Reservist 6th Cycle

My reservist has started and I honestly have nothing much to report because out of all the cycles that I have attended, this is the one that makes me feel the most unproductive from just the sheer unhappening of it all.




Unlike previous cycles, a few of us, including myself, are not required to do the usual guard duty shenanigans this time round, as an active, I appreciated doing purely Guard Duty because I would rather do that than get all sweaty and dirty running in the jungle, but after my ORD, returning back to camp for my reservist just to do the same Guard Duty has become an extremely dull activity, and my main issue with it is really the amount of hours we have to stand guard for, which is a staggering 6 hours.



Anyways, when I went back on the first day for this cycle, the encik who was in charge of the ICT told everyone who was called up that he needed 2 dozen guys to do something else during this reservist cycle, and initially, everyone was simply not interested because there was additional training required and no one was up for it, even myself.  We all thought that doing Guard Duty was better, and then the encik said he would select us base on our fitness level, which immediately worried me because I assumed he would probably use out latest IPPT results, which was literally information they had to gauge our fitness level.




I know a lot of the guys who got called up probably never even bothered to go for their IPPT, the ones that I knew either hadn't attended yet, failed or simply decided to pay the fine for not attending, like no one is actually "fit" there.




So everyone had their lunch after the initial briefing and once we all gathered back again, the encik decided to split everyone up into their PES Status, that meant everyone in PES A automatically got selected because there weren't a lot of PES A of begin with, after which he went into the pool of PES B to fill up the numbers and started pulling individuals out.




The first guy he pulled was able to sabotage all his friends, so even though only 1 was picked, 4 ended up joining, everyone laughed at the turn of events, I was shifting around a bit where I was standing and trying to find a good time to join the larger group to avoid being seen, even told my friend we should move over and conceal ourselves in the crowd, but as we were preparing to move, the encik begins his search again and starts wandering around the area I was standing at, which meant I couldn't move because I will end up standing out more, he goes towards the guys on my left and then slowly starts moving towards my side, I avoided eye contact with him as he was moving pass me, but he stops right in front of me, looks at me and goes..

"You look good and tall brother!"

....  puts his hands on my shoulder and that was how I got selected.



I accepted my fate immediately and walked solemnly over to the group of chosen individuals, I see my friend standing where he was, the encik had already walked past him, he was safe, but he was contemplating about something, and then he walks up to the encik, had a small exchange with him and then starts walking up to me and when he came up to me, he went..

"The thought of doing duty alone is very sian,"

... and suddenly, it didn't feel so solemn anymore.




Once all 24 of us were finally selected, we had to separate ourselves into group and my group was formed almost immediately because almost everyone was friends with one another and that was also when I realized that out of the 6 people in my group, 4 of them actually volunteered. 4 Katniss to 2 Primrose.





Being picked was honestly a huge blessing in disguise because a few days later, we were informed that the ones who had to do Guard Duty had to do the maximum amount of hours, that meant rotating between 6 hours of duty and 6 hours of rest, it sucks.




The group of us 24 on the other hand, despite having to go through a bit more training than the others at the start, were mainly required to stay in an air-conditioned bunk to sleep for the entirety of our cycle. We will only be "activated" when something really really bad actually happens in the camp, which is why we had to go for training, but the chances of that happening is almost close to zero, so I actually spend my last book in, cooped up in the air-conditioned bunk, playing multiple rounds of Mobile Legends with my team mates, talking about the recent happenings in the world, running out of topic to talk about, sitting in silence looking through our phones, a few more rounds of Mobile Legends, sleep and repeat.




It was extremely unproductive, we felt like we were getting jailed for something because we couldn't actually leave the vicinity except for maybe 30 minutes a day to take a bath back at the normal bunks, but I honestly would still pick that over doing the Guard Duty because being stuck in an Air-Con room trumps being stuck under the Sun.





1.5 more weeks to go and this cycle will officially be over.




I have also been working during this period, dealing with unhappy contractors who were pushing blame to other contractors for shoddy workmanship, additional delays that were happening because my carpenter keeps forgetting to bring the items in for installation. It was honestly a mess during this period because I couldn't be on site to overlook, which made the whole situation even worst.




When I was arranging for the touching up to be done, I told my clients that they had to be on site to overlook, so we can settle everything at one go and the sub-contractors won't have to come back multiple times. Told my sub-contractors the homeowners will be there, the homeowners ended up not being there the entire day and only came at like 9pm when the workers were long gone. My sub-contractor was really unhappy because it felt like I had lied to him to put pressure on him to put my site as a top priority.




My client isn't aware that his absence has actually caused a bit of tension between me and my sub-contractor, and as a client, it really isn't his problem to deal with, I also understand that it is not his intention to not show up because he is working, but him taking my instructions to be there as a "minor suggestion" honestly didn't sit well with me at all.



The good thing is my clients, both the husband and wife, are very nice, so despite the constant delays, they are still very appreciative.



Technically I wouldn't call it "delay", more like a severe under-estimation on my part and also because my clients kept adding in a lot of additional items last minute.



I had originally anticipated for this project to end in early December, if everything went super super well, there was no hiccup and every single item was delivered on time, but then of course there were hiccups, the timeline I gave my individual sub-contractors were extremely insufficient, my tiler needed an extra 2 weeks to get his stuff done, my false ceiling guys took twice as long as I had thought and then my clients also hadn't ordered their lights yet at that time in December and when they finally did, I get informed that the lights needed 3 weeks to ship over, also they requested to do even more major flooring works less than a week before the Renovation started  So the December timeline was never a possibility because it would have required a miracle.



After that timeline went bust, I estimated an early January handover, that also became impossible because my carpenter missed out so many times and his delivery date kept getting delayed. At this point, my clients also started requesting to add even more items, so that ended up dragging the renovation period into the CNY period.



Nothing could be done during the CNY Period, work had to stop, my permit was coming to an end, I was prepared to pay the extension fee, which is honestly ridiculous because that money goes to the managememnt and for what? So they can tap their keyboard, move their mouse a little, click here and there and extend my date? Luckily my client was able to extend the permit for another week at no additional cost, which saved me that fee, only thing is everything has to now be done within this additional week, which gives me about 1 more day as I am typing out this post.



Technically, the renovation is completed, my clients can move in anytime now but they are taking their time because they aren't rushing to move in, so even though it is "completed", it still feels incomplete because they aren't moving in yet.