My 9th Cycle officially started today and as per usual, I was one of the first few to reach the airbase, on the way there, I also almost rear ended into a car on the highway, not really sure why I almost got into that accident, either because the car in front suddenly brake or I was also driving a little too fast or a combination of both, but it was very close.
Since this was the first time where I know my Reservist buddy won't actually be with me, I wasn't feeling particularly optimistic about this particular cycle, as I was doing my in-pro, I started scanning through the list of guys coming in, saw a few familiar names, but didn't really look very closely to see the full list. I then went to the training room to wait for everyone else, then about 15 minutes after I had settled down, two guys that I did my Sixth Cycle with, one of my favorite cycle if I were to completely ignore the work related stress that came along with it, walked in one after the other, I knew one of them was coming based on the list, but I didn't know the other would be here as well, so the one I didn't know would be joining us immediately said Hi to me and we started chatting away, not too long later the other one came and I was very happy that the 2 people I know were from my Sixth Cycle group.
The day by went as per usual with every other Reservist cycle, we started at 9.30am, by that point, almost everyone had arrived except maybe 2 to 3 guys, so the encik started to give us a quick briefing of what to expect, what his discipline standards are, then we were just made to watch videos after videos till we could be released, it was really fucking boring as per usual. We broke for lunch at 11.45am and because there wasn't any utensils provided, my friends and I had to use my fingers to eat my lunch and because we weren't used to it, we looked like babies playing with our food.
After lunch, we had more videos to watch, and then near to the end, our Reservist Commanders shared with us the plans the Active Commanders have for us regarding our Guard Duty plans, and the main gist of it is that they are taking advantage of us ICTs.
I volunteered to go to the ulu camp, so I will talk about that arrangement...
Originally, the Active Commanders wanted to give us 2 emplacements that we will be guarding completely, this means when 1 Reservist personnel is done with his duty, the one taking over will be another Reservist personnel, none of the active soldiers will be doing that emplacement, and just FYI, the emplacement that we are being assigned to are the worst one because it's sentry duty.
Each duty is 6 hours long, that means per day, there will be a total of 4 duties that we will need to rotate amongst ourselves per emplacement, assigning us 2 emplacement will mean that we will have a total of 8 6-hour duties that we need to fill in a day.
Due to manpower issue on our end, because this time we literally only have a third of the regular platoon strength, we only have 4 guys assigned to the Ulu camp, as compared to the past when we would have up to 16 guys. 4 guys are not going to be able to cover that 8 duties per day requirement, it's actually impossible because that would require us to work beyond the maximum capacity, we will have to report to camp every 6 hours to do a 6 hour shift, just to break down how ridiculous that will be..
Assuming we start our duty at 12 Midnight.
12.00am - 6.00am - Duty
6.00am - 7.00am - Travel to Home
7.00am - 11.00am - 4 hours to sleep and have lunch
11.00am - 12.00noon - Travel to Camp
12.00noon - 6.00pm - Duty
6.00pm - 7.00pm - Travel to Home
7.00pm - 11.00pm - 4 hours to sleep and have dinner
Repeat for the next 10 days.
It's nuts, so of course the Active Commanders can't force this upon us and they require us to only do a single emplacement instead, but even doing a single emplacement is nuts because we will still be working at maximum capacity.
When I was doing my Guard Duty during my earlier cycles, we were only given a total of 7 6-hour duties to do for the entire Reservist Cycle, 7 is the maximum number, and this was during a time when the active soldiers had severe manpower issue and they were all working at maximum capacity, even with our help.
During my last cycle, we were also doing 7 6-hour duties, and at that time, I came to find out that not all the active soldiers were working at maximum capacity, in fact, the older batch were doing only half of what the Reservist is doing, which is fucking ridiculous because I personally feel like our maximum duty should be their minimum, so if they have people that are only doing 3 rounds of duties, then the ICTs should be doing the same number or less.
Doing Guard Duty is their full time job, the Reservist personnel have already done their time when we were active soldiers, now, our role should be to help alleviate the workload for the active soldiers, so they can have enough rest between each round, our role should be to help you take on whatever duties you cannot do, not to take over your duties completely.
This arrangement is also similar with the main camp, naturally none of the Reservist guys were happy about it because we are clearly being taken advantage of.
When this was brought up to our Reservist Sergeant, his response was …
"The active commanders told us that the batch before you guys were actually made to do significantly more duties, so what you guys are getting is already a better deal."
… just because someone else was offered a hot pile of human shit by Santa Claus doesn't mean I should be grateful that he only gave me a bag of hamster shit, shit is still shit, we are not going to be grateful to you because you decided to treat the other party worst. What fucking logic is this?
After that, our commanders went back to try and strike a new deal with the active commanders for us, but I am not very optimistic about the outcome because our commanders just don't seem to have a lot of coaxing power compared to the very first commander I had for my earlier cycles. That commander from my earlier cycle was actually really good, he would always negotiate a better deal for us first before telling us about it instead of just accepting whatever the active commanders are requesting.
I have a feeling what this current commander did was went in and ask the active commander what they wanted us to do, instead of setting a boundary from the very beginning and telling them that we only have a limited number of manpower, so we can only do so much. A boundary should have been in place from the very beginning to prevent this shit from happening.
Anyways, the commanders took a while, so by the time they were back, I was already on the way out of camp and didn't end up getting any updates. I am very tempted to actually bring this issue up to the higher ups so they can actually do something about it.
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