Open minded
You are close minded. I am making a sweeping statement.
Most people claim to be open minded. But they are not really. I guess it is just politically correct to say so.
“Hi, my name is Veridis and I’m close minded.”
I think being understanding is one of the results of the truly open minded.
This week, most our dinners at the cookhouse were delayed. We had to wait for them to prepare the food. They were not expecting us, even on Thursday. Lol, seriously? While we were having dinner on Friday, a civilian, probably the cookhouse supervisor or something, came and apologized for the screw ups this week. One of my bunk mates then started mocking her. I told him that his view was very one sided. That the lady is already saying sorry. He started giving a few examples to validate his view, like, “If you screw up during a parade, you think saying sorry to the Sergeant Major will help?” I tried to tell him that his example was extreme, and the others at the table then started to say things like “fight fight” and “relax”.
I often forget that when people do table talk, they expect everyone to agree with them (I don’t say I’m not guilty of this). Having someone disagree must be a surprise. I’m not angry at this bunk mate of mine, he is not someone I hate or dislike. I just feel jaded every time I try to get people to see the other side, and fail.
Rewind back a day or two, in the car park where we were learning operator level mechanic skills for land rover, Iveco 3Ton and MAN 5Ton, an Indian mechanic gave us a rubbish bag to put rubbish in, because they were having an audit soon and the place needed to be clean. The area I was in had virtually no rubbish. I was chilling out with my buddy, and I kept trying to dump the empty rubbish bag on him. I saw an opening (literally) when he put one had on his hip, and so proceeded to stuff the bag in. He then turned around and dunked it into the rubbish bin behind him. The mechanic saw this from a distance, then started storming over. He started to scold us, and I tried to explain that we were just joking. He said something along the lines of
“I don’t care, no joking is allowed. You people only know how to sleep and litter the place.”
“Sir, when you were not here we picked up some rubbish already.” (Only 1 broken Clorets container, there wasn’t any other rubbish to be seen.)
He started to walk away and shouted “I don’t give a fuck what you have to say, (bla bla bla).”
“Sir, you can’t be like this, sir.”
Later, he returned with some of my friends, dumping their dust pans. I went to confront him again, and asked if he needed me to clean other areas. He said it was ok. That the smoking point was messy and we didn’t know how to clean it. (Wtf, I don’t smoke and I don’t know which smoking point he was talking about, I knew of none nearby.) As he walked away, he told me “No hard feelings”. I don’t know if he meant it, but at least he said that. I can understand his predicament, but there was no reason to refuse to reason, when confronted.
In his mind, I am probably a “useless” poly student who only knows how to laze around. But I’m not a lazy poly student. I participate when my mechanic instructor teaches us (hands on). I ask questions. I answer questions. (most of the time I answer correctly, and ask questions the instructor is waiting for). I hate it when people are close minded like that.
I’m proud of myself for standing up to a much older and senior personnel. People always laugh when I tell them that I’m the most introverted of all personalities, because I can talk a lot in topics which interests me, and because I don’t take bullshit from others. It was very awkward to talk back to someone of higher status, especially in the Army. I suggest you try it sometime.
On another note, my follow trainees keep saying I look like a secondary school kid. With jokes like, “Do you have a brother?” (no) “Oh I thought you were serving NS for your brother.” I can just curse the container that holds my mind. I’m sure if I was more physically intimidating, some people would buckle under the combination of my personality as well.
