#170. Leadership Platforms (Friday, November 9, 2007)

What was your best day…of being a complete asshole?

This was not my finest night. A lot of nights during my senior year of high school weren’t. For this one at least, it felt amazingly good when it happened, and I didn’t hurt anyone (I think).

My core problem was that I had just come through a year and a half of hyper-ambition (#65), then suffered a few leadership setbacks—most notably losing the Student Trustee race. I compensated by overreaching badly in the two clubs where I did have authority: quizbowl and Space Sim (#101).

In Space Sim, I told recent alumni trying to help us that they should “move on” now that they were at university; strongly implied two sophomores wouldn’t be considered for leadership because of their bad grades,¹ which had nothing to do with the decision; and fought the creation of a fourth leadership position because its function technically sat under my own role.²

In trivia, an administrative mix-up listed Colin Griffiths (#65) as co-head instead of me. I responded by asking him to give up the title, creating a semi-serious conflict that briefly threatened to make one of us quit before we solved it by adding a third co-head.³ This was especially stupid given that Nigel, Colin, and I would go on to win Nationals together that year (#1).

So yes, this night belongs squarely in that phase.

I was super-excited heading into this unconventional Friday. For AP History, Nigel and I trekked half an hour through deep snow to the Mayfair Theatre to watch Goya’s Ghosts. That night, we were hosting our third annual Trivia Night (#123), a fundraiser for Reach and NAQT travel.

The pre-event hours were mostly free of asshole me, because Nigel, Colin, a few younger players, and I were busy hauling six or eight enormous wooden platforms from the music room to the cafeteria. They were fucking heavy—possibly the hardest workout I’d ever had, which admittedly wasn’t saying much.

Asshole me reappeared when Chelsea Barrett (#10) needed help bringing projection equipment from home, and I very deliberately suggested Nigel go with her. I had decided, based on a few tiny comments, that one of them had a thing for the other and had been making far too many jokes about it.

The event finally starts. I’m running registration, which somehow becomes chaotic despite the event having only twenty four-person teams.

Then, during the spaghetti dinner, instead of eating, I decide to fix a team mix-up—probably one I’d created—by going on stage and announcing every team and every participant one by one. It is painfully awkward,⁴ my voice is nearly gone by the end, and when Chelsea offers to take over, I refuse because I’m enjoying how important I look.

During the trivia itself, I track the scores that get displayed on the projector screen. What I remember most embarrassingly is being annoyed whenever I have to collect answer sheets alongside freshmen, because I didn’t like looking like I was on their level.

The event ends—with me too self-absorbed to remember who the winner was—but the trivia itself is, objectively and unironically, a big success. Having skipped dinner, I finish the night by hauling the same brutal platforms back to the music room. Ironically, that may be the only part of the night with any lasting consequence for me. (No way I didn’t pull something; I was just too leadership-obsessed to notice.)

I exit the school that night believing I had just had the most awesome, epic day possible. And honestly, it was. Even being an atrocious leader throughout the whole thing doesn’t quite disqualify it.

If it did, I’d have to disqualify most of senior year before the actually successful trivia run (#25, #10, #1).

Our teacher advisor chewed me out over this, and I later suspected it may have hurt the enthusiasm of some university-reference letters (#119).
This one was at least partly defensible: I had done, and continued to do, most of the work for that function even after the fourth leader was added. She later quit the club.
Nigel was clearly the best player and captain. Ambition-fueled me just needed some nominal leadership title of my own.
Most notably, a junior team had a fourth member named Rick Duceppe. I misheard “Rick Duceppe” as “50 Cent” and announced that loudly into the microphone for the entire cafeteria.