I found out the other day why I would never make it in the military. Rules, regulations and procedures.
For work reasons, I was walking up to the entrance of a naval base from the east. There was an entrance, with a little security building, with a door on the east side, so I walked up to it. Three gentlemen in uniforms, one with a gun on his hip, very quickly stood up, came out and told me I had to go *mumble mumble mumble*. Not having a clue what they were saying, I assumed I had come to the wrong gate and that I was breaking rules and regulations galore and that national security was being threatened... No, that wasn't the case. In between mumbles, one guy pointed west and said "pedestrian walkway". I concluded that I had in fact come to the wrong entrance, this must be for vehicle entry only. Wrong again. After the guy mumbled about the walkway I asked, "Ok, where's that at?" and they all looked at me strangely and pointed west. It was at this point that I realized they were talking about a fenced in walkway that started about 20 yards to the west and came east to the building along the side of the road. As I was wearing my work shirt, logo blazing brightly in the sun, I bit my tongue and walked back up the road, around the main gate, over west to where the little walkway began, entered the walkway and walked back to where I began, but on the west side of the building this time. It was then explained to me that it was for pedestrian safety, that why I couldn't enter the other side of the building. "Fair enough," thought I, "but the overall effect of me walking across the road on the east is the same as me walking across the road on the west. There's no fucking magic shield that will stop a car/truck/tank from hitting me on this side off the fucking building that isn't there on the other side." I was mildly disgruntled at this point.
Then the Commissionaire (yes, at this point I found out two of these guys were just Commissionaires, only one, the gun boy, was actual military...) couldn't contact the guy at the only phone number my contact had given me. I had another contact name, but not another phone number. Having had to call this bloody base on numerous occasions, I know they aren't all idiots and that if you have a name and a general location, they can open the fucking directory and at least tell you if such a person is listed in there. Instead of doing that, the guy kept calling the same number over and over for 15 minutes. At that point I had three options: 1) kill them all and hope the guy with the handgun on his hip was as stupid and slow as he looked 2) let this guy keep calling the same number until he died of old age (I'd guess about an hour later at the most...) or 3) get the fuck out of there and count my losses. I smiled politely (fucking logo on shirt fucking hell crap grrr...) and said "have a nice day" and went the fuck home.
Yeah, I'd last long in the military. My last impulse as I walked away from the gate was to drop my pants, piss on the gate and scream "purple monkey dishwasher!" at the top of my lungs... if that wouldn't blow their minds, nothing would. Fuck them and fuck the gate... If I ever go back there's another gate I'll go to.
