Very often, I get asked a variation of 'How can I get promoted/noticed/positioned?' The simple asnwer has always been to do work. Some work is higher impact, and easier to see than others. Being a codemonkey or a gfxmonkey before you even get into the club is a great way to have a pretty laid out path to upper ranks, if you are willing to do the work. We all know that. It's the Brotherhood equivalent of being GREAT at investment banking. If you do hard work, you're going to eventually succeed.
But for many of us, neither of those 'career choices' are an option. That, on its face, limits our options. There's just simply not that many high-paying jobs in the real world for video-game testers, despite what ads on the side of your browser tell you.
That's just on its face, though. In reality, the number of non-gfx and non-code positions in the club vastly outnumber the jobs that do. The problem is that there's a lot more people competing for those gigs. There'a a Herald and a Seneschal, but there's also a Headmaster, a Justicar, a Master-at-Arms, Grand Master, Deputy Grand Master and Seven unit leader positions, and that's just on the voting body of the Brotherhood.
There is opportunity there. And the best advice I can give you is by holding one member in particular up today. Korras has been our Master At Arms for years now. He's been consistent, he's been unbiased. He's been calm and collected, even when we have given him plenty of reason not to be. He's been someone we can count on, someone I can count on.
More than that, he has drawn down the wait time on rewards and medals something ferocious. In the modern brotherhood, we have been spoiled. Utterly spoiled. Ask some of your clan mates how it was in the old days... how long it took for some promotions and medals to go through, how long it took for results to vendettas to be sorted out. Korras had a direct hand in that (and was one of my heavy graders before the crusade). He's pushed beyond just being a button masher. He's worked to streamline the process, documenting as he goes in most cases.
More than that, he's always been available to help people sort out what is appropriate, what makes more sense, how to write better reccs, how to get stuff done the right way. He's helped mentor a pretty large number of people, on his staff and not, on how to be better at this aspect of our jobs. He's been one of the people that I bounce ideas off of, to make sure that I am doing it right myself. He's been a solid member of the Dark Council, able to sit in on any committee, on any project without hesitation. He has no issues with other members, he has no political affiliation, such as it is in the club.
Do work, do it consistently as you can manage, be fair, be level headed, be available. Teach others how to be the same. That's how Korras has been over the past three and a half years. That is how to own a position, that is how to make a name for yourself without having to resort to dramatics, to start fights, to cause havoc for the sake of having havoc around.
Korras has been a model member of the DC for years now. And it pains me to have to announce that he will be retiring here soon. His real life just keeps getting better for him. And this is me talking about a guy who does rock concert photography as a side gig. His time for the DB has been diminishing as of late, and he's only been staying on because I've asked him to.
But it is time.
As Korras winds down his record owning term as MAA, I had to sort out what would work best for him, something to recognize the hard work he has done. Not just in his office, but in helping all of us in all the myriad ways he has done for the past few years. In the end, I decided to induct him into one of our oldest traditions.
Today, Korras stands among you as a Lord.
Lord Muz Ashen Keibatsu, 2013-09-20 01:40:00 UTC