Intense people with their need for instructions.
It's been some time. I realized that I need to restart somewhere, so here I am.
I went to help out at the orientation camp just last week. The actual orientation camp wasn't that bad--in fact I'd say that it was quite enjoyable, but I think I can attribute it to the fact that I've already allocated my weekend for it, so there's no benefit in trying to leave early, thus the enjoyment. But besides the banality of administrative inefficiency, there's also the problem with humans and their quirks.
I'm not the most diligent person around. I stick around and hopefully get things done, but when there's nothing to do, I like to disappear to avoid doing extra things. I don't want to stand around under the hot sun and slowly die of too-much-sun when there's no need to. I don't want to do unnecessary things. I don't want to sit/stand around and wait for further instructions when I can be taking my shower. A little bit of an individualistic streak, I know, but I'd rather be resting alone than be uncomfortable with everyone else.
Before you start jumping to conclusions about my character and how much of a lazy ass sociopath I am, let me explain the situation(s).
1) Post night-walk
It was after the night walk, and there was no information from the organizing committee about what time the debrief would be at, if any. Maybe it was disseminated but got lost, no idea, but the majority of the games masters were just hanging around in the bunk area with the ghastly make-up on, unsure of whether they can go and shower or not.
I walked into the bunk and kinda floated the idea to everyone that we should go and shower before everyone else turns up and occupies the bathroom and then we can't get rid of our caked faces. Mind you, we had some make up on our limbs too. I wouldn't want to go for a briefing like that, and I wanted to sleep as early as possible.
So the floating went like "Hey guys go shower first lah debrief won't be so fast one lah."
The average games master's response "Are you sure? No instructions leh.."
Me: ...
I mean...dude, we have brains, we can go take a shower whenever the fuck we want. Do you really need instructions for every damned thing? OK, let's say the debrief started while you were in the shower. What could they possibly do to you? Are they going to suddenly order you out of the camp and risk ruining the morale of every volunteer present? Are they going to publicly humiliate you because they failed to inform you way beforehand that there would be a briefing? What sort of punishment could they deal to you? Are they going to behead you and your entire clan?
So I just told them "Uhh well I'm going to take a shower first then" (...enjoy your filth, boys).
I stepped into the relatively quiet bathroom and like 5 minutes later the others started streaming in too.
Not sure if I'm the fire starter, or because instructions were passed down. Doesn't matter, had shower.
2) Finale
We were hanging around under the hot sun waiting for the finale to start. It was basically..2 teams, one on each side of the field, throwing water bombs at the opposing teams' structure. They build/design their own structure, and the structure that remains most intact/standing is the winner. There's a boundary and the structures stand outside the field, so people can be meat shields for the structure, but not too much if your trajectory is good.
We were supposed to be the referees/linesman for the boundaries, but the game started wayyyy later than planned. While waiting for the game to start, I went back to hide under the shelter, disappeared, stuff like that, simply because there's no point in just sitting on the field waiting for the teams to magically appear. Just because you're physically present doesn't mean that things will magically start early. You don't get high marks in an examination just for being present.
Cleaning up wasn't easy either. There were 2 structures to tear down, and I didn't want to go to the one with other games masters because I am a sociopath. One dude, let's call him Intense Guy, came over to help me, and then immediately demanded people tearing down the other structure to "EH come help leh". I told him that we were the ones who started on this structure slightly prematurely, and that he shouldn't be so demanding in his tone especially since the people on the other structure were already working on it. Really wonder why there was a lapse in logic that compelled him to make such a demand. Same dude was really intense throughout the camp too, being very bossy and not accomplishing much.
I think everyone needs to be chill. We were there to try and have fun while ensuring the freshmen are safe and having fun too. You being demanding...doesn't help.
And people have to stop waiting for instructions. They don't drop from the sky, if you really treat instructions like your gospel/commandments then go and look for them. Sitting around in bunk wouldn't bring you closer to ever profound question of whether you can take a fucking shower or not.
Maybe because I'm a sociopath, I didn't socialize with them well enough and didn't make friends with the other games masters. I think that's a loss for me, because some of them did seem like pretty awesome people. But on the bright side, I probably didn't ruffle their feathers like Intense Guy.
Don't think I'll help out in the next camp, but maybe they don't even want me to help out again or something. Wouldn't matter that much to me anyway.
-- 1/26/2014 11:50:00 PM