I didn't turn up for that SG meeting which was conveniently set at 7:30am Monday my time, but from what I heard it was a dirty laundry airing session. After that, more dirty laundry airing on the SG forums before codename Foundation and Visionary left.
The main leader and the newly promoted sub-leader posted on the board asking for suggestions on how to move forward. Members posted their suggestions, praising the leadership for staying calm and hoping everything will be rebuilt in time. The leader made announcements, called an emergency meeting which I attended all of 15 minutes of before I had to head off to work, where he (and the new subleader) made announcements basically. I saw that only two other people and a coalition member decided to turn up because everyone was sick of the whole business.
Of course everyone was sick of it. I got the feeling that certain people were like me. We had certain opinions about the whole business, but we just didn't want to voice it out. This was from the brief conversations I've had on the SG global chat. (Curiously the only officer online was dead silent.) Now I don't what other people's specific opinions were or their reason for not voicing out. But for myself, the reason was that my notions aren't what they're looking for because it calls for a fundamental management-style, and that's not going to happen.
Maybe it's coming from a RL background where every day you hear the 'management', from MP to the dean to administrators, make non-stop announcement of some plan they have where they're going to do this and that. At some point you become deeply cynical and the talk just goes in one ear and goes out the other. The only thing that is any use is action, and I don't see any intrinsic changes action-wise.
All this leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth and a great deal of disapproval for how things were handled. Not handled now when they have already come to a head, but when things were still brewing. One of the leavers is now painted as the bad guy. But there are people with lots of energy, an urge for dominance, and rather shifty ethics. But the choice is not simply between letting them dominate and organization, or kicking them out to maintain stability. If you have a leader who can manage such people and gain their loyalty, they will be a boon to your organization.
Why does drama come about anyway? Drama comes about when people care about something enough to take a stance. Drama is not good, but isn't caring about something (the organization and its direction) desirable?
People who cared left, leaving officers who curiously fall silent every time the two leavers started quarrelling, and a leader who did not step in to deal with the situation when it was brewing. Same leader who promoted the bochap officers (because... fill in the blanks). And that's what's causing the bad taste in my mouth.
Why are people so suck-up? I can barely control myself and not come out strongly against the behaviour of the people making the 'stay calm and move forward' annoucements. Fine, I'm going to keep quiet, but I'm not going to even bother responding to the survey. If you don't have anything good to say, don't say it, and I'm certainly not going to bother with sucking-up.
Which makes me want to just leave. But at which point I should apply my own advice to myself, which is whatever, enjoy playing with the people you like, and ignore whatever shit is going on that you don't.
1 comment:
Ah, guild drama. I would comment more, but I haven't even read the Guild Leader's Handbook (http://nostarch.com/guildleader.htm) which caught my eye one day at Amazon, and evoked some MUD nostalgia.
I see, with some grumpiness that they are now offering the ebook at half off. *sighs*
I think you basically nailed it in the last post. Visionary and Foundation both have different goals for what they wanted the guild to be.
And ditto each officer and member too, even if they don't vocalize it. When the goals end up conflicting... pow, drama!
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