July 12
From my brain
Contents |
2007
Me 09:03, 12 July 2007 (EDT)
I'm having a wonderful track record lately at alienating / pissing off my friends. Lawgirl and I still don't have the same friendship we had before. Two days ago I pissed off Heather (I think) after a heated debate on a personal matter. Yesterday Ceraun and I got into it over getting lunch (of all things). And then last night Callistana felt that her issues regarding raiding within the guild fell on deaf ears.
Last night, we were scheduled to have a meeting to "fix" issues with raiding in the guild as the two runs into Karazhan. There has been a mix of making progress, leadership issues (not poor leadership, just struggles), and class balance issues. So, I called a roundtable meeting for everyone to discuss their issues and resolutions.
We formed a raid group to have a separate channel to discuss the topic, but also sat on TeamSpeak. The attendance was tremendous. I know we had at least 20, maybe 25 people there, and it was kept at a very positive level (I had a secret fear someone was going to blast my Raid Leader in someway). I was completely winging this meeting, having no other notes in front of me other than the few forum posts that had been going on. It kept things fluid, but I still had to rein people in from time to time for speaking out of turn.
I started off by getting people's reactions to the strengths and weaknesses of the run. Got a lot of good feedback that the leadership of the runs was fantastic. Our major issue is that of the dreaded class balance, which I totally expected. We're not a raiding guild, so we're not about to go out and recruit tanks and healers.
The secondary issue -- and only secondary because people are willing to try a host of solutions to it -- is progression vs. a more relaxed run. We've got previous hardcore raiders looking for a break, former Small Guild Alliance members wanting to just try to do stuff in-guild, on down to people who were never able to raid because they weren't even 60 before the expansion came out. This makes an odd mix of what people want to do, and there were a myriad ideas of what to do about it that in the end we decided to sleep on it and recap in the morning.
Callistana chimed in with her views that we're treading too much into raiding territory. There are too many discussions going on about it, and too much of the focus in the guild is headed there. She felt the feel of the guild was changing to just being that of raiders vs. everyone else. She had a good handful of supporters in that felt similarly, yet not to the point where they felt all was being lost. We spent at least 45 minutes to an hour discussing it, and in the end, she just felt that her issue was tossed aside, and then went silent. With no further input from her, I let the flow of the discussion shift back to the original intent of the night.
After that it went to trying to find solutions. As I said, there was a host of alternatives brought up to the existing two current separate runs.
- One roster
- Continuous runs throughout the week
- 3-4 times a week
- Free-for-all signups
- Two rosters
- Progression based run for the more hardcore players
- Casual run that's more laid-back, let's learn to raid and kill some stuff for lootz
- A SuicideKings-style sytem
- You get loot, you don't get to go next week (unless no one else can make it or it's a class balance issue)
- This was shot down kind of because that's how the raid leader has been doing things mostly from the get-go.
- One Roster; Week-On, Week-Off
- Everyone signs up for balance purposes to go in one week and they run it as schedule permits that whole week
- The next week they're benched and everyone that didn't go the first week gets first dibs to go.
I personally like that last option, but we'll see how it goes.
The discussion was very productive, even if we didn't cure every ill. (We made a joke about, "Okay, that settles it. I've got the answer." "What?" "42.") Calli asked me to post something about asking them to NOT raid on guild night Saturdays, but in the end I decided not to as it seemed wholly outside of the topic for the night. At that, she logged off completely from both the game and voice chat.
I'm out of ideas for what to say to her. People supported her positions, even though they didn't wholly see eye-to-eye with her. I'm included in that.
I see that people are discussing things in-guild a LOT about raiding, but that's because it's both attainable with just our guild (without the SGA) as well as that's what a cluster of people happen to enjoy to do. These people would have been spread out to all the SGA runs if we didn't give them room to do it "in-house", and then we'd loose them completely so they'd stay focused on the SGA run. That difference that we're doing it it here is causing all the discussions to happen here.
We're going to end up having a big conversation today. Already prayed in advance to not blow it.
Me 22:37, 12 July 2007 (EDT)
Audio edit HELL!
I still have over half of the discussion from last night to dice apart and still there is lots of cleanup. Mind you, I'm getting really good at using Audacity.
2006
Me 10:50, 12 July 2006 (EDT)
Wifey just called...too perky. I knew something was up.
Turns out last night on her ride home, she had a blow out on the tires of the van. Pouring rain, 11:30pm, and the tire blows out. Thankfully the guy's driveway that she pulled into wasn't a homicidal maniac and actually changed the flat for her. (Thank you God for Mr. Tire-change-guy.)
On the shitty darker side: the other tire was just as bald/in trouble as I thought this one was, so we get to pay for tires today. Add to that the brakes still need to be fixed on the car I'm driving to work everyday and I'm having a great day.
Right now, I need a speeding ticket. That would be grand to just have that cherry on my sundae. Maybe I could run from the vehicle and have the officer take me out. Can the family still collect life insurance from that?
Me 22:56, 12 July 2006 (EDT)
Guild. Drama. Can't say more...OMG though.
2005
Me 19:20, 12, July 2005 (EDT)
Evil Spammers! This is a note to those trying to hijack this blogspace for your own evil spamming glory...
GO AWAY!!!!!
Everyone's blog who had it open for the outside public to post has since had that set to false. So, you can't have your bots pointed here any longer. As it was if you bothered to look here after setting up your operation, you would have noticed that Zejan's software in comments doesn't particularly take to html links posted in it with alt text. So, every ad you've attempted to put up is complete and utter gobbledygook.
To the community: Sorry I had to do this. You could ban the IPs manually, but they're being spoofed...you don't have that much free time.
To the public out there reading your friends posts here: Sorry, start an account. Better yet, start up a blog and join our merry (if infrequent) community.
2004
Me 00:54, 12, July 2004 (EDT)
Now, it's not that I'm gonna stop the hunt for a new job, but there was a little brightness to The Pit.
On Friday I had a little sit-down chit-chat with the VP of our division. Okay, so he's got a larger title than that, but fuck if I know exactly what that is.
- My E-maiL: "R., If you have some space in your calendar today, I'd appreciate some of your time to discuss a long standing concern I have" (Possibly one of my most PC emails ever.)
- R: Have a seat. What's on your mind?
- Me: Well, I've been a bit complacent lately about this, but its something that's troubled me for several years now. The comment that {the Exec from the sister company} made the other day, incited me a bit. My question is this: Why is our team NOT a part of the I.S. department?
Now, before I go any further, let me say that I saw no mirrors, slight of hand, and as of yet, have not farted a molecule of smoke (i.e. having it blown up my a$$).
Since this guy came on in the company, while he is one of The Big Wigs, and has made some friends, people haven't much liked the changes he's made...at first. They kick they scream, but what happens: In the end, he usually gets his way.
Apparently days before I had my meeting with him, he JUST brought up this topic with the respective managerial parties: namely, my boss, the head of the I.S. programming group, and the woman who's the I.S. liason (she sets the priorities based on business needs, NOT "Hey, I want this, can ya do it tomorrow?"). My boss wanted his way (i.e. "I can't lose my nest egg!"), the I.S. guy doesn't like what we do (producing "systems" outside of their department that usually work better), and the liason was just in the middle. R.'s statement: Us moving to I.S. makes sense. We can do things faster, cheaper, and at less risk of loss of investment to the company.
Damned if R. didn't have all the points I was ready to make. I had my whole list of demands, but they were already covered. I put in my input as seconding them, but all in all, R. is with us on this.
Now, I expect Baron Negativo to completely think this is an exec lie, but I'm inclined to believe R.'s statements. For the first time in 9.5 years dealing with execs in our company -- it didn't feel like wading through complete and utter bullpucky. I didn't feel the need to shower ("I feel DIRTY!") afterward. He answered me frankly, and stated the fact straight out, that he was on our side.
But, it's gonna take time. He's not stupid, and knows he can't set a timeline: "If I set one, that wouldn't be fair to either of us." I didn't want someone to set one. I just wanted someone to say, "Well, duh! Of course you should," or at least, give me VALID reason why not.
Again though...i'm not taking my name out of Monster, or HotJobs, and I'm still waiting on that call-back from the recruiter. A man's gotta keep his options open. :)
1940
Uncle Stan's Birthday
