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

#170. Heavy Platforms and Poor Leadership (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 at this time was that I had just gone through a 1.5-year hyper ambitious phase (punctuated by Shad Valley, #52, #37, and software internship, #42, this past summer); but had had some recent setbacks with a few leadership positions (namely Student Trustee) I had failed to win. Which led to me over-compensating by way overstepping my role as a leader in the two clubs where I was a leader—quizbowl (#113, #62) and Space Sim (#97).

For Space Sim, my three incidents in the first half of the year:

  1. Telling recent alumni who were engaging in discussion in our forums, and trying to help us out, to “move on” since they were at university now and had more important things to do (true, but…)
  2. Strongly implying to two sophomores that they wouldn’t be considered due to bad grades (which were actually pretty bad, and not just for space nerds; but not relevant to the decision)1
  3. Stating my opposition when the other leaders, Nigel Healey (best friend, #97, #14) and Andrew Xiao, wanted to create a fourth leadership position for a specific function that was technically already under my “education leader” purview.2

For trivia, I found out that Colin Griffiths (#63) was listed as co-head of the team instead of me due to an administrative confusion,.3 Which I handled beautifully by asking Colin to give up his title, which led to a semi-serious conflict which could have led to one of us quitting the team (a few threats were made)—before we just added a third co-head. That was the only incident, but an extremely misguided one—seeing as Nigel, Colin, and I ended up winning the National Championship together that year.

With this story taking place around the time of all of the above, needless to say, it’s very much a continuation of the same theme.

I was super-exciting heading into this unconventional Friday. For AP History, we had a field trip to the old Mayfair Theatre to watch Goya’s Ghosts starring Natalie Portman—which involved Nigel and I making the fun, thirty-minute trek in deep snow. And that night, we were hosting our third annual Trivia Night (first was #113) to raise money for our Reach and NAQT trips later in the year.

The first part of the night—the hours before the night start—was legitimate, and free of asshole me. Mainly because asshole me, along with Nigel and Colin and a few of the (stronger) freshmen and sophomores, was too busy losing all the feeling in his arms—lugging what must have been six to eight large wooden platforms from the music room to the cafeteria. And these platforms were fucking heavy. Quite possibly the roughest workout I had ever had (though that’s not saying much).

Asshole me emerges shortly after that (though in a different way); when Chelsea Barrett (our fourth A-team member, #10) needed to get some projection equipment from her house nearby and some help carrying it, and I way-too-purposefully suggest that Nigel go with her (which he does). Because this was during a period when I extrapolated from a few small comments to think Nigel had a thing for Chelsea (or the other way around), and made a lot of unwelcome jokes about it. (Fine in freshman year, not so great in senior year.)

Finally, the event starts, and I’m manning the registration table where, for reasons the simple four-person–team setup and twenty-team attendance should have precluded, it was chaos. Then, the spaghetti dinner ahead of trivia event, for everyone participating and helping out.

Except me. Because, while everyone else was eating, I took the initiative to sort out a team mix-up—that I’m pretty sure I created at the registration table—by going on stage and announcing each of the teams and everyone’s names one by one. It was for sure extremely awkward4, and I had basically lost my voice at the end of it (Chelsea notices and offers to help finish it, but I refuse), but at the time all I could think about was how important it made me look.

Then, during the actual trivia competition, I was the one tracking the scores that were being shown for each team on the projector at the front. But all throughout, I was a lingering annoyance inside me; because when the time came to collect sheets from all the teams, I was doing it alongside a bunch of freshmen, and I didn’t like being seen as someone on their level.

The event ends—with me too self-absorbed to remember who the winner was—and the whole trivia night objectively, and unironically, is a big success. And so, it’s time for me—having not had any dinner—to join the guys in doing the exact same thing with the heavy platforms, back to the music room. Ironically, this might be the only part of the night that had any lasting consequences on me.

I exit the school that night believing I had just had the most awesome, epic day possible. And it was true. So epic, that even me being an unequivocally atrocious leader (and person) throughout the whole thing doesn’t in itself disqualify that.

If only because, we’d then have to disqualify most of my senior year (before the actual successful trivia run, #20, #10, #1).

  1. Which resulted in me getting chewed out by our teacher advisor, and potentially contributing to unenthusiastic reference letters for my university applications in the fall that may have cost me an Ivy League/MIT spot (#115).
  2. This one I was actually semi-justified. I had done, and continued to do (even after that fourth person came on), all the actual work for that specific function. And that girl even quit the club near the end of the year.
  3. Yes, Nigel was the best player and captain (as referred to in all other trivia entries from this year). But ambition-fueled me had to ensure some (absolutely nominal) leadership role existed for me in my senior year.
  4. Most notably, for a team of juniors (three of the your who I know), the fourth guys tells me his name is Rick Duceppe, and I mishear it as “50 Cent” and say that loudly into the microphone for the whole cafeteria to hear.