I loved reservist, and I never lied about that. I looked forward to buying stuff from Beach Road, packing my gear and heading to camp for however long training took.
The other thing about in-camp training stints is that it is the best extended networking session government funds can buy. My mates from the 433rd Battalion, Singapore Armoured Regiment (2000-2008) would exchange name cards, start Yahoo! then Google groups, and unabashedly ask business favors of each other.
It was during one of these ICTs that a platoon mate who was a journalist at the now defunct Streats newspaper asked if he could do a feature on me.
He sold the idea by saying something like: “It’s a freak show column, basically, and you’ll get to promote your business. We normally feature people below 30 years old as ‘young entrepreneurs’ but we’ll make an exception this time for you. Can?”
And so this feature article was published, littered with errors and all (we didn’t attend RMIT), and the wider world that bothered to pick up a free copy of this paper at MRT stations and convenient stores learned about my business partner and myself.
No, it didn’t bring a spike in business. The venture died quietly a year later, but not before a couple of interesting business trips to China and Malaysia.
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