Gripe-Fest

I originally was going to make this a post about my WoW-Pro plans, as discussed by Jame in his blog. Instead I am going to talk about that in a different post: I felt the need to gripe a bit first about my guild situation.

Lately I have been feeling like I don't have a lot of input (dare I say controll) over what goes on in my guild. As a "guild leader", I feel like I put a ton of work in. Quite frankly, I feel like I work a lot harder than our GM (I only dare to say this since as far as I know there is no possible way she will ever read this). Don't get me wrong, she's my friend (which is why I've never said anything about it) - I just don't really feel like she does the things she should as a GM. While she was gone dealing with RL stuff, I felt a bit better - I was mostly running things (though there are also a few officers who are getting on my nerves). But I still didnt have the ability to do some of the things that the officers and I agreed on (in particular, some changes to our rank system). It was extremely frustrating. Yes, RL comes before WoW always! But we can't have an inactive or missing GM - by taking the responsibilty of being GM, you are comitting to be there. If RL stuff is going to be a continuing problem, then you need to give someone else the GM status.

At this point I have all the work and none of the satisfaction of being in charge. I update the website, people look to me to organize meetings, people constantly discuss things and talk about changing the way I have things set up (after we had all decided on them) then expect me to change them. I feel required to hurry to level 80 so I can lead raids, I feel like I need to spend my play time doing things for the guild - and yet all it seems I have is responsibility, without any benefit. Perhaps this is selfish of me, but I would at least like to see recognition of what I do. As it is the GM barely uses the website that I maintain, doesn't participate in policy discussions, then overrules decisions the officers had come to when she comes back after a month-long absense. I have one officer who also thinks he is a GM and tries to make the guild into his own vision of it, rather than what everyone wants. It's becoming extremely stressful.

My conclusion: quit being an officer. Take the stress off. People will probably see it as me having a pity party, but that's not really the case. It's just the best solution I see with the way I am feeling about the situation. I'm giving my self a week to make sure it's what I want, but after that I am going to request to be demoted. I'm just sick of running the guild while someone else has all the power and attention (so call me an egomaniac, whatever).