Officer issues

One of the main issues I have run into within guilds is issues with the officers. One sure way of preventing this just so happens to be making sure you trust the officers. You should have specific requirements, like they must be in the guild for a specific amount of time. I won’t make anyone an officer who has not been in the guild for almost 2 years. This allows them time to build trust.

In one of my issues with an officer, we had an officer taking things out of the raid tab which mentioned “That’s only for raiders” when confronted he said he was cleaning out the guild bank. This also goes against his job, he was the PVP officer. You might be thinking that’s not so bad because maybe he was helping out the bank managers. I delegated responsibilities to officers for specific reasons, the PVP officer is not to be cleaning out my guild bank.

The PVP officer should not even be thinking about cleaning out the guild bank. He only returned a few items, when my supply officer confronted him he left the guild. All we were trying to find at this point was “did he misunderstand the rules?” and then I was going to offer him his own tab for PVP if he felt it was needed. He was branded a thief and because blizzard won’t do anything about bank thievery anymore, we had to perform the damage control ourselves.

Damage Control

It was up to me and the other officers and members to work and restore items the previous PVP officer took from the guild. The feasts are not cheap and can be quite hard to make. I always told my guild I would make sure they had what they needed to reach their personal goals, as such feasts were needed.

Suspicious Members

Then we had another PVP officer, this guy decided to announce to the guild “well, I am going to quit wow, so I am leaving the guild because I don’t want to be dead weight” No big deal, right? But within moments of him logging off a level 1 toon messaged me “Hi, My name is (insert name), and (Insert officer who just left’s name) told me I should join your guild.”

Not thinking anything of it, I invite this player to the guild. Within 5 minutes later he starts talking about his “friend”, the officer who left, and asking what the guild thought of him. After being informed he is no longer with us, this guy asked if we knew why and then said that the officer told him it was because he didn’t feel like he was liked in the guild. This wasn’t true, if it was he wouldn’t be in the guild if you know me as a guild leader you would know.

If I don’t like someone I won’t let them stay in the guild but I am very easy to get along with & make friends quickly in the game. My guilds tend to be social/leveling guilds for fun. So we don’t have an application or interview process and will generally accept everyone who wants a guild invite. Well, he then kept on about it. This grew suspicious to me, I started feeling like something was off with him.

Investigations

My officers and I got together and agreed that something was really off. I asked him to add me to his battle tag, he said “But then you will think I am him. He’s my cousin and I am on his account.” But didn’t he say prior that they were friends? why didn’t he say they were cousins, to begin with? To try to delve further into the investigation I offer to give him my number so I can speak to both of them on speaker. Which anyone of my friends in wow knows, I have no problems giving out my phone number to those I meet and enjoy talking to.

We got another excuse “well, I am not at his house and I would have to drive 30 minutes there.” he could have just called him, and we ended up doing a 3-way conversation. By this time he knows we do not believe he is really his cousin, I got him to add me to btag, and ask him to have his cousin get online since they are both on 2 different wow accounts just under the same btag. He then says well we share the same account. now I already have enough, he was removed. Reason being? He lied…If he was only honest then it would have gone a lot different. I don’t appreciate anyone in my guild lying to me, especially about stuff like that.

The Point?

You need to set ground rules for your officers, hold them at a higher standard and make sure to use them as examples if they break a rule, like no lying, no stealing from the bank this tab is for this purpose only type deal. If something seems off, it usually is. Follow your gut instinct, including in a game like wow.

I recommend that if your going to have someone other than personal friends or family be an officer, make sure they understand rules and have a trial officer rank. This way they can prove themselves with a little lead way first. This doesn’t mean some won’t fall through the cracks, but it’s a start in the right direction. My trial officers have 6 months to prove themselves. Have you had any officer issues? How did you handle it? Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you.