This is a Shared Topic post suggested by Deyndor and Light and Leafy.  You can find other posts with this Shared Topic here.

I glance at the nights sign ups, and my heart sinks as I realise we are short a crucial tank, and our melee have all gone on holiday at the same time. When this topic was first suggested I was a member of a raiding guild, and was struggling with a lack of enthusiasm and burn out. As I enter my fourth year of playing WoW, it is a familiar feeling during the spring time. The evenings are lighter, and I am less inclined to want to spend my evening on the computer after a whole day of spreadsheets and fractious emails.

Which made a cancelled raid something of a relief.

Now?

Now I am OFFICER and I must FIGHT THE CANCELLED LINE UP. A cancelled raid now represents a tiny personal failure.

It really shouldn’t be a tiny personal failure. This is an unpaid thing that we all volunteer to do because we like doing things for our friends and with our friends. At least that’s how it works in my guild.

Still, the guilt is there. I take things too personally.

So when a raid is cancelled, it is preceded by a lot of effort into getting it to not be cancelled. I will internally review our currently active raiders, and compare it to our current recruitment and recruitment prospects, trying to figure out if there is a slight change we can make. And I’m not even an actual raid officer, I just pseudo-worry while the Raid Leader and Healing lead do the actual work.

As the new officer in charge of the loot system (although never the designated master looter, thank heavens) I review our current rules and wonder if a tweak will encourage people to sign up more, and drop out less. Perhaps a KP bonus for being early? Tighter controls on the amount of KP given to those who roll up to the instance at start time instead of invite time? Double KP for Ulduar nights?

Time to spend my Neurotic and Emotional Spoons

If you know someone with a an illness or disability, you may have been directed to butyoudontlooksick.com, and a particular post on Spoon Theory. I have similar issues with emotional and physical energy that I’m not going to discuss here, but an especially neurotic (and highly driven, successful) friend of mine commented that he has neurotic ‘spoons’, and that they HAVE to be spent regularly, otherwise he ends up with a backpack full of the things.

As an officer who struggles with social anxiety and guilt issues, I HAVE to spend a certain amount of time and energy analysing my officery ‘views’ and decisions. A lot of second guessing takes place – am I making things too complicated? Am I making a rod for my own back? Am I just being an arse to my guildies by suggesting this? Am I taking into account that they’re all adult individuals and not children? Am I taking agency away? Am I giving people too much/too little credit?

Above all, am I being fair?

I’m very confident that I am not the only officer who looks at the slice of the pie they are responsible for, and feels that the pastry crust is wonky, thin, too brittle, or too fat and chewy.  When a raid is cancelled I cannot rest until I have spent some of my ‘worrying spoons’.

Hmm. Pie.

Time to catch up

Once I have done my ‘worrying’ and managed to discuss it with another officer or my real life partner, I suddenly have a large slice of time to spend. It could go on battleground, on farming, on spending some time at the auction house. If I do something solo I definitely feel as though I have lost time with my guildies, and ‘raid nights are group nights’ is somewhat ingrained in my head.

Indecisions indecisions. Run another bloody heroic again to help someone gear up their fifth alt, and build a little more of my own resto set, or spend the evening on the seesaw that is PvP. One minute I’m AWESOME AND KILLING LOADS and the next I’m the number one kill target and I die quick and it’s no fun.

More often than not

I log off and watch Glee, The Good Wife or Stargate Universe. Or Dr Who.

WEEPING ANGELS BRB HIDING BEHIND SOFA.