3) Long Form
In case anyone has missed the news, I'm stepping down from Head Office at the end of the offseason cycle. So let's start right at the beginning. I hate league politics. Like...a lot. If you by chance had not picked up on that by now, some things should fall into place and if you're brand new well now you know. It was during a conversation about league politics on another server that I vented some pent up frustration about where I felt the league was and where I felt it needed to be. Mind you this is a channel in a server (for another league) which features multiple GMs and an HO member. So its not like I'm just ranting at random people at that point. One of the responses was basically "why don't you join HO and have these arguments there". After a little thought I took up that idea and one thing quickly led to another and boom. There I was.
Now, coming into HO I was told that I was the only person to ever do it twice (according to someone who I can reasonably believe). I had high hopes. I had only recently come off a very successful stint as a GM and likewise had been able to improve my GM'ing legacy and results significantly the second time around. HO was an opportunity to do that again, pick up some old loose threads, and try to help steer the league in a direction I thought we should go. I thought I could provide an air of trust-ability to HO, which at the time was coming off the back of a controversial decision. For whatever other faults others may have with my methods and how I conduct myself, honesty and integrity are generally not among those complaints. I also, to myself, thought I could help by being a driving force for an HO that I often felt was too conservative and too slow.
So there I was, ready to jump in with both feet first. I never envisioned a long stint in HO. 2-3 seasons at most (which I also feel should be the general maximum anyway for sanity purposes). I brought a list of goals with me too, and I want to go through some of them so you get an idea. I wanted to work with the awards head to help move that project forward. After two seasons of existence the committee still needed serious work and i thought as a liaison from HO I could assist there. I wanted to work on the HO work/life balance within the league. The amount of work any given member of HO puts in is HUGE, and league spanning. It's such a giant operation with so many moving parts that it can be overwhelming. I wanted to move HO forward in terms of communicating decisions and putting the information out there. I had felt HO was somewhat closed off in this regard and it often hurt them as people jumped to their own conclusion or people who were at the center of issues were simply allowed to reshape events to make themselves the good guy. I wanted to fix my biggest past mistake and try to move our league's Reddit page forward. now that we have such a varied recruiting presence on the site I felt it was more important than ever that we have a functioning page. Now...that all said...I had a few other goals as well that I won't share due to the fact that their success is still a behind the scenes work in progress thing (which I had no part in). I'm just glad they're happening, as some of the most popular requests for improvement that the league has had.
So....my first week we had a DSFL GM crisis that resulted in a huge public spectacle, a Hall of Fame vote that was heavily publicly protested by the person being honored, and new rules that split the setups for some DSFL and NSFL awards. I had also found out that I'd be able to go forward with a previous project, which was restarting and revitalizing the casino. I built a plan to test out a number of games and ideas over the course of the season. By the end of that week I'd hired people with better plans than mine. And also the head of awards needed to step away, so I took on that mantle as well as immediately moving to hire future long term heads. And then a series of sim issues destroyed a good portion of the DSFL's week 3 and we had to figure out not just if we ended to break precedent but how. Which ultimately culminated in an unheard of complete resim, a Saturday sim, and general uneasiness.
Now that's just the top level stuff in the first roughly 10-12 days. Some of it among the team, some of it working with others, some of it solo. That's a LOT. Add in multiple GM changes, another HO member stepping down, department head changes, and at some point the projects I was actually working on and the normal HO duties. That's what it's like for an HO member every single season. Throw in random events where you have to make determinations on rules, league complaints, and multi-hour lectures about a variety of topics by people who have decided in their infinite wisdom that they are an expert on being a member of Head Office (note: said wisdom never actually comes form Infinite and usually is hit or miss in terms of actual wisdom). All of this leads up to limited time and effort to actually work on all those goals I talked about. Hell, it leads to limited time to work on my own player or help my team. You wake up already running behind more often than not. In my case I wake up almost buried (I do wake up later than most after all). I basically stepped away from playing Werewolf and I mostly stepped away from filming my vidcasts.
So with all that in play, how did it go and how do I feel now? Well, I've obviously announced I'm stepping down. So you can at least take some reasonable guesses. I discovered quickly and repeatedly that I could only do so much, especially as my real life began to show promise in terms of both my personal writing and also poker, another moneymaking hobby of mine. I also learned that some things I was simply not well suited for. I read dishonesty and insult into things where there wasn't any intended, or I read it correctly and responded several notches too high. I got into arguments with people I shouldn't have let get to me. I got into arguments with people who weren't actually trying to get to me. Someone made an entire Twitter just to trash me (and apparently doesn't realize how obvious they are). I even once made an entire discussion room mad by stating that someone must not have been paying attention because they were busy doing something they were actually doing. You know you're operating at a high level (for good or ill) when people get mad at you for just not even actually insulting someone. I feel fairly poor about it. It was put into stark light as I watched and even was the recipient of attention form two separate people who were searching for slights and reasons to be mad even at a much higher level than I was. Eye opener right there.
So, I decided to step down, briefly tried to get myself fined by HO for one very mean thing I said to a GM and left NSFL General Chat. Then whole twitter thing exploded that night (featuring different comments thankfully because clearly the person didn't have access). So I said nevermind on the fine, delayed my announcement about leaving, and rejoined the world of Gen Chat, where I then immediately accidentally inspired a copy/pasta. At least I got something done? All in all it was a very poor showing on my part that definitely damaged my reputation among some circles. I am now and will always be a failed HO member. And I'm just kind of fine with that. It's important to recognize when you have to acknowledge that you need to step up or get out of the way. The things I'm interested in stepping up on are outside of HO (and also the league for that matter). So I'm getting out of the way.
I did manage to do SOME things that were on my list. The unexpected hands on nature of the Awards situation is coming along nicely after an awards season that was about 25% less terrible than the previous season's. The casino achieved so much progress beyond what I'd hoped, though we still face challenges in effectively taking away your money while you enjoy it, and this coming season is pretty much guaranteed to be make or break. The brand new refurbished DSFL Ho (built largely out of the DSFL Advisory Board who helped with a number of those issues) takes a lot of the pressure off of HO in terms of tasks, time, and effort. I was very happy to help vote that in. Reddit isn't fixed because whoever the admin is (no one knows) won't respond to us but we do have access and our recruitment team has been using it to post videos of sims and it has apparently netted us at least a few recruits on its own at this point from what I've heard. I feel like HO is in a better place in terms of communicating and also not just letting itself get stepped on. I have strongly encouraged that they replace me with someone who's comfortable with being the heavy when needed but also not nearly as heavy as me. Quite a few of my goals were actually in the process of being worked on already and I've gotten to help with several. So at least I don't have to claim a total failure on my part. Just..a lot more than I would have hoped for.
So there it is, a fairly objective recap of my season in HO. Coming in at just over double the length required so whoever's reading these, if you made it this far, I love you. If you skipped to the end, its over 1700 words and you're smart.
In case anyone has missed the news, I'm stepping down from Head Office at the end of the offseason cycle. So let's start right at the beginning. I hate league politics. Like...a lot. If you by chance had not picked up on that by now, some things should fall into place and if you're brand new well now you know. It was during a conversation about league politics on another server that I vented some pent up frustration about where I felt the league was and where I felt it needed to be. Mind you this is a channel in a server (for another league) which features multiple GMs and an HO member. So its not like I'm just ranting at random people at that point. One of the responses was basically "why don't you join HO and have these arguments there". After a little thought I took up that idea and one thing quickly led to another and boom. There I was.
Now, coming into HO I was told that I was the only person to ever do it twice (according to someone who I can reasonably believe). I had high hopes. I had only recently come off a very successful stint as a GM and likewise had been able to improve my GM'ing legacy and results significantly the second time around. HO was an opportunity to do that again, pick up some old loose threads, and try to help steer the league in a direction I thought we should go. I thought I could provide an air of trust-ability to HO, which at the time was coming off the back of a controversial decision. For whatever other faults others may have with my methods and how I conduct myself, honesty and integrity are generally not among those complaints. I also, to myself, thought I could help by being a driving force for an HO that I often felt was too conservative and too slow.
So there I was, ready to jump in with both feet first. I never envisioned a long stint in HO. 2-3 seasons at most (which I also feel should be the general maximum anyway for sanity purposes). I brought a list of goals with me too, and I want to go through some of them so you get an idea. I wanted to work with the awards head to help move that project forward. After two seasons of existence the committee still needed serious work and i thought as a liaison from HO I could assist there. I wanted to work on the HO work/life balance within the league. The amount of work any given member of HO puts in is HUGE, and league spanning. It's such a giant operation with so many moving parts that it can be overwhelming. I wanted to move HO forward in terms of communicating decisions and putting the information out there. I had felt HO was somewhat closed off in this regard and it often hurt them as people jumped to their own conclusion or people who were at the center of issues were simply allowed to reshape events to make themselves the good guy. I wanted to fix my biggest past mistake and try to move our league's Reddit page forward. now that we have such a varied recruiting presence on the site I felt it was more important than ever that we have a functioning page. Now...that all said...I had a few other goals as well that I won't share due to the fact that their success is still a behind the scenes work in progress thing (which I had no part in). I'm just glad they're happening, as some of the most popular requests for improvement that the league has had.
So....my first week we had a DSFL GM crisis that resulted in a huge public spectacle, a Hall of Fame vote that was heavily publicly protested by the person being honored, and new rules that split the setups for some DSFL and NSFL awards. I had also found out that I'd be able to go forward with a previous project, which was restarting and revitalizing the casino. I built a plan to test out a number of games and ideas over the course of the season. By the end of that week I'd hired people with better plans than mine. And also the head of awards needed to step away, so I took on that mantle as well as immediately moving to hire future long term heads. And then a series of sim issues destroyed a good portion of the DSFL's week 3 and we had to figure out not just if we ended to break precedent but how. Which ultimately culminated in an unheard of complete resim, a Saturday sim, and general uneasiness.
Now that's just the top level stuff in the first roughly 10-12 days. Some of it among the team, some of it working with others, some of it solo. That's a LOT. Add in multiple GM changes, another HO member stepping down, department head changes, and at some point the projects I was actually working on and the normal HO duties. That's what it's like for an HO member every single season. Throw in random events where you have to make determinations on rules, league complaints, and multi-hour lectures about a variety of topics by people who have decided in their infinite wisdom that they are an expert on being a member of Head Office (note: said wisdom never actually comes form Infinite and usually is hit or miss in terms of actual wisdom). All of this leads up to limited time and effort to actually work on all those goals I talked about. Hell, it leads to limited time to work on my own player or help my team. You wake up already running behind more often than not. In my case I wake up almost buried (I do wake up later than most after all). I basically stepped away from playing Werewolf and I mostly stepped away from filming my vidcasts.
So with all that in play, how did it go and how do I feel now? Well, I've obviously announced I'm stepping down. So you can at least take some reasonable guesses. I discovered quickly and repeatedly that I could only do so much, especially as my real life began to show promise in terms of both my personal writing and also poker, another moneymaking hobby of mine. I also learned that some things I was simply not well suited for. I read dishonesty and insult into things where there wasn't any intended, or I read it correctly and responded several notches too high. I got into arguments with people I shouldn't have let get to me. I got into arguments with people who weren't actually trying to get to me. Someone made an entire Twitter just to trash me (and apparently doesn't realize how obvious they are). I even once made an entire discussion room mad by stating that someone must not have been paying attention because they were busy doing something they were actually doing. You know you're operating at a high level (for good or ill) when people get mad at you for just not even actually insulting someone. I feel fairly poor about it. It was put into stark light as I watched and even was the recipient of attention form two separate people who were searching for slights and reasons to be mad even at a much higher level than I was. Eye opener right there.
So, I decided to step down, briefly tried to get myself fined by HO for one very mean thing I said to a GM and left NSFL General Chat. Then whole twitter thing exploded that night (featuring different comments thankfully because clearly the person didn't have access). So I said nevermind on the fine, delayed my announcement about leaving, and rejoined the world of Gen Chat, where I then immediately accidentally inspired a copy/pasta. At least I got something done? All in all it was a very poor showing on my part that definitely damaged my reputation among some circles. I am now and will always be a failed HO member. And I'm just kind of fine with that. It's important to recognize when you have to acknowledge that you need to step up or get out of the way. The things I'm interested in stepping up on are outside of HO (and also the league for that matter). So I'm getting out of the way.
I did manage to do SOME things that were on my list. The unexpected hands on nature of the Awards situation is coming along nicely after an awards season that was about 25% less terrible than the previous season's. The casino achieved so much progress beyond what I'd hoped, though we still face challenges in effectively taking away your money while you enjoy it, and this coming season is pretty much guaranteed to be make or break. The brand new refurbished DSFL Ho (built largely out of the DSFL Advisory Board who helped with a number of those issues) takes a lot of the pressure off of HO in terms of tasks, time, and effort. I was very happy to help vote that in. Reddit isn't fixed because whoever the admin is (no one knows) won't respond to us but we do have access and our recruitment team has been using it to post videos of sims and it has apparently netted us at least a few recruits on its own at this point from what I've heard. I feel like HO is in a better place in terms of communicating and also not just letting itself get stepped on. I have strongly encouraged that they replace me with someone who's comfortable with being the heavy when needed but also not nearly as heavy as me. Quite a few of my goals were actually in the process of being worked on already and I've gotten to help with several. So at least I don't have to claim a total failure on my part. Just..a lot more than I would have hoped for.
So there it is, a fairly objective recap of my season in HO. Coming in at just over double the length required so whoever's reading these, if you made it this far, I love you. If you skipped to the end, its over 1700 words and you're smart.
![[Image: 68.png]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/722696337912496132/759304283312881684/68.png)
