I was the Assistant Training Officer (DyS3) at my NS unit. Our unit required some lesson plans in preparation for the upcoming trades phase to teach the troopers certain skills. However, the lesson plans were severely outdated. So the unit Training Officer (S3) tasked me to allocate lesson plans for each Platoon Commander (PC) to write/edit. Of the 70 something lesson plans required, about 20 of them were done by me. The remaining 50 were split equally among 10 PCs, which amounted to about 5 lesson plans per person.
Allocation was done about 2 weeks ago and nobody voiced any violent objections. With the deadline coming in a few days, one particular PC marched into my office in his book-out attire and said “Hey Wang Ting, I cannot complete the lesson plans. These few days very busy, going outfield. You ask someone else to do can or not?”
As the Assistant Training Officer, I knew that his outfield training was only 2 days later and the deadline was on the day the move outfield. I asked him why he had not done the lesson plans prior to this week and why not do the lesson plans tonight before he booked out. His reply was “Tonight cannot! Tonight my platoon ask me to go play DotA with them. Must bond with my men. Anyway, I only read your mail last week. So short notice how to do?”
The deadline is only 2 days away, how would you tackle this situation?
Wang Ting's Blog 
Hi Wang Ting,
Personally, i would try to strike the balance of being accommodative and collaborative. As the DyS3, i would have to tell him that his work is an important part of the whole lesson plan and explain to him the gravity of the matter. This should at least give him a rough idea on the importance of getting the work done.
Ideally, i would tell him that he can still go play DotA with his platoon, provided that he is able to complete at least 75% of his work on time. I would cover the remaining 25%. By doing so, at least he is in no position to complain as i’ve already helped cover part of his work in the name of maintaining positive diplomatic ties. In addition, i would remind him in advance if any additional task that he needs to complete and also tell him nicely that i would expect him to a more responsible worker in the future.
Cheers,
Ariff
By: ariffaziz on September 2, 2009
at 8:22 am
Glad to hear from you Ariff.
I actually took the exact same course of action. He did 3 lesson plans, while I helped him with 2. However, my reason for doing so was basically quickly defuse this potential time bomb so that it would not be a problem when the deadline came about. More importantly to avoid any finger pointing at the deadline.
After our little incident, he took a new respect to me as a colleague and respected my decisions when it came to other work allocations.
Thank you for spending time to comment on my blog. ^_^
Wang Ting
By: Wang on September 2, 2009
at 6:18 pm