Thursday, August 09, 2007
High High Low Low High High Low
Actually yesterday was a really high day.
When people go to the beach, the sun, the sand, and the sea will have that natural impact on people, and people become naturally high when they touch water. Don't ask me why!!
In my eyes, beach games were a success. Despite some confusion at some games, this was the smoothest transition of games I've seen. Perhaps the small area where the game stations were stationed upon did really help facilitate matters.
At the stations, I see sincere laughters having fun, and people really in a competitive mood, trying their best to win games for their OGs without being overly hostile. This is the way it should be!!
As for me, I was happy saboing people to get dunked, and happily getting dunked by people too. For the fun of it, why not? It was just for plain, stupid fun which what orientation is all about =)
I think the camp really had fun, and was really high, and that is all that matters =)
However, the meeting after the camp was dismissed was a big downer for us, at least the ocommers. I dunno how to begin it, but sometimes there is always a dilemma between friendship and principles.
Something like what we studied in philosophy. It's like the "Should you prosecute your father for murder?" dilemma.
These people are my friends. It really hurts for me, and I'm sure the rest of us, to speak directly and pin-point the mistakes, the illogics behind decisions. But on the other hand, if the camp is indeed the priority, decisions need to be discussed, and most importantly, MADE DECISIVELY, and somebody has to take the initiative to MAKE those decisions, and not drag these issues and decisions til the very last minute, until you are left with no choice but to take the easy way out.
This is the situation we're handling here. Everyone wants to do something, but not many wants to move things on, and just wanting to keep harping on the dilemmas. It's something like organising soccer on the weekends, where everybody wants to play. There are always 4 levels of people.
1. People who actually bother to move things on and organise it. I think of Weichern, Junwei and me
2. People who bother to ask us whether there is soccer going on, and will ask friends if this is so. I think of Weide, Rayner, Guoyuan, Sincheng etc
3. People who will just quietly wait for the sms, and reply swiftly to help the organiser get things done. I think of Yaozong, Eeyang etc
4. People who will receive the sms, don't reply, and decide at the very last moment at his own comfort whether to go. Erm Alvin? =P
In every social circle, there are bound to be leaders and followers, no matter from simple things such as organising outings and playing soccer, to complicated operations like in an Ocomm or organising birthday parties. Sometimes, these roles rotate ; sometimes due to people's characters, they don't. Like how the names I mention can rotate up and down, no offence =)
Perhaps due to inherent character differences, when in a casual social group, people fall into these stratas automatically, so leaders and followers are naturally formed.
But when the social circle become such that the 'rank structure' is assigned, regardless of one's innate character, one has to perform not to his/her natural self, but to the position he/she is allocated to.
Like when xiong and I were tasked to organise 08 outings after our birthdays, we dusted off our usual slacking selfs and start the smses and calls to organise the outings.
Another case will be the army, where you see formerly very slack and cannot-be-bothered people rising to the occassions and bring out the 'leader' in them simply because they are assigned that 'rank' to do so.
Sometimes maybe again due to character-rank mismatches, supposed-leaders will turn followers, and supposed-followers will turn leaders.
I'm well-taught in the army enough that one shouldn't behave in a way that surpasses the 'rank' that they are supposed to have. When the commanders are discussing about how to topo to our next location, despite me wanting to help, I step out of their conversations and respect the decisions they make, suppressing the 'leader' in me.
However, as my fellow troopers have known, when things come to a certain boiling point like too much training, unfair treatment compared to other platoons, or simple things like in the field we can't get signal from the coms, we can't find a checkpoint, the commanders are abit confused where to go about scouting the enemy, we step forward to offer the 'leader' in us, offering our inputs.
The only dilemma when being in a 'follower' role is, where do we draw the line?
Do we respectfully accept all decisions made by our leaders even if we think it is not good enough, trustng that they have indeed made all sensible considerations?
Do we scrutinise and question every decision they make, in the mind of perfecting the job, but risk pissing them off at the same time?
Will people mistake our intentions of criticising decisions as criticising them?
Will criticising decisions lead to people criticising you as well? (The "If he can't even do it, why should him be even speaking?" theorem)
Will you be stepping out of your 'supposed' rank if you're overly concerned?
Most importantly, will you iccur the opportunity cost of soured friendships in the process of improving the job?
If any ocommer is reading this, I would like to apologise if I'm overly impatient, pushy, too direct or even rude during the meeting yesterday.
I'm just like that. I respect leadership, but when things go wrong, I can turn into quite a beast and will try to help get things done, even overriding rank sometimes.
P.S. I'm not feeling emo right now, just a little bit philosophical. I'm not angry at anyone, but I'm not sure of the vice versa. I'm still enjoying the process of being in an ocomm, being in an orientation camp. I'm still in a positive, I-want-to-help mood, instead of the negative, I-give-up mood. For people who know me, they'll know exactly how I feel =)
lowtide blogged @
9:56 am
