The New Guy
This is one of those (increasingly less) rare occasions where experiences I’ve had in Real Life™ and those I’ve had or observed in my WoW career have aligned.
We need another tank for our tanking team, we also recently hired another artist at the company I work for.
In both instances I’m one of the ‘old hats’ facing the injection of that nebulous entity known as the ‘new guy’. In one instance I am excited, and the other has had me scared. It’s a perilous time we live in where jobs can be hard to come by, competition is fierce, and the spectre of unemployment is a constant companion, looming over our shoulder, and daring us to fail. Will this new guy do such a better job than me that my services are no longer needed? Are the PTBs* just trying to find someone more competent than myself, keeping me strung along until I’m no longer needed, preparing for my inevitable severance? (I’m paranoid, remember.)
To a lesser extent there is my situation as a tank. I like to think that our warrior tank and I have a very good relationship. We view ourselves as a team, freely switching roles without jealousy or rancor with the best interests of the guild in mind. In the absence of a dedicated raid leader we’ve decided to take charge of whichever fight we are MT for. (Because MT is MAIN tank and for a good number of encounters the MT’s job is actually less complicated than that of the Off-Tank. It’s a good situation) While our previous raid leader was still, well, leading raids, I always felt he was a step above. He had to be. He led the damn raid.
If he wanted to take Main Tank more often than not that was his perogative. He was also sensitive to which class of tank would do better in which role, however, and if either of us offtanks expressed interest in giving main-tanking a try then he was always willing to let us give it a shot. He was a good leader.
But now we need a new tank, and a new raid leader. They may end up being the same person, or not. (I’ve got my money on who’ll be next raid lead, but I’m not sayin’). I do find it doubtful that our new tank will end up being our new raid lead. So, we have an instance where we have two strong tanks who are used to working together while a third stands apart and directs things.
Into this void will be injected the ‘new guy’. We could either ostracize him, clinging closer to our ‘dynamic tanking duo’ mentality, or we could work to include him into a better, stronger, faster, more elite tanking trio of doom!
I’m sure it’s pretty obvious what should happen. Healers operate as a team (they have their own channel), and tanks should also operate as a team (hey, maybe we should have our own channel!). I could see the three of us (warrior, myself, and mysterious other) working as a team of equals under the direction of a non-tanking raid leader.
I could also see one of the tank team as the new raid leader, thereby holding a more subtle control over the other two tanks, his role as a leader requiring us to deferr to his judgement. This could be frictious. I very much enjoy our ‘team of equals’ mentality.
Now, all of this speculation is way off the drama scale. I know myself, and I know our other tank. I know that in <Unemployed> we love working as a team and that most (if not all) members realise that we do best when communication lines are open and everyone is honest. What I’m illustrating here is merely a subtle shift of influence.
What I have right now in WoW is a scaled-down version of what I’m experiencing out in the big wide world of life.
I make no secret of being a socially awkward individual. I let slip to someone that I draw an online comic and I fretted about how stupid I must have sounded for weeks.
I enjoy drawing paralells between WoW situations and things we go through in Real Life™. Sometimes I find a simpler example of a complicated problem in game, sometimes the complicated problem is in the game and a life experience gives me the answer.
Ha! Let’s add another bubble to my experience bar hmm? What about you? Have you been able to draw any insightful paralells between these two worlds we enjoy?
*PTBs = Powers That Be
