I have to
confess that I had high hopes during national service. I had a strange fantasy
of being an officer and then, somehow proving myself in a combat situation and
climbing the ranks. I guess part of it was from growing up in the UK, where it
was expected of any young man with A-levels entering as an officer if he chose
the armed forces. Another part of it was from watching movies, where officers
seemed to get a better life than the average grunt.
So, when I got to
admit that I was a little disappointed that I didn’t make it to OCS and going
to what was then called “School of Infantry Specialist” (SISPEC) felt like
second best. However, as I was going through specialist training, I received an
invaluable piece of advice from the then Weapon Wing second in command (2ic) in
the School of Artillery. The then 1st Warrant Officer, Yeo Lay King,
told us, “Gentlemen, always remember, the generals on top can draw up the most
beautiful plans – but without us to execute, nothing is going to happen.”
These Guys
Are Brilliant at Drawing Things Up On Paper
But we need
this guy to ensure their brilliant plans are more than just sheets of paper
I didn’t know it
then, but he was giving us a pearl of wisdom, which I would soon realise,
nobody followed much to the detriment of the rest of society. The Singapore Armed
Forces (SAF), which as a citizen army, is a microcosm for the rest of society
is a perfect example. In the word of my Uncle Andy, who was an officer in the
SAF – “You know the army is going downhill when the officers get everything and
the NCO’s, who are the backbone of the army, get nothing”
Back in my day
(early nineties), the government spent a sinful amount to create the Singapore
Armed Forces Training Institute – Military Institute or SAFTI MI. The idea was
simple (and often repeated across the board) – it was to make Singapore the
regional centre for training military officers. The facilities at SAFTI-MI are
supposed to be based on West Point in the USA or Sandhurst in Britain. Officer
Cadets lived like university students – two to a bunk. Food at SAFTI-MI was
inevitably better than it was anywhere else in the military eco-system (there’s
a direct correlation between the quality of food served in a camp and the
number of colonels and above and SAFTI-MI had a hold of the number of colonels walking
around).
While young
officers were resting two to a bunk in SAFTI-MI, we at the other “commander
school,” were living many, many people to a bunk. Although, we were treated
relatively well (trainees get to take on various commander roles under supervision),
it was quite clear that those of us in the old Pasir Labar camp were living off
the scraps of the more glorious at SAFTI-MI next door.
The comparison
between the officer and NCO (or specialist as we were rebranded in Singapore) continued
throughout the rest of our national services careers. I do acknowledge the
differences between the Officer and NCO class and I do believe that good
officers are as important to the system as good NCOs. However, while the importance
of the role of the NCO as much talked about, the reality was quite different. The
best example comes from the fact that a third sergeant, which is an operational
rank that comes with command responsibilities, pays a grand total of $900 a
month. By comparison, an officer cadet, which is to all intents and purposes, a
trainee with no actual responsibilities, is paid $40 a month less (at one stage
officer cadets were paid more).
If you want to
put this into the commercial context, it means that a senior technician, in
charge of actually fixing things, is paid only marginally higher than a student
in engineering school.
Interestingly
enough, the disparity between the officer class and NCO and enlisted men would
also continue into later life. Singapore has the world’s highest paid
ministers. Our Prime Minister, who runs a country that is barely a suburb of
New York or LA, makes at least four times more than the US president. We’re constantly
told that we need to “attract talent,” because Singapore’s success in just about
everything comes from letting world class people run the show and you need to
pay for talent.
It’s nice idea.
However, does it actually work. Well, Singapore is well run on the surface, so
much so that the people who don’t have to live through the system are
inevitably the ones praising it. Dig a little deeper and the story is rather
different.
Let’s look at
the opposite end of the scale where the guys who ensure that our world class cleanliness
is actually that, are paid wages that are just ahead of slave wages. The
standard reply to any suggestion that people the lower end of the scale should
earn a few cents extra was inevitably “Would you be willing to pay more for
your ……” (which inevitably happened anyway, because the other main costs for
business, which is controlled by the people in power – i.e. rent inevitably
shot up, even in a recession.)
Singapore
CEOs are good at drawing up plans
It took the
Covid-19 pandemic for us to realise that we actually needed people to do
things. Someone had to clear the trash. Someone had to get our food ready for
us? How have we shown the people that make our life livable our appreciation?
Well, there’s now some talk about how we’re going to have a “Progressive Wage
model,” which will help the guys who actually do things to double their low
salaries in five years. In the meantime, rents for businesses, especially the home-grown
ones, have gone up in an instant.
A year after
Covid, you have the usual bureaucrats trying to get people back to the office.
The answer is simple, these are the clowns trying to help ensure the landlords
have a large say in things. You have people insisting that their professional
service providers up the bill by two thirds but at the same time insist that
they are being screwed when logistics movers send the bill and insist on being
paid up front.
Unfortunately, Covid
has shown us that what we considered “normal,” was not actually normal. Nobody is
saying that the people who do should be given as much as the people who talk on
an overnight basis. However, it is clear that the people who do things have to
be respected and valued. Talking, contrary to what most bureaucrats assume, is
actually the easy part. Picking up a paper and walking to the end of the room
on the other hand requires energy. If we are to progress as a nation, we need
to rediscover the respect and value of the people who actually do things rather
than to lavish it all on the people who talk about doing things.
Without
these guys, our homes don’t get built, we’ll travel on potholed roads etc
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