knowing that if my CSM had found out, she'd have banned everyone from eating instant noodles.

I think if we go to war, some regulars will be the first to die as their men will shoot them.

The stray dogs in camp are becoming an ever-bigger nuisance these days. They fight more often and more noisily, especially in the wee hours of the morning, they bark incessantly after the sun has set and generally get in people's way. Now, I like dogs but the ones in camp are less predictable since they're not tamed. Besides which, they are huge, mangy and more dirty (especially the "Disgusting Dog" who has a serious case of piles and hangs out at the ATC Cookhouse during meal times, grossing diners out). One experience, especially, shook me. One morning before 5BX I was in the toilet. When I finished, I noticed one of the dogs had parked itself outside the door. Plaintive pleas did not work, so I jumped across the threshold and landed behind it. I was proceeding to the area where 5BX was to be conducted and then I noticed that the dog was following me. Even when I crossed a road, it followed, finally ending its "pursuit" at the chinup bars - probably another dog's territory. Now, I know he was just trying to be friendly, but when you're groggy at 5:20am, dressed in PT kit and there's a big dog you don't know following you, it is natural to be apprehensive.

For some reason, Lion Company pronounces their company's motto (when falling out) as "Firm and Fear'y". Maybe they're scared of something.

I was investigating the MINDEF Forums, which I had heard so much about. It seems a very censored place which is a cruel perversion of what a forum should be. Users are banned for the most trivial reasons: complaining (even in mild ways) about the SAF and the Government (as you might expect, the bulk of bans are because of this), posting of incoherent and nonsensical posts (that just shows he is a fool. Why ban him?), spending too much time on the forums during working hours (can you believe one person got banned for that?!), selling handphones ("moonlighting") and speculating who will win the next World Cup (somehow, this constitutes "betting" - preposterous). To their credit, though, the administrators do not (or at least, not that we know) reveal the identities of flouters of the forum's draconian rules to the Powers That Be, and allow appeals.

SAF is ending the use of manual leave forms. I guess they finally realised people were taking Magic Leave (TM).

I was discussing accents with 2 others, and they said I had a neutral, non-Singaporean accent which was identifiable - contrary to Jie's claims that I had the accent of a chinese-educated Singaporean (at times).


One issue of the crappy New Paper on Sunday which I happened to read one Monday had this feature on "tweens". I've always thought that the phenomenon was overrated, since the years 8-14 are not those when children traditionally have their identity crises. Maybe, with the chemicals in the environment these days, people are reaching puberty faster, so. Anyhow, according to the feature, lots of funky things can happen during girls' sleepovers - makeout sessions for example as they "take the opportunity to explore themselves sexually and physically". I was always under the impression that girls were more skittish about this type of thing, but then children these days...

Some quotes that puzzled/amused me:
1) "Sixteen is a cool age to lose our virginity. Anyway, we can't lose it any younger or we would get caught" - Yes, but it's the male who gets punished, so why do you care?
2) "Many people think that we're sisters because both of us have long hair" - This girl should be shot.
3) "Girls are prettier than boys. Boys are very dirty, rough and mischievous. I don't like them."
4) Article: "She surfs lesbian porn websites but she thinks that sex between 2 women is disgusting" - Isn't that what lesbian porn is about? These girls are dumber than I thought.
5) "It's disgusting to touch each other's private parts. It's abnormal. My girlfriend has never wanted it either." - Nice to see they share a solely emotional and spiritual bond. Anyway, it's not like society thinks their relationship is any more normal.

According to some girls schools, their students' homosexuality is an expression of their angst. Bah.


It seems people use Friendster to look for pictures of "chio bus" [Dialect: Pretty girls]. What, then, do the "chio bus" use it for? To look for pictures of "yan daos" [Dialect: Handsome guys]?

More traditional disingeneous advice debunked: If facing your fears is the best way of dealing with them, then those who fear being knocked down by a car, infected with flesh eating bacteria, molested or raped should "face" their fears and subject themselves to said activities.

It's evil how developers are moving to 3D games to force consumers to upgrade their systems, while saving on production costs by having the "movies" rendered by the in-game 3D engine instead of rendering or filming their own Full Motion Videos.

I realised I got conned again when I got Command and Conquer: Generals a second time. I suppose it coming in a single disc should have tipped me off, for when I played the game, there was no pre-Mission briefing, no unit sounds and perhaps worse of all - almost all of the terrain tiles had been stripped and replaced with black. Now, I'm no graphics freak but it is nice to admire the (relatively) beautiful terrain as rendered by the 3D engine (though it may never look as beautiful as 2D terrain). More importantly, I need to see ravines and other terrain so I know where to deploy my troops and where I cannot station them! Luckily, DirectConnect came to the rescue, so. I miss the FMV, though. Tanya was really brought to life by the clips in Red Alert. Incidentally, after returning from the UK I have not the patience for medieval total war. That's bad.


I think my introverted trait has been coming to the fore in the past 14 months or so.


Quotes:

[On Friendster] I'm your friend's friend's friend. Want to meet tonight for sex?

[Me on an X-ray at CMPB: Wouldn't you rather stay out and go there tomorrow morning?] Are you crazy? You know how many times I've booked out this week? Wah lao. Cannot tahan. [Me: This is the first time I've heard someone complain about booking out too much.]

[On Screwed Up Regulars] Don't you know? 42 is a dumping ground.

This medical centre is mine. You dare to put anything inside the fridge? I will eat it for you. [Someone: Stool sample.]

[On someone] He's the oly one in the Medical Centre whom nobody calls friend.

Masturbate - left hand. Eat pork - left hand. All the dirty things use left hand (things: use)

[Someone on not stopping CPR if you fracture a rib: Do you want to save lives or save organs first?] Save organs lor. After die can donate (you die you can donate them)

[Me on answering the phone] Hello, MO Room 4. (3)

[Sign] Hotel Pheonix (Phoenix)

[On Tanjong Gul's 'Camp II'] Camp 11? They have so many camps here ah?

[Sign] Care For Soldier (Soldiers)

She males cannot get jobs, so they take pictures of themselves.

Gabriel, you're supposed to be on a diet. I forbig you from eating vegetable (vegetables)