- Pronouns
- he / him / his
I'm not completely sure why I am posting this in the ENN forum, except that it doesn't really feel like government business. I'm pretty sure I've developed an allergy to the family dog, so I'm drowsy on anti-histamines and a lot of good Christmas food.
There's a lot I've been wanting to talk about for a while, but both RL and NS has been rushing me from event to event. My high school social studies teacher once drew us a four box diagram that had an y-axis labeled "not urgent", "urgent", and an x-axis labeled "not important", "important." He said we should, whenever possible, avoid operating out of the bottom right box: both urgent and important.
That's the box I've been running my life out of for the last six months.
As many of you know, I recently made a big move across the country. I have transitioned from my comfortable college town to a huge city where I know basically nobody. The reason for this move? To make a long-distance relationship just a little bit closer, but it's still long distance and completely infuriating.
I'm someone who likes schedules and likes routine, but I'm starting to feel like my days are totally booked in 5 minute blocks. As I discussed briefly on a Radio broadcast, I handled my final confrontation of Brunhilde using a mobile hotspot on a southbound train. I worked on NS World Fair stuff in the dead of night - and these are the things I'm paying attention to.
_
Before I go on with my monologue, I want to apologize.
A few months ago I penned a satire piece called, "The Story Of The Little Red President." While I did not truly intend to target anyone personally in the piece, the fact that the article was published right after several members saw fit to step down from their positions made the text problematic. I like writing things that rush right up to the line of appropriateness. I like pushing the envelop and challenging member. But the article was too much, it was off-key. I knew that back in October, but I preferred to dig my heels in rather than concede I had gone a touch too far.
This is relevant because while I haven't resigned this term, I have failed in some regards - and I need to own that.
The Internship Program is broken, for lack of a better word. Over the last several months I have put a lot of time into the program, and I think we've learned quite a bit. But with everything being both "urgent" and "important", something had to give - and it was this. There will be time for a full post mortem in my end of term address, but I firmly believe that if the program is to continue next term it needs a total reset. My top-line thoughts are that something so time intensive, while potentially beneficial, cannot merely be an internship program. I do believe that there are major strengths to a centralized system where progress can be clearly monitored. But this system was not wholly centralized, and the person responsible for holding it together did not wholly rise to the occasion. I own that.
I am proud of some things that I have done this past term.
I had a ton of fun putting together our pitch for the Nationstates World Fair, and aggressively lobbying the NS Staff administrators for reform on how they consider off-site information. I am proud of my Administrative Team that has made two necessary bans this term, one that rocked the NS world. Our administrative team is seen as a gold standard across Nationstates, and while those laurels belong to my fellow admins as much as to me, it does make me beam with pride.
But I am a little wore out.
The Brunhilde Investigation was emotionally taxing in a way I cannot quite explain without fishing for compliments or asking for pity. During the height of the investigation, we struggled with how to proceed with a preponderance of evidence but no smoking gun. I kept myself up late at night, convinced that if I could just put in a little more effort I would be able to find "it", the ironclad proof that we were being conned and abused. While I did uncover /more/ evidence, I never did find anything that felt like a silver bullet to the investigation. After confronting Brunhilde we learned that she was lobbying some of his friends hard, talking about the admin's "abuse" and "persecution". I was terrified that people would believe him over us. I thought it might split Europeia, or create an inter-regional conflict between those who trusted the Euro admins and trusted Brunhilde.
In the end, I sold a lot of people short in those worries, of course. But for a player who is relatively anti-social in a region partially defined by social interactions, it's something I worry about a bit. Will people really trust me over their close friends? Should I expect them to?
In summation, I need to take a breather. I need to focus on the administrative team, and more importantly, my RL. My job has been pretty sleepy the last two months, and that is definitely ending in the New Year.
I am going to take a LOA through January 2nd or so, and then come back and prepare an exit report for the internship program. Tons of different players have given suggestions this term as to how the program could be improved or expanded, and hope those people come forward. My ultimate desire at this point is to provide learnings to the next administration on the subject of integration and new members in Ministries. To that effect, this weekend was meant to be the last internship rotation of the term, but with Christmas Eve and Christmas it didn't seem like an optimal time to do it. With elections fast approaching, I am most inclined to just let interns stay put where they are with an immediate freeze in applications.
Anyway, for everyone who read all of this, thank you!! This was very stream of consciousness, and I don't intend on editing so hope it was all coherent in the end!
Happy New Year Ya'll,
HEM
There's a lot I've been wanting to talk about for a while, but both RL and NS has been rushing me from event to event. My high school social studies teacher once drew us a four box diagram that had an y-axis labeled "not urgent", "urgent", and an x-axis labeled "not important", "important." He said we should, whenever possible, avoid operating out of the bottom right box: both urgent and important.
That's the box I've been running my life out of for the last six months.
As many of you know, I recently made a big move across the country. I have transitioned from my comfortable college town to a huge city where I know basically nobody. The reason for this move? To make a long-distance relationship just a little bit closer, but it's still long distance and completely infuriating.
I'm someone who likes schedules and likes routine, but I'm starting to feel like my days are totally booked in 5 minute blocks. As I discussed briefly on a Radio broadcast, I handled my final confrontation of Brunhilde using a mobile hotspot on a southbound train. I worked on NS World Fair stuff in the dead of night - and these are the things I'm paying attention to.
_
Before I go on with my monologue, I want to apologize.
A few months ago I penned a satire piece called, "The Story Of The Little Red President." While I did not truly intend to target anyone personally in the piece, the fact that the article was published right after several members saw fit to step down from their positions made the text problematic. I like writing things that rush right up to the line of appropriateness. I like pushing the envelop and challenging member. But the article was too much, it was off-key. I knew that back in October, but I preferred to dig my heels in rather than concede I had gone a touch too far.
This is relevant because while I haven't resigned this term, I have failed in some regards - and I need to own that.
The Internship Program is broken, for lack of a better word. Over the last several months I have put a lot of time into the program, and I think we've learned quite a bit. But with everything being both "urgent" and "important", something had to give - and it was this. There will be time for a full post mortem in my end of term address, but I firmly believe that if the program is to continue next term it needs a total reset. My top-line thoughts are that something so time intensive, while potentially beneficial, cannot merely be an internship program. I do believe that there are major strengths to a centralized system where progress can be clearly monitored. But this system was not wholly centralized, and the person responsible for holding it together did not wholly rise to the occasion. I own that.
I am proud of some things that I have done this past term.
I had a ton of fun putting together our pitch for the Nationstates World Fair, and aggressively lobbying the NS Staff administrators for reform on how they consider off-site information. I am proud of my Administrative Team that has made two necessary bans this term, one that rocked the NS world. Our administrative team is seen as a gold standard across Nationstates, and while those laurels belong to my fellow admins as much as to me, it does make me beam with pride.
But I am a little wore out.
The Brunhilde Investigation was emotionally taxing in a way I cannot quite explain without fishing for compliments or asking for pity. During the height of the investigation, we struggled with how to proceed with a preponderance of evidence but no smoking gun. I kept myself up late at night, convinced that if I could just put in a little more effort I would be able to find "it", the ironclad proof that we were being conned and abused. While I did uncover /more/ evidence, I never did find anything that felt like a silver bullet to the investigation. After confronting Brunhilde we learned that she was lobbying some of his friends hard, talking about the admin's "abuse" and "persecution". I was terrified that people would believe him over us. I thought it might split Europeia, or create an inter-regional conflict between those who trusted the Euro admins and trusted Brunhilde.
In the end, I sold a lot of people short in those worries, of course. But for a player who is relatively anti-social in a region partially defined by social interactions, it's something I worry about a bit. Will people really trust me over their close friends? Should I expect them to?
In summation, I need to take a breather. I need to focus on the administrative team, and more importantly, my RL. My job has been pretty sleepy the last two months, and that is definitely ending in the New Year.
I am going to take a LOA through January 2nd or so, and then come back and prepare an exit report for the internship program. Tons of different players have given suggestions this term as to how the program could be improved or expanded, and hope those people come forward. My ultimate desire at this point is to provide learnings to the next administration on the subject of integration and new members in Ministries. To that effect, this weekend was meant to be the last internship rotation of the term, but with Christmas Eve and Christmas it didn't seem like an optimal time to do it. With elections fast approaching, I am most inclined to just let interns stay put where they are with an immediate freeze in applications.
Anyway, for everyone who read all of this, thank you!! This was very stream of consciousness, and I don't intend on editing so hope it was all coherent in the end!
Happy New Year Ya'll,
HEM
