timerover51 said:
That is also the case in the US Army, for which I was guilty of when a detachment commander. I generally budgeted in 15 minute blocks though.
Xerxeskingofking, is "Boffin" still used in the UK?
Major B said:
I remember when I commanded an infantry company I made it a habit to come in early in the morning so I could have some quiet prep time to get ready for what was coming. I found that the more I came in early to avoid others, the earlier they came in. And the later I stayed, the later everyone else did. It was an important lesson to learn that I was being watched and emulated. I also learned that when I said "0630 formation" that the First Sergeant would tell everyone "0615 recall" and the platoon sergeants would tell their troops "0600" and the squad leaders "0545" and team leaders "0530" so I made it a practice to announce recall formation time in formation to avoid having everyone there an hour early.
see, the british tradition is "5 minutes before", and the knock-off briefs is generally held at a well known time, normally written down in part one orders, so we don't rock up more than 10 minutes before the brief, lest we be accused of skiving.
writing that sentence reminded me of about three new slang words to add to the list, so here we go.
Boffin: clever person, often a scientist or expert in their field. somewhat archaic now, not normally used as it implies a level of social ineptitude and is thus mildly insulting.
Part One Orders: formal, written orders, produced daily and displayed around the workplace and single soldiers accommodation. You cannot claim ignorance to something posted on part one orders, as every solider is expected to read part one orders every day. ("no one said it was ranges this morning!" "it was on part one orders, trooper. now get your act together, if your not on the bus with your gear in 5 minutes i will AGAI you!"). The flip side is that a soldier cannot be punished for following part one orders, even if the boss changed his mind about something afterwards (for example, changing PT to a tab). Mostly, they consist on mundane things like dental appointments, PT timings, and such.
Tab:
Tactical
Advance into
Battle. A Loaded march, in boots and wearing webbing and daysacks with, generally, 10-20kgs of weight in them (20-40lbs, roughly. weight depends of branch of service, if your deploying soon, and weather or not the boss is in a good mood). Normal pace is about 12 minutes a mile, or about 5 MPH. The (Royal) Marines "Yomp" instead, but no one knows why, apart form their ongoing desire not be mistaken for the army.
AGAI:
Army
General
Administrative
Instruction. There are dozens of these, mostly on obscure topics of little interest to troops on the ground, but AGAI 67 covers the awards of minor sanctions to soldiers for minor offences, like being late for parade, turning up without required equipment, turning up slightly drunk, calling your boss a idiot, ect. Generally, it is not possible to levy a substantial monetary fine against soldiers for these minor offences, so the army takes away the thing that soldiers value the most: their free time. generally it will be "show parades" that require you to be at a certain location at a certain time, with certain equipment (for example, the guard room, at 8pm, in a
properly turned out uniform), where you will be inspected, and if your found not to be up to standard (and you
will be found not to standard), you will be required to "re-show" a hour or two later, having corrected the fault. by messing the offender around like this, they can take away his whole evening. More substantial crimes merit a works parade, which is normally 4 hours polishing the brass trophies, or painting kerbstones, or some other bone job that needs doing, normally done on the weekend, just to screw the offender over a bit more.
Skive: the active avoidance of work. considered a art form in some circles.
Knock on/knock off: start and end of the working day. normally involves a brief and a informal or formal parade, to pass messaged up .
o:
