I wish I'd recorded it.
That somewhat flippant comment was my takeaway from Monday's raid.
But if you'd seen what I saw, you'd understand.
Until I opened my mouth during pre-raid announcements, only four other people in raid knew I was leaving: the three other raid leads and my questing buddy**. As soon as I said*** "My job is changing, and not by choice, so I'm going to have to start over with a new position at work," the whispers began.
At that point, when I said that I'm not going to be able to raid until 3 AM while I'm trying to learn a new job, the whispers were flying by so fast I couldn't possibly read them. I finished my (semi) prepared remarks with "I'll miss you all. I'll miss progression raiding with you, and I'll always be proud to say that I raided with Team Loki and with Valhalla in Classic." I'm not sure how I managed to stay focused after that.
When the raid lead said (officially) that she was going to miss me, I finally had to step in and say that "I've been getting a ton of whispers and there's no way I could personally respond to them all, but thank you for all your kind words." I'm pretty sure my voice got pretty rough along the way.
I've quit jobs before, but this was harder. In spite of everything --and TBC's Meta-- I did look forward to raiding with friends. And I still have Friday and Saturday to work with, but I won't be in progression. And to be honest, since I'll have dropped progression, I'm not sure how much longer I'll remain in guild. That divide will grow over time, and the unintentional separation will just snowball to the point where I'm (effectively) out of the loop on a permanent basis. So while I'd hope otherwise, I think this is the beginning of the end.
 |
| Cue 'Happy Trails'.... |
*Surely you've seen the ending of the movie Shane, haven't you?
**I told her first, because she deserved to know first. There were others I would have told as well, but they've all burned out and left, which hurts. Understandable, but it still hurts. I also presume the co-GMs knew as well, but they're in the hardcore raid.
***Paraphrasing. I couldn't remember exactly what I said if my life depended on it.
I hope you find your perfect balance and can still enjoy WoW in spite of no progression raiding.
ReplyDeleteWow, I'm either so old and brain addled I forgot I saw the movie but I sure don't remember it. Now you got me going, I'll have to go look it up! TotA
Shane is one of those films that I kind of dismissed years ago as a "Kid's Western" since it's told primarily from the point of view of Little Joe. I went back and watched years later and was surprised to see how sophisticated it was, especially with the theme of the Old West giving way to the New West, which was also a major theme of John Ford's Westerns (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Searchers, among others). I definitely would give it a try.
DeleteOh, and I think I'll be okay playing WoW, just that things will have to change going forward.
Red;
ReplyDeleteYou will have some time on your hands, and at first it will be weird, then you'll rediscover (some you already have) the joys of solo play in WoW without the pressing need to either be ready to raid, to raid, or after raid replenishment of raid consumables. It is an interesting time, but I've been through it many a time over the years. You'll hit your stride in quick time :D
Also, in the same vein, hit me up at wylset@gmail.com, I play pretty much every evening, and always happy to start a character or two (altoholics r us) on another realm. I think you and I could enjoy some WoW questing together.
Bill
What servers are you on? I could always find myself on a Card or Neve clone there.
DeletePagle's my full alliance server, and I just started a Warlock-Priest combo on Mankrik for horde, they're level 42 atm.
DeleteBill
All the feels!
ReplyDeleteThough I've got to admit that my first thought upon seeing that screenshot was: "All those complaints about rep grinds and stuff, and your Draenei has a horse?!" XD
Well, getting to Exalted for Stormwind was easy. Remember, Brig leveled from scratch, and most of my leveling was NOT done via dungeons, so it was all questing. And since a ton of quests I worked were in Human areas it was straightforward to get to Exalted on her.
DeleteFunny, I noticed how quickly my shaman hit exalted and when about 32 was able to straight out buy the horse, I avoided that goofy elekk.
DeleteCourse, right after my GM was gushing about how awesome the elekk was when crossing water, it has a lesser chance of dismounting you because of the height. That may be so, but you can't ride into a building in Stormwind.
It's the little things.
Bill