One of the things that was a big part of my life after high school was joining a Call of Duty clan. We get high speed internet and my parents bought me a computer, so naturally I wanted to try playing some games online. I tried in the past to play Medal of Honor online, but that was a slide show. When I got cable internet, I decided to try CoD.
I found a server by chance and started playing with them. They had recruitment messages in the server message so I decided why not. They had a boot camp program that you had to go through as they were a military style clan.
The first boot camp did not go well. While I was someone just goofing around, they were more serious about things. I was kind of a dick. I learned to behave and soon graduated. I went got to the point that I was in charge of a squad as a Corporal and had kept our squad active, all three of us, while the rest of the platoon was inactive.
I had thought that at some point that I would become a Sergeant, but they put someone else in that spot because he had been a higher ranking officer in the past. He even told me that he didn't really want to be the Sergeant of the squad and he wanted me to keep doing what I did.
As still a kid, I didn't take that too well. As one of my friends would have put it, I wasn't very tactful in my responses. Things went south, and at some point I almost quit. I didn't, was demoted back to Private and started all over again.
Just like I did before I rose back up through the ranks, but this time I was more mindful of what I said and how I handled myself. I was better in control of how I came off to people and this helped me out immensely in my life.
I still have a tendency to let emotion out when I speak to people. Frustration, anger, sadness. It happens. Sometimes I think that it helped me hold those things in, when I shouldn't have. But in reality all of it helped me deal with people in the work world.
When you are actually managing people, even in a game sense, running a training class, writing up reports, writing training manuals about actual military manuevers it is things that I've used at my current job. Heck I actually just wrote a guide about something I do for job today.
It's weird to take something from a video game, but I did. Although it wasn't really the game, it was the organization that I was a part of that helped me grow. The game was just a catalyst. For me it was one of the best things for me growing up.
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