The Sacrifices of an Officer

DISCLAIMER: I am currently in a very sleep deprived state. The following is most likely riddled with grammatical errors and general typos. Proceed with caution!

Hello again! I know it's been a few days since the last time I updated my blog so here's sort of a combined post to make up for lost time.

Kanro, my fellow guildie, suggested that I talk a bit about being an officer in a somewhat serious raiding guild and I thought to myself; "Why the hell not".
I am guessing that the vast majority of you guys have at some point during your WoW carreer been part of the administration of a guild. Maybe you formed a leveling guild once, or you tried to start up a raiding guild. Maybe it took off, maybe it crashed and burned.

The way I see it, I have 3 major motivational factors in my life. I'm not saying I never do things if not motivated by these 3 factors - I am just saying that probably 9 out of 10 of my actions are caused by them
The factors of which I am speaking are of course Sex, power and the safety/well-being of my family. The first and the last are subjects to be discussed another day but the second one, power, I think is essential to the topic today.

Power. I crave it. You probably crave it in some form as well. And if you don’t you’re probably either a) lying to yourself or b) simply not an alpha male. I’ve always enjoyed being the one in charge. Ever since grammar school I loved the fact that I got to choose who to team up with on the soccer field. This carried on into my way of playing the World of Warcraft.
I have been in multiple guilds where the officers did not approve of my attitude – Hell, I’ve even failed a trial where the reasoning was “You’re a great player but your attitude is all wrong” and to be frank I do not blame them. I’m only a good team player as long as I have a say in what is going on and what is going to happen. Do you know the feeling?

The tasks of an officer are many and in Finding Emo(my guild) we have a set of assignments that each of our officers perform specifically along with whatever pops up during a week. These tasks include but are not limited to:

- The Bank Master. The person making sure that we always have enough potions, flasks and fish feasts for whatever raiding may occur during the week. In addition he is also the person you contact regarding guild loans, enchanting materials and so on and so forth. Not everything goes through him but he has the main responsibility.

- The Raid Leader. You all know him. The guy who either keeps a very firm and calm voice throughout the entire raid or the guy yelling at you for not knowing what the fuck to do(Yes, I am a fan of Wipe Club). An essential and in no way an easy task. In many cases filled by the GM himself as this guy usually is regarded as the most powerful person in a guild.

- The Guild Mother. Whiners and flamers.
This is the guy you turn to if you’re in dire need of venting. The members of a guild will from time to time – not unlike any other working environment – cause drama. Loot hornyness, whining or clowning around during a raid, someone stole your girlfriend and you’re sure it’s that annoying warlock from your guild. All of this can and will cause a very tense atmosphere in the guild chat if not properly taken care of. Our Guild Mother is our venting machine(see what I did there?). He is the guy who smoothes out any discussion, and brings whatever serious matter we have onto the /officer chat where appropriate matters can be decided on.

- Recruitment Officer. Handles the advertisement of whatever class or spec the guild is in need of. /2 spamming, Posting on MMO-Champion and WoW-Europe.com and making sure the world knows that WE NEED HEALERS! Whenever an application is received its fate is decided by all of the officers. Delivering the “Hello Player x. You have failed/passed and we have decided (not)to grant you a trial. Here is why….*snip* “ is also the task of the recruitment officer and letting the trialist know throughout the process, where he needs to improve and where he is doing well, is one of his most honored tasks. Invaluable to ensure the success of any progress raiding guild.

These tasks combined with all the other problems an officer has to deal with on a daily basis may seem like a lot. Fortunately we are many to perform the tasks but still – why do we do it? We don’t have any special rights, loot priorities of other benefits. Well let me tell you why. We do it because we love helping the fellow man. We do it because performing a job and knowing that we did something good in the world simply fuels our life spark.

…..Oh I’m sorry I just couldn’t keep this up with a straight face.

No. No No. We do this because we like what being an officer gives us. It gives us power. We have the power to determine the fate of the guild. We do it because we enjoy the fact that our members look to us for answers – Because if anyone has them – It’s us. No “ordinary” member is gonna stand up and yell “Tonight we’re gonna focus all of our efforts on getting me a drake!”. An officer however can stand up and tell the entire guild to move to Icecrown – And they will. Because that’s just how it works.

Now, I’ve probably made sure that every single reader here will never want to have me as an officer in their guild. But allow me to explain before you light up your torches and locate your pitchforks. A very wise man once told me. “Litemode. With great power comes great responsibility.”
And he was right. You simply cannot just abuse your guild. You may feel like telling all the casters in the raid to pass on that very special trinket because you feel like you’ve earned it. But you can be damn sure that if you do this, and your guild consists of players who vary just a tiny bit from mindless sheep, you’re gonna get your ass handed to you. Members will flock out and soon you won’t be able to gather up enough players to get a heroic dungeon going.

My point is this. Any good officer has to earn his respect. You simply cannot assume the role of a leader and assume that everyone will jump if you say jump. If you’ve done nothing to earn their dedication and respect you shouldn’t count on them. The bottom line is that in whatever task you have as an officer they all require trust. If you want an all-access pass to the guild bank you better have a 100% secure account and a flawless reputation on your realm as far as handling loot and gold goes. Same goes for the Raid leader. Who would want a raid leader known to yell at his healers for no apparent reason and blame anyone but himself for the wipes of a raid.

Should you fail at earning this respect, fail at upholding the promises you make – Chances are you will soon find yourself without that officer rank you loved so much. Or even worse, without a guild tag.

/Litemode