Morale, Welfare and Recreation (Or the Lack of It)

Leon,

Good morning. I sit here, at 0810, writing to you and enjoying my cup of warm coffee with a hint of vanilla. I'd say I'm in a relatively decent mood, having gotten a good night's sleep and waking up early to shave, brush my teeth and indulge in a modest breakfast. In fact, I don't think much could go wrong today. At least, that's what I thought as I watched the stream of scalding hot brew pouring into my Styrofoam cup at 0700.

Having woken up earlier than usual, I decided to spend some time at the MWR — a small building dedicated to upholding the rare commodity that we soldiers call "motivation." However, it would seem that very little effort is put into this subject. The two pool tables we have are warped, torn, and generally non-serviceable. Fortunately, playing pool was not this morning's objective. No, what I had in mind was spending roughly 30 minutes on one of the four computers, chatting with old friends on MSN Messenger before they tucked themselves in for the night.

It started off well enough, getting in some conversation with my mother, an old flame, and a couple of other friends. This, however, didn't last long. Somewhere in the vicinity of five minutes I got this little message at the top of my window that read "You cannot send messages because you are not logged on." My eye twitched. I attempted to log back on, only to receive a message relaying the fact that the Messenger service could not be reached at this time.

Now by this time I'm frustrated, borderline irate. Not because that happened this particular morning, but because this has been happening for two-and-a-half weeks now. Just, this particular morning saw it fit to connect me for the first time in over a week, only to shut me down as I was finally able to get in touch with someone. I'm beginning to think this is the punch line of some long-running joke that I've missed.

Here we have a facility dedicated to providing entertainment and morale for the soldiers, which fails miserably at its task. Not only that but it gets worse. Last rotation we had six computers and a number of phones that worked well enough so as not to incite complaint. Near the end of said rotation, we had dropped to four computers and fewer phones, but they still maintained a satisfactory working order.

This rotation is a different story. Our four computers work, however, I'll be damned if your 30 minutes is up by the time you get one page to load! Every day I see fellow soldiers and civilians storm out of the MWR in utter disgust and dissatisfaction at the poor service that we're expected to put up with. As it would turn out, the phones seldom work as desired and given the 15-minute time limit, contacting friends and family has become a frustrating and difficult endeavor which leaves most tapped out and demoralized.

Yes, we do have the Net in the offices. Unfortunately, these connections either don't work at all, or block you from visiting an excessive number of Web pages. So as it stands, I'll be reading random tidbits on Wikipedia until this issue gets fixed. Did you know that the creation of pizza is often credited to the peasants in Naples, who would deck their bread with the tomatoes that the upper-class thought were poisonous?

Peace,

Feelgoode