s C r e a M o P u N k

Monday, July 11, 2011

Hey everyone! I'm back!
I doubt anyone would be reading this since this blog is supposedly "dead" by now. Haha.
Sooo.. The last time I blogged I talked about being posted out as an MP 3SG in my new (now old) camp Stagmont.

For the 1 year 4 months plus I spent in Stagmont, I'd say life had been a rather interesting one. I did and said whatever an NSF would: complain about how effed up it is, counting down to ORD and I complained about how many "useless" figures there were inside. It was like things would continue to be the same even without these people and the army was just giving them free pay and lodging while people like me finish up their work and clean up their asses. Better yet, give me your pay and I'll gladly spend it for you. :D

And the famous saying goes: "you can do whatever you want, just don't get caught". How appropriate. Well I did quite a bit of stuff which you were not supposed to do while in the army. Hahah I'm not gonna reveal here if you really want to know, you can ask me in private (I still reserve the rights in whether to reveal or not :P). But yeah, they did help me get through and made life easier back then. Oh I wasn't one of those bad or lazy soldiers. I don't chao keng or wasn't the act blur look steam type. I was a little garang and made sure I finished all the tasks I was supposed to do...... Okay maybe not all (When my understudy came I pushed most of the work to him like how my upperstudy did to me. HAHAH! What? I thought that was the culture?). Okay I wasn't THAT bad. In fact, my subordinates loved me (as a person) and didn't want me to ORD. I was "voted" the best MP they ever had - something which I was rather proud of. Hahah I was both lenient and ..... Okay I should stop praising myself! I ORD-ed without a single extra duty or confinement - Beat that! >:D

What else? I would say trainee life was the most memorable one (especially the 13 weeks I spent in MP Command). It was fun, my commanders were nice and platoon mates were really easy to get along with. We just had to endure through the lectures and exercises which were not always bad all the time. Things were planned out for me so I didn't have to crack my brains and think of what to do (unlike being in Stagmont when I spend the whole day doing reports, figuring what my boss was trying to convey to me [he had a lil brain damage so he couldn't speak properly] and gaining weight). So apart from the pay, I do appreciate trainee life more than life after I passed out.

Oh and another good thing about Stagmont - I didn't have to do any guard duties. I arranged for people to do them in fact :P Such great life. And if I don't like you, I'll just find a reason to make sure you fill the duty space which someone else couldn't. <-- HAHAH I'm joking on this one. I COULD do that but I pretty much was on very good terms with almost everyone in camp - including the cookhouse aunties who call me 帅哥 everyday until I got from shy to so-used-to-it. ROFL! Really nice bunch of people who gave me extra servings on food when I first got posted there. Later I had the privilege of taking my own food from the "buffet corner" everyday with permission given from the cookhouse in charge. Who doesn't want to be on good terms with the only 2 MPs in camp who control who get to book in and out? :P

Woah as I'm blogging I'm actually reliving the army days in my mind right now. I remembered the first week I got posted to my new camp, my boss had a seizure (during knock off timing wth) and was foaming in the mouth and biting his tongue. Panicked, I shouted for my partner who was then 1 door away from us. Many things happened - many people rushed in, some of the older regulars (like late 30s-40s) did the necessary stuff while the younger regulars (whose ranks were apparently more senior) just stood there with their mouths wide opened - shock and not knowing what to do. Good in army knowledge but lacking in life skills. So to cut the story short, I followed my boss who later got sent to NUH and waited for him to get processed out. It was the first eye-opener (wrong word used?) I had after I got posted out. Haha trust me, you wouldn't want to be there to see him from being normal to seizure to bleeding and foaming in the mouth. That was SCARY!

Well, plenty of bizarre and funny things happened in the army but I guess I'll leave it to my next few posts. I'll move on to after ORD life ;)

ORD was rather... overrated. I was at a loss of what to do merely 2 days after I was done with my 1 year 10 months with national service. I surfed the web for jobs and asked around before becoming a Kiehl's Boy! For which I worked for a bit (good pay too and staff were really nice! $10/hr!) before I started my next stint at High Achievers.

I learnt a lot in High Achievers (well a lot of GOOD and some BAD?). Haha. I was supposed to be teaching life skills to mostly secondary school students and trust me - they were not easy. My students ranged from special/express students to normal academic and normal technical students. Normal technical students could be a little harder to teach (due to their active nature) but some express students could be even harder (think they were too smart). I looked at these students and often thought to myself (and tried to imagine) how I was like when I was at their age. Coupled with what I've learnt over the years and how life had treated me, I felt compelled to share with my students on the right attitude towards life and studies. They have to know that life after the "student life" wouldn't be an easy one. Especially in Singapore where paper qualifications are placed on strong emphasis; and foreigners are here to take over our jobs! Haha okay before I start getting xenophobic, I got a little upset every time I realised students were not doing what they're supposed to do. Okay nevermind let's not go into that...

I did have a lot of fun and memories teaching. Some classes which I had the most memories include Geylang Methodist Secondary Hope 4-2 which I took for 3 days and it was my first class! And the very good crowd at Anderson Secondary class 4/2 and 4/6 which made teaching really really enjoyable. And I do have high hopes for everyone in St. Nicholas Girls' class 2 Justice - really bonded and smart students (with a few really promising leaders of our nation!). I learnt to speak properly (sounds a little too old for me does it?) in front of a crowd and also presentation skills. I learnt to deal with fear while communicating with a class (or even two classes) of strangers which I had to make sure they took away something with them after my lesson(s). Oh not forgetting about resume writing and interview techniques! I taught these to my students but I first had to learn it from High Achievers. I thought these skills were essential and later on proved to work - for every position I applied for I got them after attending their interviews (Louis Vuitton, FJ Benjamin and Uniqlo SG).

Working in High Achievers also allowed me to understand the structure of an SME and is gave an idea of how one would operate in the real world as a whole. I wouldn't say I understood everything fully but I did see some flaws which I thought could be improved and thought to myself: "Hey! I gotta make sure I don't forget on this one when I'm working on my own next time!" Big dreams big dreams... I do get to work with very intelligent people who are all capable, smart and able to present themselves well (gotta say the team overworked during peak periods). And got a chance to further friendships with my buddy and made new friends (one of them later jumped ship with me to Uniqlo. Hello Shalina!)

I kinda have this thing for clothing halfway when I was in army. I invested time and money in importing clothes and later started doing mass order service on Facebook and Hardwarezone Forums. So later on, this idea became big and I set myself a task to achieve by 30 - the birth of my own clothing line/store. After thinking that High Achievers couldn't teach me what I wanted to learn, I left.

Next I joined Uniqlo Singapore and started working at the Ion outlet. It was only a short 2 weeks stint before this skin allergy take it's toll on my job :( I was later diagnosed by a GP with having an allergy towards textile dyes. Oh crap how am I supposed to work towards my dream? Till date I have no idea what am I going to do about it but I'm know I wouldn't give up. Well, my short stay at Uniqlo taught me A LOT. It is still the best performing store in the whole of SEA (world ranking 15/1100+) which I thought was rather impressive. I can go around saying I worked for the best Uniqlo store in SEA! The philosophies and brainwashing sessions we went through during the first few days were rather interesting. Their goals, their aims and the company's missions - all gave my ideas towards my own. Customer service and sales target etc. Everything was very Japanese. Before we start work we would have this thing called the "team talk" which we had to stand in one straight line and in army term, the "sediya" position. After the meeting we had to bow politely while chanting "have a good day work" to all colleagues. Good environment. High sales target (almost about 500k of sales every week!! That's crazy!) Everything is in place. People wise - not everyone is nice. Various cliques here and there and well, everywhere you go, you're bound to meet some pain-in-the-ass superiors. There was this particular one which I gave invisible punches across all directions in her face while she's talking to me. Extremely rude and crude - not someone I would want to befriend with. Haha. I had quite a number of lesson takeaways while working there - such as how to fold clothing in the fastest and nicest way, the reason to change the position of clothes, colour combinations and many more! They have this "staff manual" which contained very detailed and precise stuff on the whole store! The fixtures the concepts the promotions etc - considered the "rarest item" in the RPG games you play. Gotta steal that one! Hahah! Come on I'm just joking! I'm an educator! (think High Achievers). :D

So now I'm chilling and reading up while waiting for university to start in August. Oh I'll be reading Business under the University of London and I'll be undertaking this degree at SIM. ;) So... Till next time!

Cheers! >:D

-just when i needed you most