The Time Machine Dominic Chua
In Search of the ID10T Form
All this while, we( the teachers) were completely oblivious of the commotion going on in the General Office, with Mrs Pauline Lim scolding a seemingly endless stream of boys! We really got it from her at the end of that day.
Back row, extreme right: Mrs Nora de Silva
Those of us teachers who were in the school from 1992 – 1993 never forgot this joke— we thought it was brilliant. And you know what it’ s like— we were sitting in the staff room, and the 1st of April was just around the corner. I told everyone about what Mrs Shanti Sundram did for April Fools’, and then Mrs Nora de Silva, always creative and quick-witted, hit on the idea of the‘ ID10T form’. And in those days, before the advent of mass computing, there really were a lot of forms in the office. If you changed address, you filled in a form, you changed citizenship, you filled in a form. There were forms named Form G, Form S, Form and so on, which the office would have, sitting in all these pigeonholes in the General Office. It was in the vocabulary of the students— these forms with alpha-numeric names.
The first time we played this joke was on the Sec 1 GEP boys in 1991— we sent the students to the office to get the ID10T form. And the next year when we did it again, we played with all the Sec 1s, including the Express boys. But the first year was doubly hilarious, because when we played this joke, we forgot to inform the Office! And you remember Mrs Pauline Lim, the admin officer and unofficial queen of the front office? The whole office went into a frenzy looking for ID10T forms!!
The teachers had sent the monitors to the office to pick up the forms, and the monitors were duly scolded and returned to their classes empty-handed. Then we sent the assistant monitors. All this while, we( the teachers) were completely oblivious of the commotion going on in the General Office, with Mrs Pauline Lim scolding a seemingly endless stream of boys! We really got it from her at the end of that day.
Rafflesian Times
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