School of Hard Knocks

So, this week heralded the first real Guild Drama I've dealt with since becoming an officer. This was a valuable learning experience. I feel as if I could have done better in how I reacted internally. I took it personally. I felt sick with stress and hurt feelings. My guildies are my friends, and I felt as if the issue at hand was directly related to me.

Still, I also could have handled this with far less grace than I did. I didn't do too badly, and I did manage to salvage the situation. I also took some valuable information out of the experience.

The Situation

To put this succinctly, a thread was started on our forums about the overabundance of heavy, drama laden RP, and how the sheer numbers of stories and amount of drama is making it difficult to do anything. Now for me, this is a touchy subject; I'm guilty of being the center of much of this. I never intended to be, but my stories become more and more expansive. I let myself get carried away for a while, but I've been working on reducing it, with at least a little success.

This thread was initially a constructive thing, but one of our members- a friend from the guild before this one, and someone whom I have spoken with before about personal Life Stuff- wrote a very long, very scathing post talking about how there's a just a few 'showboats' who steal all the spotlight, and good luck to anyone else trying to get involved. She said that no one gets any help. She said that the stories were ridiculous and unrealistic. She said a lot of things, and I felt as if many of them were pointed directly at me.

My response was to read that post, and immediately feel sick. Am I an attention whore? Am I a shitty officer? Did this person, whom I considered a friend, not consider me a friend any more? Are my stories shit?

I did well at reigning in my knee-jerk reaction to blast her, and instead made a rather long post addressing each of her points in turn. I ignored what I perceived to be personal jabs at me, and moved straight to the issue, only briefly mentioning that my feelings were hurt. I also sent her a private message addressing my feelings, because I didn't want to just let this hang between us.
Everything was pretty mildly stated, and I focused on the problems she'd brought to light- that she 'and others' felt left out, that there were many level-centric RP qualms, that no one was getting any help, and that she'd had some in character interpersonal difficulties.

Still, though my post was pretty calm, I felt like I was going to cry. Her post touched many of my personal insecurities. I often worry about becoming everything that I hate in people- attention whores irritate me to no end, shitty writers who they're good, etc.

I spent most of the day and evening feeling sick to my stomach, and alternating between really disliking her for making such an inflammatory post- after all, if I was right, she could have said all that much less horribly- and hating myself for possessing those qualities which she was raging against in the first place.

What I Did Wrong

I took it personally.
I was too willing to assume that the problem was me, and that I was to blame for my guildie's blowup. I allowed my guildie's frustration to play upon my own insecurities, and made shitty assumptions in order to lambaste myself. These are old, old urges that I thought I'd outgrown when I gained the self confidence to be an adult. I need to be stronger, and have more faith in myself. Sometimes, I might not be able to resolve the problem, and I WILL be blamed for what goes on. I cannot please everyone, and I cannot allow myself to get ripped apart over someone else's issues.

I blamed the source.
I went between blaming myself, and blaming the guildie, for the surge of drama. I felt inclined to turn the guildie in question into the enemy, which does nothing to open communication and address the actual problem. Yes, my guildie could have done much better at articulating the situation; she could have brought this problem to us before, instead of letting it stew and getting angrier. But most people WON'T come to you with their problems, and you just have to be able to work with them. Not everyone is a good communicator, and these situations are GOING to happen. That doesn't mean that the poor communicator is a bad person, or even a bad fit. No one is perfect, and we have to remember why they're a part of our guild- we have to focus on the retention of valuable members, and analyze whether the person is the source of the drama, or if the situation has merely broken them.

What I Did Right

I responded calmly.
Even though I felt personally attacked, I did not allow any of my rage and alternating depression to come through in my post. I focused on the issues at hand, and not the inflammatory way they were brought to me.

I was compassionate.
I considered her point of view, and tried my best to understand the problems from her perspective. I DID address the problems she brought up, and tried to come up with solutions that would help.

The Solution

She responded to my forum message by saying we should probably talk in game, and I agreed. Before talking to her, I spoke with my fellow officers, who were very supportive of this plan. They were also there for emotional support, and one in particular kept whispering me throughout my conversation, making sure I was okay and things were going alright. Have I mentioned I love my guild, and that I love my fellow officers?

I felt that I was going to be the best person to talk to her about this issue. Although many of her points did seem to pertain to me in particular, I knew that I was willing to step into her shoes, and be compassionate. Empathy is one of my strengths. In addition, I had the nagging suspicion that her wrathful post wasn't just what she was saying it was. I felt as if there were many contributing factors to the boil over, and that I had a better idea of what might be going on than others would.

So, she whispered me, and asked if 'now would be a good time to talk'. I said yes, and invited her to group. I waited for her to make contact because I was frankly quite apprehensive, and there was also a large RP event going on, and I didn't want to interrupt her. (In the future, it would probably be better for me to take initiative here.)

She admitted right away that she was horrible at conflict resolution, and that she had made that post out of anger. I told her I considered her a friend, and wanted to understand what was going on, and how I could help. I let her vent. And, at first I was inclined to play the blame game- 'well, that couldn't possibly be our fault because...' Then, I caught myself. This wasn't about blame. Who cared who was 'at fault'? Honestly, looking at it, it was just a series of unfortunate situations.

It boiled down the fact that she, personally, had felt left out by the guild. We have many level eighty characters. Every time she logged on, she would try to get a group for something, but everyone was in heroics, or Naxx, or whatever. She would try to get involved in RP, but the plots moved too quickly, and she was left behind and lost. Her character was ostracized and spurned. No one said 'hello' when she logged on. She felt lonely, and isolated, and was -this- close to just up and transferring servers.

She needed more than she was getting. And honestly, that's what our guild is about- we are helpful and friendly to one another, and she should have been able to get the interaction she was wanting. I don't blame anyone; I know that I get tunnel vision when I'm focused on something. I honestly feel it was more chance than anyone particularly shunning her.

Still, it IS a problem. Our guild is very close, and I'd say most of us play to play with one another. I can see where she was coming from, and I took steps to remedy it.

Her character is a discipline priest. I've mentioned in previous posts about the Apprenticeship program, which is actually designed to prevent this sort of thing; I went ahead and apprenticed her single target healer to my single target Holy Paladin. There aren't any other up and coming healers, so why not? I enjoy RPing with this person, and she was incredibly relieved just to be a part of SOMETHING. I get that.

In addition, I'm going to be more attentive to saying 'hello' when people log on. I know it always makes me feel fantastic when I get the requisite six people jumping on me with a 'Hi!' and 'DYNA! *pounce*' I like being greeted, and I know others do too- so I'm going to try to be more on that.

Also, I'm going to try and avoid that tunnel vision that I get when I'm 'doing something'. What's more important? 'Doing something', or spending time with my guildies?

I've also told her to please, please, please come to me- or another officer- if she begins to feel left out or lonely again. I made the point that we CANNOT POSSIBLY know that there's a problem, unless someone tells us. The fact that she nearly transferred without saying anything, honestly speaks poorly of her. Still, that's her issue, and she knows it. I think she'll be more inclined to talk to me in the future, because I handled her problem with compassion and kindness. I feel like I did good with this situation, ultimately.